“To kill you,” Nox finished, looking directly at Elias.
Griff swore. Bishop’s breath left him in a slow exhale. Eamon’s eyes closed for half a second, then opened with a dangerous glint sparking from them.
Elias nodded once, as if confirming a theory rather than hearing a death sentence. “When?”
“Now,” Nox said.
Before I could ask what that meant, Eamon was moving. He crossed the room quickly, shoving a bundle of clothes into my hands. I looked down to see some dark trousers, a shirt, and a pair of worn boots.
In the presence of danger, my heat withered away into dust.
“Get dressed,” he said, already turning away. “Quickly.”
Griff stepped in closer, blocking my view of the door as if shielding me from what was coming. “We’ll hold the corridor.”
“No,” I said, already swinging my legs off the cot. “We move together.”
I dressed fast, hands steady despite the heated adrenaline flooding my veins. Eamon pressed my knife into my palm, the familiar weight grounding me instantly.
The first howl split the night from somewhere outside.
Every hair on my body rose.
Elias turned for the door. “Move.”
We spilled out of the med bay and into the corridor at a run. Another howl echoed, closer this time, followed by the answering chorus of more.
Then there were too many to count.
“East side, by the tree line,” Nox said, already moving ahead, voice calm despite the chaos.
We burst through the doors at the far end, and night rushed to meet us.
Cold air slapped my face as we spilled outside. The compound was lit by the bright moonlight overhead. Beyond that light, the forest’s edge crawled with movement.
There were eyes.
Dozens of them.
They glinted back at us from the trees, yellow and white and unblinking, scattered at different heights like stars gone wrong. Shapes moved between the trunks, their outlines jerking in a way that made my skin crawl.
Another howl rose into a scream that shredded into a snarl halfway through. A shape lunged forward, massive andmisshapen, fur patchy and bristling, limbs moving at angles that didn’t look quite right. The shape skidded into the edge of the moonlight and stopped.
For half a heartbeat it simply stood there, chest heaving, head low, sides shuddering like it couldn’t decide which instinct to obey. Moonlight caught on patchy fur and red eyes. Saliva dripped from its jaws, stringing to the ground in glistening threads that snapped when it lifted its head.
Its eyes were not empty.
That was the worst part.
They were wide and unfocused, but not mindless. There was pain in them. Confusion. A trapped, screaming awareness that made my skin crawl far worse than any mindless beast ever could.
Then it took a step forward.
Another howl answered from the trees, closer now, and then another. Shapes shifted between trunks, pacing just beyond the light like a tide pulling back before it rushed the shore.
Elias lifted a hand.
“Hold.”
