Klaus’s POV
My ears rang, a constant high-pitched whine that made it hard to separate shouts from gunfire, growls from screams.
The clearing we had stumbled into was unrecognizable now. It had been nothing but a quiet patch of open ground in the Riverdale forest—a strip of dirt and moss that might have once been used for logging. Now it was a battlefield. Our battlefield. Blood stained the roots, black smoke curled into the sky, and the metallic stench of spilled entrails clung to the dawn air.
Through the haze I spotted them: two hunters breaking away from the fray, eyes fixed on Lynx. He carried Maja across his shoulders, her frail body limp and pale against his back, chains of silver still dangling from her wrists. Even weakened as he was, he didn’t hesitate—he moved fast, desperate
