“He’s dead,” he says.
The words hit the clearing like a stone dropping into still water. Something inside me loosens and tightens at the same time. Relief. And something else I can’t name yet. But Archer isn’t done. His gaze shifts past me, toward the town, toward everything still standing.
“There’s something else,” he says.
That stops everything. Even the noise behind us seems to fade. He steps closer, voice lower now.
“The rogues weren’t the invasion,” he says. “They were the distraction.”
My stomach drops. Archer’s eyes stay locked on mine.
“Something else is moving into the region,” he continues. “And it’s not scattered. It’s organized. Damon said it was already on its way.”
Silence spreads through the gathered defenders. The kind that means the fight didn’t end.
It just changed shape. I swallow hard.
“Are they coming here?” I ask.
Archer doesn’t answer immediately. But the look in his eyes does.
“Yes,” he says.
Redwood Crossing suddenly feels very small.
I nod once, because anything more than that feels like it might crack something open in me I can’t afford right now.
Around us, the returning defenders are still filtering in—shifting between exhaustion and disbelief as they re-enterRedwood Crossing’s perimeter. Some are injured, some are shaking off adrenaline, and all of them are watching Archer like he’s the only thing holding the night together.
He isn’t. But he’s close.
Brooke moves toward me, then stops when she sees my face. I don’t need her to ask. She already understands that whatever just ended out there didn’t actually end at all.
Delilah comes in behind her, voice tight. “We’ve got thirteen unaccounted for from the outer perimeter patrols.”
Conrad answers before I can. “They’ll rejoin or they won’t. Right now, we consolidate what we have.”
It sounds harsh, but it’s practical. I cling to that. Archer shifts slightly beside me, his attention still angled toward the forest like it might open up again at any second. His shoulders are tense, not from the fight alone, but from whatever he brought back with him in his head.
I step closer to him, lowering my voice. “Damon told you this?”
“Yes,” he says. A pause. Then, quieter, “He didn’t know everything. But he knew enough.”
That matters more than I want it to. Because Damon was confident. Calculated. He didn’t die confused. He died warning us.
I look past Archer toward the treeline again. The forest feels different now. Not empty. Not safe. Just… waiting.
“What kind of group?” I ask.
Archer’s jaw tightens. “Not rogues. Not scattered packs. Something structured. Moving like a unit.”
The wordunitsettles heavily between us. That’s not survival behavior. That’s strategy.
Brooke exhales sharply behind me. “So we just defeated one problem and now there’s another one already in motion.”
“Looks like it,” Conrad says.
Archer finally looks at me directly. Really looks. Like he’s checking something he can’t afford to lose again.
