The quiet didn't last.
I felt it in my teeth first. That deep, low hum beneath the forest floor—like the bones of the earth were rattling just enough to notice. Just enough to make the animals go still. Just enough to make the night breathe wrong.
I turned before I heard it.
Before the alarm went off.
Before the wind shifted.
Because I knew.
It was back.
The monster.
"Movement!" someone shouted. "East sector—visual confirmed!"
Kade was already at the perimeter by the time I reached the clearing. His blade was drawn, his jaw locked.
I saw it then.
Not clearly—not the way you see a person or a creature. It was faster than my eyes could catch. A shadow threaded with sinew and bone. Smoke wearing skin. It darted between the trees, slipping through branches that should've slowed it, crouching low as it stalked the farthest edge of the camp.
Then it turned its head.
Just slightly.
Toward us.
And smiled.
Nyx snarled inside my skull. He remembers.
The alarms blared as the electric perimeter flickered to life—blue sparks jumping between the anchored posts. The air thickened with tension and static. Soldiers raised weapons, breath held. I could feel the fear starting to spread like rot.
And then it moved.
Not toward the tents. Not toward the men.
But toward the transport vehicles.
One of Kade's armored trucks.
A blur of limbs and shrieking metal.
It vaulted forward, slammed into the side of the vehicle like a cannonball, and tore into the hull.
Sparks flew. Metal screamed. A wheel spun free and clattered into the firepit.
The truck groaned, then crumpled.
"Fire!" someone yelled.
Bullets lit the night.
I watched the thing twist unnaturally mid-air, ducking fire like it heard the rounds coming before they were pulled. One bullet hit—only one—and it barely staggered.
It hissed.
Then turned.
And leapt back into the trees.
Gone.
Silence followed, broken only by the crackling wreck and the hiss of hydraulics bleeding out from the vehicle.
One truck.
Gone in seconds.
And still, no one could say what it was.
Just that it wasn't finished.
Kade cursed under his breath and lowered his blade. "That's not an animal," he said. "That's not a hybrid."
"No," I whispered, pulse still slamming against my throat. "It's something worse."
He looked at me, and for once—he didn't argue.
He just said, "Tomorrow, we move."