They set up camp about an hour after sunrise.
Smoke from the wreckage still clung to the treetops like it had nowhere else to go. The bodies had been cleared out—what was left of them anyway—and the wounded were stabilized, laid out in neat rows like it made a difference. The ones still on their feet had slipped into that post-battle autopilot: mechanical, silent, focused on survival. I knew the look. Wore it often enough.
Kade stood by a makeshift table, one hand braced on the corner of a steel panel, the other tracing a red line across a field map. It was spread over the crate I'd nearly tripped over when we arrived. Knives pinned the corners down. The whole thing was already covered in scribbles and Xs. Too many Xs.
"We lost six," Martinez said, voice flat.
"Two at the wreck. Four during the chase."
Kade didn't flinch. Just nodded once. But I saw it in his jaw—the weight of it.
He didn't ask for their names. Not yet. There'd be time for that later, when it didn't feel like saying them out loud would make them too real.
"We need to assume it's not gone," he said, voice clipped and military-sharp. "That thing—whatever it is—is watching. Waiting. We saw enough to know it's intelligent. Possibly tactical."
"You think it's nesting here?" someone asked. Another soldier. I didn't bother remembering his name.
"I think it's hunting," Kade replied. "And we just walked into its territory."
That settled over the group like a fog. No one said a word.
Then the radio on the table crackled.
"Command post to Alpha-Two. Repeat, this is Command to Alpha-Two. Respond."
Kade grabbed it without looking. "Alpha-Two, go."
"We've analyzed the feed from your perimeter cams. No confirmed visuals, but we picked up a large-scale movement anomaly in Quadrant Four-C. Repeat: significant movement pattern east of your current location."
His eyes narrowed, and I could practically feel his spine go straighter beside me. "Understood. Initiate fallback protocols. Section off the entire forest zone. Send a drone sweep and set up an electric barrier perimeter. I want guards stationed every forty feet until sunrise."
"Copy that. Fence activation in fifteen. Reinforcements en route."
Kade clicked the radio off and looked up. His voice dropped into that calm, commanding tone that used to make people listen without question.
"You heard them. I want this place sealed tighter than the facility back home. We don't sleep until we know where it is."
"Still no idea what it is?" Martinez asked.
Kade shook his head. "Not yet. No prints. No thermal. Nothing that matches anything on record."
I felt my stomach tighten. Not because I was scared—though I probably should've been—but because I already knew.
I knew what they didn't.
"And the crate?" one of them asked, gaze flicking toward me. "The one the girl was transporting?"
The girl. Like I wasn't standing three feet away.
Kade's jaw twitched. I recognized the look—he was angry, but too professional to let it show.
"We haven't confirmed a link," he said. "But we're not ruling it out."
He didn't say it outright. But he didn't need to. Everyone was thinking the same thing.
Whatever had been in that box with me—
It didn't stay asleep.
And now it was loose.