Riley crouched at the trapdoor under the old pine, crossbow ready. Her hidden cellar had been clawed open. The rune-marked gauntlet she needed to tame the beast was gone. Tracks led to a scavenger camp deeper in the woods. A torn pack hung in the branches above the raided stash. Mud prints circled the stairs. Six glowing-eyed shapes moved through the trees ahead, dragging her stolen gear. She picked them off one by one. Quiet bolts. Clean shots. No freezing this time. The infected creatures dropped before they could close the distance. Riley stripped their camp. Better straps, sharper bolts, a thicker vest. At the bottom of a sack, the gauntlet pulsed blue against her palm. She slid it on. The runes warmed. Now, when the beast came, she could weaken it and bend it to her will.

The crows came in a black spiral, shrieking above the pines. Riley pressed flat against the moss, gauntlet humming blue at her wrist. Their cries would carry for miles. She heard a thin voice below the noise — a boy, calling from a pit of tangled roots. The beast would hear him too. Riley raised the runed gauntlet toward the circling flock. The stones flared. A pulse rolled out, and the infected crows dropped silent into the brush, wings folded mid-shriek. She slid down to the roots and cut the boy free with quick hands. He clung to her, shaking. The woods went quiet — too quiet. Somewhere past the ridge, something heavy lifted its head and started moving toward them.

Riley pressed her back to the wet curve of a huge, rain-worn boulder. The boy crouched beside her, breathing too loud. Branches snapped past the ridge. Whatever was coming, it was coming fast, and it was coming straight at them. She couldn't line up a shot with him glued to her side. She grabbed his pack and yanked it open. Inside, wrapped in moss and bark, was a leather pouch heavy with fresh game. Blood had soaked through the seams. "That's why it's tracking you," she whispered. His eyes went wide. "My father's," he said. "He told me to run." Riley dug through her own pack and pulled out a brass bell, heavy and bright. She tied the bloody pouch to its handle with quick fingers. Then she stood, swung once, and hurled the whole thing far across the clearing. It crashed through brush and rang loud against a tree trunk, chiming again and again. The beast turned. She heard its weight shift, heard the low cough of breath, then the hard rush of paws tearing away from them toward the noise. Riley raised her crossbow and waited. A shape blurred past a gap in the pines — four-legged, fast, bigger than she'd guessed. She fired. The bolt struck something solid. The beast screamed and crashed on through the trees, wounded, not dead. The boy sagged against the stone, shaking. "I'm Riley," she said, reloading. "Riley Hawkins." He swallowed. "Eli." She didn't smile. The beast was bleeding now, and angry, and it knew her scent. She pulled Eli to his feet. "We move. It's not finished, and now it wants me."