Chapter 5: The Echo of a Growl

The cougar’s blood had barely dried before the forest around the station turned restless.

Lena hadn’t slept. She kept her hands busy — gutting, skinning, salting. Anything to avoid looking too long at Cain, who sat hunched near the hearth, his face buried in his hands.

Each time she stole a glance at him, her mind played that moment again in an endless loop: his hands clamped around the cougar’s throat, the silent snap of bone, his eyes wild with something beyond fear — or humanity.

At dawn, the wind shifted. A faint scent of ash and old metal slipped in through the window slats. Lena froze, nostrils flaring.

She recognized that smell.

Jeb.

The old bastard must have started one of his smoke traps — his favorite trick to ward off crawlers. He was close. Too close.

Her heart kicked. She hadn’t spoken to Jeb in months. After Haven, she’d severed every tie, burned every bridge. But Jeb had always been different — a relic of the old guard who believed in barter and whispers instead of bullets.

She dropped the bloodied knife and moved toward the door, pushing it open just enough to catch the pale dawn light.

In the misty tree line, three dark figures slipped between the trunks. Dogs moved at their feet, noses sweeping the ground, hackles stiff.

Lena’s gut twisted. Haven patrols.

Jeb was probably the reason they were this close; they would’ve smelled his fires, picked up her scent trail mixed in.

She turned back to Cain, who hadn’t moved. His head still hung low, as though gravity itself was punishing him.

“Cain,” she snapped, sharp as a rifle crack.

He flinched but didn’t raise his eyes.

She stalked across the room and grabbed his chin, forcing his gaze up. “Listen to me. You see them?” She jerked her head toward the trees. “They don’t knock. They don’t negotiate. They erase.”

His lips trembled.

Lena’s hands shook, but she didn’t let go. “I need you focused. You stay here, you keep quiet, and if something goes wrong — you run. Straight north. Find a tall cedar with three carved rings at its base. That’s Jeb’s marker. You remember?”

Cain’s brow furrowed, eyes vacant. “I don’t… who is Jeb?”

She released him abruptly, stepping back as if burned. “Never mind,” she muttered. “Just stay alive.”

Outside, a dog started barking — short, frantic bursts that set Lena’s nerves on fire.

She dashed to the gun locker, wrenching it open. The heavy rifle stared back at her. A comfort. A curse.

She grabbed her revolver instead. Lighter, quieter. She pressed it to her thigh, each breath slicing her lungs.

Cain moved behind her, a silent shadow. He stopped in the middle of the room, trembling, his fingers twitching at his sides.

The barking intensified. Boots crunched closer, metal clinking — the unmistakable rhythm of tactical advances drilled into her bones since Haven days.

She pivoted to Cain again. His posture had shifted. Back straight, chest rising in deeper, slower pulls. His jaw trembled.

A low vibration reached her before her ears could process it.

“Cain—”

The sound surged. It started as a murmur in his chest, but grew, rolling out like a thunderhead. His lips curled back, teeth too sharp to be human gleamed in the pale light.

Outside, the dogs howled and recoiled, bodies crashing into their handlers. One soldier cursed and tried to grab his leash, only to get dragged into the mud.

The growl morphed into something primal, echoing against the station walls, vibrating the floor under Lena’s boots. Her ears popped from the force.

She should have been terrified. Instead, she felt the impossible edge of something raw and protective slicing through her panic.

Outside, a soldier fell backward, scrambling in the mud. Another fired a warning shot into the air, but the dogs bolted into the trees, yelping like struck pups.

Then the forest fell silent, as if the world itself held its breath.

Cain’s head snapped back, a ragged gasp tearing from his throat. His eyes flared — silver, bright and impossible — before he dropped like a puppet with cut strings.

Lena lunged, catching him just before he cracked his skull on the floorboards. His weight hit her like a sack of wet gravel.

“Dammit,” she hissed, easing him down. His skin burned under her fingers, feverish and electric.

He shivered violently, his mouth working soundlessly.

Outside, the soldiers barked into their radios, retreating fast. She heard one scream, “Get them out! Now! Fall back!”

She forced her gaze back to Cain. His lashes fluttered open, unfocused. His voice, when it came, was smaller than she’d ever heard it.

“Sorry.”

The single word slipped out, strangled and guilt-ridden.

She pulled back, chest heaving. She rose, moving on autopilot to the gun locker. She grabbed the heavy rifle — the one she swore she’d never use unless the world itself ended — and locked it into the upper shelf, her personal final line of defense.

Then she took her hunting knife and slid it under her pillow. Insurance. Or perhaps an admission of the truth she refused to say aloud.

She turned to Cain one last time before leaving him in the gloom. His shoulders quaked, head bowed so low she couldn’t see his face.

Her voice came out low and cold. “We’ll talk later.”

She left him on the floor, closed the door to her small sleeping nook, and stood with her back pressed to it, listening to the echo of her own breath.

In the silence, her mind clawed at old names. Jeb’s voice, gruff and warm, rose in her head: If you ever get cornered, girl, find me. I keep my fires burning for a reason.

Lena pressed her palms to her temples.

Tomorrow, she would have to face Jeb. There were no more lines left to cross, no more illusions to hide behind. Cain wasn’t just a stranger with holes in his memory — he was something else. Something dangerous.

And whether she liked it or not, he was hers to keep alive now.