Chapter 6
1202 Words
The med wing was finally quiet.
Arya peeled off her gloves and scrubbed her hands at the sanitation sink until her fingers ached. The last of the triage cases had been sedated. No new emergencies. Just the silence that followed adrenaline, the kind that buzzed behind your eyes and made you feel like the world was holding its breath.
She passed two med techs whispering near the supply cabinet.
“Still no pingback from the north patrol?”
“Nothing. Rion’s pushing dispatch to double up backup teams.”
“They found blood. Lots of it. And no bodies.”
Arya didn’t slow, but her chest tensed.
She’d heard rumors like this before. Only lately, they weren’t rumors anymore.
In her quarters, she stripped out of her hoodie and sat on the edge of her cot. The room was barely lit—just the green-blue glow from the security panel by the door. Her legs ached. Her shoulder throbbed. Her skin still smelled like disinfectant and blood.
She looked up at the ceiling and found the c***k again—splitting the concrete like a scar.
It was deeper now.
Everything was.
There had been three rogue encounters in the past week. One at the border. One near the western drop. Now a silent patrol. It wasn’t random. It was building. And no one was saying it out loud, but she could feel it rising in every sidelong glance, every clipped council exchange.
She didn’t even have time to close her eyes before the knock came.
Two sharp raps.
She opened the door to find Meira already geared and silent. Tactical black. Blades sheathed. Eyes like steel.
“Suit up,” Meira said. “Now.”
“What happened?”
“North patrol’s dark. No word in ten hours. Rion’s sending us.”
Arya didn’t ask who else was going.
She already knew.
They left just before full dark.
Blake, Meira, Theo, Arya. Four enforcers in a staggered line through the frozen woods. The ridge trail was silent, dusted with fresh snow and blanketed by a sharp wind that cut through layers.
The trees pressed close here. Black pine and bramble. No moon. Just frost catching on bark and boots crunching in rhythm.
Arya ran point. Meira at her side. Blake and Theo flanking wide.
The scent trail was there—rogue musk and something else. Something sour. Old blood.
Arya slowed at the crest of a low ridge, crouched, and held up a fist. The team stopped without a word.
“Blood,” she said, quiet and clipped.
They moved forward. Meira knelt to inspect a slick patch on a tree trunk.
“Still fresh,” she said. “Two hours at most.”
Arya’s gaze swept the forest.
“Movement east,” Theo said, squinting ahead. “Something broke cover.”
Arya nodded. “We go loud. Fan out. Keep sight lines.”
Blake grinned. “Finally.”
The fight came in fast.
The rogues were already shifting—limbs cracking, jaws unhinging as fur split through skin. They weren’t graceful. They weren’t even coordinated. Just savage. Half-feral.
The first hit Blake head-on.
He met it with a snarl and a brutal elbow to the throat. Bone cracked. His blade followed, fast and deep. The rogue didn’t even scream.
Two more came from the right. Theo darted forward with a knife in each hand, ducked one, carved through the hamstring, and finished it with a clean slice to the neck.
Meira’s kill was quieter. Cleaner. She dropped low beneath the third’s charge and stabbed up through the ribs, twisting until it stopped moving.
Arya didn’t slow.
The last rogue met her in a rush of blood and teeth. It tried to bite her shoulder, but she moved under it—quick and surgical—and raked her blade across its back. As it stumbled, she stepped behind, grabbed its jaw, and snapped its neck with a sharp jerk.
She dropped it. Breathing steady.
Then she saw it—one more rogue.
Running.
“Stray!” she shouted. “I’m on it.”
No one answered.
They were already chasing shadows of their own.
Arya followed.
The rogue ran hard through the underbrush, crashing through dead limbs and frost-slick bramble.
Arya ran harder.
Her breath fogged in tight puffs. Her boots found roots and stone with precision. Her heart beat steady. She didn’t fear this kind of pursuit. She thrived on it.
But the rogue was bleeding badly. Slower by the second.
It veered left, stumbled through a ditch, then collapsed under a half-fallen pine.
Arya stopped ten feet away, blades raised, breath sharp.
The rogue didn’t move.
She approached carefully.
He was older. Not feral. His face was gaunt. His body half-shifted—trapped between forms. His chest heaved, barely.
And then she saw the wound.
Not ripped. Not bitten.
Cut.
From collarbone to gut, clean as surgery. No ragged edges. No claw marks.
Her blood ran cold.
She crouched. “You’re dying,” she said quietly.
He gave a rasping breath. “Already dead.”
“What did this?”
He looked at her through half-lidded eyes, unfocused.
“Didn’t smell like wolf,” he whispered.
Her brows drew together. “Then what?”
He tried to speak, coughed instead.
Arya leaned closer. “What did this to you?”
He grinned faintly. “Didn’t move like you. Didn’t shift. Just... steel.”
Arya stiffened.
“A human?”
“No,” he rasped. “No scent at all. Moved like... shadow. Hit like nothing I’ve seen.”
Arya’s pulse ticked faster.
He grabbed her wrist suddenly, eyes wide. “Didn’t want us. They were looking past. Watching.”
“Who?”
He blinked. Blood foamed at the corners of his mouth.
“Coming for you, not us.”
Then he exhaled. Once. And didn’t inhale again.
Arya stared at him.
Longer than she should have.
The trees rustled behind her. But no threats came.
Her blades stayed drawn.
Not because she feared the rogues—
But because she suddenly wasn’t sure who else might be watching.
The others found her twelve minutes later.
She stood at the edge of the clearing, arms crossed, eyes blank. Her boots were half-buried in frost.
“Catch the stray?” Meira asked.
Arya nodded. “Dead. Already bleeding when I got there.”
Blake scoffed. “Too bad.”
Theo wiped a smear of blood from his cheek. “We good?”
Arya looked back once at the tree where the rogue had died. Her voice was steady.
“Clean.”
They didn’t ask anything else.
The hike back was slower.
Blake talked too much. Theo hummed a half-tune. Meira kept checking their perimeter like she expected an ambush.
Arya said nothing.
Her mind spun through every detail.
The cut. The speed. The lack of scent.
They’re coming for you.
Who were they?
Not rogues. Not packs. Something else.
And worse—if Rion knew, would he tell her?
She doubted it.
So instead, she walked.
And behind her eyes, something cracked.
A splinter.
A question.
And for the first time in a long time—
She wasn’t sure she wanted the answer.
- Writer
