It was smaller than she'd expected, a jagged teardrop of volcanic rock and jungle rising from the Pacific, ringed by black cliffs and white surf. The canopy was unbroken, dense green revealing nothing of what lay beneath, just the relentless press of growth, ancient and untouched.
Somewhere down there, he was waiting.
The aircraft touched down on a narrow strip of cleared ground near the southern shore. Base camp was already established, a small shelter of the same organic material as the ship, blending into the foliage like it had grown there. Supplies stacked neatly inside. Her veth'kai charged and ready. Water, rations, medical kit. Everything she needed to survive.
Morgan stood at the aircraft's door as Serafina gathered her gear.
"Seven days," Morgan said. "You know the rules. You know what's expected. After that, whatever happens is your choice."
Serafina shouldered her pack. The bio-armor hummed against her skin, alive and alert.
"Any last advice?"
Morgan's mouth curved, not quite a smile, but close. "Trust your training. Trust yourself."
Then she stepped back, the door sealed, and the aircraft lifted off into the grey sky. Serafina watched it disappear over the ridge, the sound of its engines fading until there was nothing left but the jungle and the distant crash of waves.
She was alone in a way that meant something: one woman, one island, one predator waiting in the green.
No. Not waiting for her to find him. Waiting for her to hunt him.
She checked her weapon, adjusted her pack, and turned toward the jungle.
Dawn was breaking. The Hunt had begun.
The jungle swallowed her within minutes.
The canopy closed overhead, blocking out the sky, turning the world into layered shadow and filtered green light. The air was thick, wet, heavy with the smell of rot and bloom. Every breath felt like drinking. Sweat beaded on her skin beneath the armor, and the bio-suit responded, cooling her, regulating her temperature, keeping her functional.
She moved slowly at first, methodically, letting her instincts guide her. Fourteen years of crime scenes had taught her how to read a space, how to see what others missed, how to notice the details that didn't belong. This was the same, just scaled up. Instead of blood spatter and footprints on carpet, she was looking for broken branches, displaced earth, the subtle signs of a large body passing through.
She found them within the first hour.
A branch snapped at shoulder height, too high for any animal she'd seen in the briefings. Moss scraped from a rock in a pattern that suggested weight, not weather. A footprint in soft earth near a stream, partially obscured by fallen leaves but unmistakable once she knew what to look for.
The print was large and clawed, and recent enough that water hadn't yet pooled in the depression.
He was already here. Had been here before she landed, probably. Learning the terrain. Preparing.
Her pulse kicked up, a spike of adrenaline that sharpened her vision and tightened her grip on the veth'kai. He had been right here, standing where she stood now. Close enough to touch, if time could be folded back on itself. The thought sent a thrill through her that wasn't quite fear.
She scanned the canopy, the ridgeline, the shadows between the trees. The jungle was still, every shadow holding its breath.
But she felt it. That prickle at the back of her neck, the awareness of being observed that she'd learned to trust in alleys and interrogation rooms and a hundred dark places where predators lurked.
She wasn't afraid.
She was awake.
More awake than she'd been in years, maybe ever. Every sense sharpened, every nerve alive. The jungle pressed in on all sides, and instead of feeling trapped, she felt focused. Clarified. All the noise of her life, the bills, the job, the system that had failed her and everyone she loved, it all fell away, and there was only this.
The hunt. The hunted. The space between.
She kept moving.
By midday, she'd covered three kilometers and found a natural chokepoint, a narrow ravine where the terrain funneled between two ridges. Good sightlines. Limited approach vectors. If he came this way, she'd see him.
She set up position in the rocks above the ravine, weapon ready, and waited.
