Then another.
I don’t think. Imove.
I launch from the shadows, every ounce of me bent toward silence. No roar. No clash. Just precision.
I slam into it from the side, jaws locking around its primary leg joint. The thing shrieks—high and metallic—but only for a second before I twist and crack bone through chitin. Its bodythrashes. It’s bigger than I expected. Older. But slow. I hook my claws beneath its underbelly, find the seam near its heart-sac, andpush.
The light in its eyes flickers out.
I drag the carcass into the dark, blood and ichor pooling behind me, slick and steaming. I pull it all the way to the ravine, where the ground swallows sound. There, I eat.
Not fast. Not greedy. Methodical.
I peel back the shell, break through the muscle, bite deep into the core tissue where the nutrients are strongest. I need strength. My body demands it. The hunt burns through my veins like fire.
But the taste is ash.
My mind is elsewhere. On the girl. On the name she wrote. On the sound of her sobbing when she thought she was alone.
I chew slowly, letting the warmth settle into me. It doesn’t help. Not really.
The more I feed, the more I feelemptied.
When did this happen?
When did she become more than a curiosity? When did her pain start feeling like a wound I couldn’t heal? Why does the memory of her scent cling to the back of my throat like smoke?
I crouch in the shadow of the dead sting tail, its form already cooling. My claws drip with its blood, but it’s her voice I hear. Not words. Just theshapeof her. The way she sits. The way she weeps.
I close my eyes.
The thought slithers in before I can stop it.
What would she say if I spoke to her?
The question hits me harder than any blow. It’s absurd. Dangerous. She’s human. She’sthem. And yet…
I imagine it.
Her turning slowly. Not with fear, but withknowing.
Me, emerging from the dark—not a predator, not a phantom. Justme.
My voice, harsh and broken from disuse. The words foreign on my tongue.
“Jillian.”
Would she run?
Would she scream?
Would shestay?
I shudder.
The idea terrifies me more than any sting tail ever has.
Because if she speaks back—if she sees me, trulyseesme—I don’t know what I’ll become.
