I glance to the cliffs.
I don't say anything out loud.
But if he’s listening—if he’sstilllistening—I hope he knows.
I believe him now.
And he’s the only one I trust.
CHAPTER 10
MAUG
Ishould have run.
The moment the boy’s screams tore through the cave mouths—raw and wrong and very, very human—I should’ve vanished. Taken to the peaks and buried myself in wind and solitude until the ground forgot my shape. Until the humans forgot my name.
But I don’t.
I don’t run.
Something in me resists. Some old, bitter root winds tight around my bones and anchors me here, just close enough to the humans to feel their lights prick against my skin like thorns.
I crouch on a stone ledge overlooking their camp, and I watch. I breathe. I remember.
The boy’s scent still clings to me. Not blood. Not fear.Blame.That’s the smell of it now—heavy and cloying, thick as smoke. It wraps around me even though I wasn’t the one who tore his limbs from their sockets or left his belly open to the sun. But that doesn’t matter to them. He’s dead. And I’m still breathing. That’s all the evidence they need.
So I don’t run.
I circle.
There’s a rhythm to it now. Patrol lines etched like scars into the sand, timing loops programmed into the drones. I watch the marines as they pass, their footsteps brutal and too loud. They don’t walk like they belong here. They stomp, they curse, theychallengethe land.
Tonight, they’ve doubled the perimeter. Each man wears ordnance I’ve only seen used on the deep-worms during the last great culling. High-yield pulse launchers, body-mass reactive armor, ammo belts so thick they drag at the hips. One of them drags a turret sled. It leaves a groove in the dirt as deep as a wound.
Their drones are worse.
Small, silent, and fast—like flies with teeth. They hum through the dark, sensors twitching, red optics scanning for heat signatures. They leave ribbons of ozone in the air, trails I can smell long after they’ve passed. One buzzes too close to where I crouch, and I press back into the rock until I feel the mineral scrape my ribs. My claws twitch.
It veers off. Doesn’t see me.
Not yet.
I slink forward once it’s gone, always just outside the reach of their lights, tracing the edge of their desperation. The humans are unraveling, but they’re trying to pretend it’s control. Grady snaps orders with teeth bared, Ciampa wears a calm mask stretched too tight over panic, and the rest of them move like ghosts—silent, stricken, slow.
And still… she remains.
Jillian.
I don’t know why I watch her. I don’t knowwhenit started, or what I think I’ll learn from the tilt of her shoulders or the rhythm of her steps. But she burns in my thoughts like coals, and no amount of wind seems able to smother it.
She’s quiet now.
The camp sleeps in uneasy fits, but she’s awake. Alone. I know her scent even before I hear her.
Salt. Metal.Grief.
I move closer, dragging my body low beneath a shale overhang. My skin itches with every heartbeat. The risk claws at me. But I go anyway.
