James's phone buzzed again. This time, it was a message from a number he didn't recognize. It contained no text, only a set of geographical coordinates and a single, haunting image: a low-resolution, dark photo of a military-grade, portable kennel unit, the kind used for working dogs. But through the wire mesh, two small, phosphorescent eyes reflected the flash. Below them, a sleek, grey, serpentine body was coiled, and pressed against the bars was a distinct, five-fingered clawed limb.
It was Specimen J-3.
The coordinates were not for the base, nor the caves. They were for an isolated, decommissioned firewatch tower in the state forest, twenty miles from the crash site of Alistair Vance's plane.
The message vanished from his screen five seconds after he opened it, the app deleting itself.
Someone inside the machine was terrified. Someone was pointing them to the next piece.
James looked at his forced-partner allies—the scientist in her lab coat, the anthropologist with her maps. The war had just expanded from the biological to the geopolitical, from river lore to corporate boardrooms and planned "accidents."
"They're killing anyone who touches this," he said, his voice low. "But they're also moving the asset. That photo is recent. We have a location. It's a trap, or it's a gift. Either way, it's our only move."
He grabbed his jacket. "We go. Now. Before the next 'pilot error' or 'animal attack' removes another thread." The three of them moved as one unit now, the lab, the map room, and the world of ancient scent converging on a single, dangerous point in the wilderness. The hunt for a monster had become a race to stop the monsters who had leashed it.
The cafeteria was a cathedral of muted sound and steam-table smells—overcooked vegetables, stteamed meat, and strong, bitter coffee. Captain Genevieve Sterling pushed a steamed meat around her plate with her fork, her appetite gone, replaced by a cold, hard knot of frustration. Her conversation with Holt played on a loop in her mind. Myths. Nonsense. She sat by the window, not for the view of the rain-slicked parade square, but because it felt less like she was hiding.
Her gaze was unfocused, scanning the comings and goings at the main gate in the middle distance—a delivery lorry being processed, two MPs walking a patrol. Routine. The great machine grinding on, swallowing the truth about her friend.
Then, a new vehicle approached the gate. Not a lorry. Not a military Land Rover.
A silver-grey Toyota Camry. Bland as a rental. Civilian plates.
Something about its very ordinariness made her watch. It didn't hesitate at the gate. It rolled to a smooth stop. The driver's window lowered. From her vantage point, she couldn't see the driver's face, but she saw the posture: relaxed, patient, one arm resting on the sill. An MP leaned down, then straightened up quickly, his body language shifting from bureaucratic boredom to alert recognition. He took the proffered ID wallet, scrutinized it, and handed it back with a nod that was almost respectful. The barrier arm lifted without further delay.
The Camry didn't speed in. It rolled onto the base with an unsettling, confident leisure, as if the driver had a map of the place downloaded behind his eyes. It turned onto the service road that circled the square, heading towards the admin block.
As it passed closer to the cafeteria windows, Genevieve got a clearer look. Two men inside. The passenger was younger, with dark hair and a neat beard, looking straight ahead, taking in the base's layout with a calm, scanning gaze. The driver was older, his profile stern, hands at ten and two on the wheel in a way that spoke of controlled patience, not nervousness.
These weren't bureaucrats. They didn't have the rumpled, harried look of civil service auditors. They had the contained, watchful energy of predators in plain clothes. They were detectives. And they were here because of Hales. Because of what he'd seen.
But before the gate's barrier arm could fully lower again, a second vehicle nosed forward, its bulk dwarfing the departing Camry.
A Toyota Land Cruiser V8. Not new, but formidable. It was painted a deep, forest green that looked almost black in the rain. It had a purposeful stance, with a discreet bull bar and all-terrain tires. Unlike the Camry's anonymity, this vehicle spoke of capability and remote access. Its windows were tinted, but the driver was clearly visible as she handed over credentials—a woman with dark hair tied in a severe, efficient knot, her profile sharp and unsmiling.
The MP's reaction was different this time. There was less recognition, more puzzled scrutiny. He took longer with the ID, even consulting a clipboard list. After a brief conversation on his radio, he nodded, looking slightly uneasy, and waved the large 4x4 through.
The green Land Cruiser followed the Camry's path exactly, but it moved differently. Where the Camry had been a ghost, the Land Cruiser was a shadow—solid, persistent, and impossible to ignore. It exuded a quiet, medical authority that was somehow more intimidating than the detectives' latent threat. As it passed the cafeteria, Genevieve caught a glimpse of a decal on the driver's door: a simple, elegant emblem of a silver mountain ridge over a line—the Silverline Pack sigil. Beneath it, in small, professional lettering: "M.D., Forensic & Field Medicine."
A new, colder wave of understanding washed over Genevieve. This wasn't just a police investigation anymore. The packs were formally involved. That woman, Dr. Sofia Martinez if the hastily glimpsed ID was correct, wasn't just a doctor. She was a specialist. A liaison. She was here to read the story written in the wounds, from a perspective no human pathologist could fully grasp.
The murmurs at the nearby tables intensified.
"Who's that, then?" a Lieutenant muttered to his companion, his eyes on the Land Cruiser.
"CID, has to be," his friend replied, nodding at the distant Camry. "Look at the car. Nothing shouts 'copper' like a bloody Camry. Subtle as a brick."
"But the big green one... that's not police. That's something else. Contractor?"
"Looks like a bloody safari wagon. Doctor, maybe? Logo on the door."
"Doctor?" the first Lieutenant snorted softly, but his eyes were wary. "Since when do they send GPs in armored trucks? That's a pack vehicle. I've seen that mountain symbol before, on the permits for the northern range. This just went from a mess to a diplomatic incident."
Genevieve listened, her food forgotten. The detectives were one thing—a predictable escalation. But the arrival of a Silverline Pack medical officer was a statement. It meant the body, the method, the evidence—it all had layers only another supernatural being could unravel. Holt's attempt to contain this as a "training accident" was crumbling in real time before her eyes.
The two vehicles—the unremarkable silver Camry and the formidable green Land Cruiser—disappeared behind the admin block, one after the other, a convoy of converging truths.
The knot in Genevieve's stomach tightened, but now it was laced with a fragile, desperate thread of hope. The wall had more than cracks; it had two different kinds of battering ram parked outside. Find it, she thought, directing the words at the unknown detectives and the pack doctor alike. Find what killed Hales. And for God's sake, do it before they ship me out to that silent, empty Station 13 and bury his truth with my career.
The atmosphere in the Camp Whitemoor cafeteria had shifted. The earlier murmur over the unmarked cars had settled into a low, watchful hum, a current of unease running beneath the clatter of trays and cutlery. It was into this charged space that the trio entered: Detective James Wilson, Anthropologist Sloane Hayes, and Dr. Eleanor Thompson.
Their arrival silenced conversations mid-sentence. James, with his detective's sharp-eyed gaze, Sloane with her academic intensity, and Eleanor with her detached, clinical poise formed a unit of formidable outsiders. As they moved toward the serving line, a path cleared without a word being spoken. Soldiers in olive drab stepped aside, their eyes averted, creating a temporary aisle. It wasn't respect; it was the instinctive retreat of a closed herd from unfamiliar predators. The trio collected their meals—steamed rice, a ladle of stewed meat in gravy, stir-fried cabbage, a simple salad, and two apples—and took a table by the window, the rain-streaked pane their backdrop.
They had just begun to pick at their food when the cafeteria doors swung open again.
Ben, their team's digital forensics analyst, walked in with a new contingent. Flanking him were the two detectives from the silver Camry: Detective Sergeant Finlay , with his weathered, observant calm, and Detective Constable Rohan Singh, impeccably turned out and scanning the room. Between them was a woman who commanded attention. She was dressed in practical, dark trousers and a fitted sweater, her dark hair in a sleek knot. She moved with the quiet assurance of someone used to entering high-stakes environments.
The soldiers' parting for this group was less pronounced but still present. A different kind of authority was on display—legal, investigative, and something else. They collected their meals and, without hesitation, made their way directly to the trio's table. The message was clear: there were now two camps in the cafeteria—the military, and theirs.
"Mind if we join the island of misfit toys?" Ben asked, a wry smile touching his lips as he slid his tray onto the table. The others followed suit.
"The more the merrier in this garden party," James replied, his eyes already assessing the newcomers, lingering on the unknown woman.
"She's Sofia Martinez," Ben said, gesturing with his fork. "New doctor on set. Here for… safety protocols." His tone suggested the safety in question was for the investigation, not the base personnel.
The woman, Sofia Martinez, offered a small, professional smile that didn't quite reach her eyes, which were a striking, intelligent hazel. "A bit more specific than that," she said, her voice low and clear. "I'm with the private medical investigations team attached to the Silverline Pack liaison office. I'm a forensic medical examiner."
The weight of the title, and the pack name, landed at the table like a stone. Eleanor looked up from her cabbage, a spark of pure professional interest cutting through her cool demeanor. A peer. From a rival pack.
"Dr. Thompson," Eleanor said, giving a curt, acknowledging nod.
"Dr. Thompson," Sofia returned, the acknowledgment mutual. "I've read your paper on subluxation patterning in non-human blunt force trauma. It was insightful."
"Your work on metabolized toxin variants in shifter physiology wasn't exactly light reading either," Eleanor countered, and for a second, it was just two scientists in a bubble.
While they spoke, from across the hall, a soldier sitting with his squad froze, his spoon halfway to his mouth. His gaze was locked on Sofia Martinez. He was older, a sergeant, his face lined with years of service and something darker—recent stress. His eyes narrowed, tracing the line of her jaw, the way she held herself. Memory flickered, then clicked into place with a force that made his blood run cold.
The briefing room. The aviation executive's plane crash. The sleek, unsmiling woman from the private contractor's team, standing in the corner, taking notes no one was allowed to see. The cousin of Detective James Wilson.
He saw it now—the family resemblance in the stubborn set of the chin, the same keen assessment in the eyes. She wasn't just a pack doctor. She was the Silverline Pack's lead medical examiner on the crash they'd called an accident. The crash that had killed a man who'd been asking too many questions about pack business. And now she was here, sitting with the very detective investigating the murder, chatting with his pathologist as if they were at a conference.
The sergeant slowly put his spoon down, his appetite gone. He watched as Sofia laughed softly at something the younger detective, Singh, said. It was a pleasant sound that, to him, carried the chill of a grave being dug deeper. He knew then, with icy certainty, that the walls Commander Holt had built around this incident weren't just being tested. They were being dismantled from the inside by people who spoke a different, older language of evidence and loyalty. And one of them was family.
The charged silence of the cafeteria became a cage. Sloane Hayes set her fork down with a quiet click. The soldiers' stares, the undercurrent of fear—it was all data, but not the kind she needed now.
"I need air," she murmured to James and Eleanor, not waiting for a reply.
She slipped from the table, the weight of their collective gaze following her to the doors. Stepping into the empty, fluorescent-lit hallway was like entering a different world—cold, quiet, and humming with the base's latent energy. Her path was clear. The story wasn't here with the living. It was waiting in the sterile silence of Corporal David Hale's room.
Anthropologist Sloane Hayes stood just inside the doorway of Barracks 4, Room 12, her keen eyes performing a slow, systematic sweep.
The room was a study in sterile, military austerity, now frozen in time. A neatly made bunk, corners taut. A single locker, dented at the base. A small, government-issue desk with a empty inbox. It had been cleared, but not by the deceased. Sloane knew the signs of a sanitized site—a place scoured not out of respect, but out of protocol, to remove the narrative of the individual and replace it with the institution's approved story.
She had decided to come here herself. James Wilson and his detectives were navigating the official channels, a dance of warrants and permissions that Commander Holt was masterfully slow-walking. Eleanor Thompson had the body and the soil. But Sloane, whose expertise was in the stories cultures told through their objects and rituals, needed the victim's personal material culture. His belongings were a text. And she was an excellent reader.
She pulled on a pair of nitrile gloves with a quiet snap. The air smelled of pine-scented disinfectant and underlying damp.
Her focus went first to the desk. No personal computer—that would have been secured by the IT unit. The drawer contained only a stack of blank forms, a dry pen, and a worn copy of standard operating procedures. Too clean.
The locker yielded more. Neatly folded civilian clothes: a pair of jeans, two plaid shirts, socks. Generic, chain-store brands. But at the bottom, tucked behind a polished pair of boots, was a small, zip-up portfolio. Inside were not military documents, but printouts. Satellite images of forest topography, circled in red marker. Photocopied pages from old, local history books—chapter headings like "Pre-Celtic Mounds & Folklore" and "The Legend of the Forest Wyrms." A tourist pamphlet for the Whispering Caves, fifty miles north, with handwritten notes in the margin: 'limestone strata ≠ local geology. anomaly?'
Sloane's pulse quickened. Corporal David Hale hadn't just been a soldier. He'd been an investigator. An amateur folklorist following a trail. Her kind of trail.
But the most critical modern artifact, the nexus of any personal investigation, was missing.
There was no phone. No charger. No tablet.
Soldiers lived on their phones. Even in a secure base, it would be here—in a drawer, on a bedside shelf, tucked under a pillow. Its absence was louder than any alarm.
"Looking for something, Dr. Hayes?"
The voice from the doorway was like gravel rolling in a bucket. Commander Declan Holt filled the frame, his posture rigid, his hands clasped behind his back. He hadn't made a sound. He'd been waiting.
Sloane didn't startle. She turned slowly, closing the portfolio and holding it loosely at her side. "Context, Commander. An anthropologist requires context. A man is more than his service number and his wounds."
"He is a fallen soldier under my command. His personal effects are a matter of internal security and next-of-kin notification. Not academic curiosity." Holt's flinty eyes scanned the room, landing on the portfolio in her hand. "And that is base property."
"It was in his locker," Sloane said, her voice cool and even. "It contains research pertaining to local geography and folklore. It seems Corporal Hale had interests beyond his duties. Interests that might provide context for his state of mind, or his movements."
"A soldier's hobbies are not relevant to a security investigation," Holt stated, stepping into the room. The space seemed to shrink. He held out his hand. "I'll take that."
Sloane didn't move. "Where's his mobile phone, Commander?"
The question hung in the disinfectant-scented air. Holt's expression didn't flicker. "Secure evidence locker. It's being examined by our cyber unit for any breaches of operational security."
"That's a job for Detective Singh," Sloane countered. "It's material evidence in a homicide. It should be with the rest of the forensic chain."
"This is a military installation, Doctor. Not a downtown precinct. Our protocols take precedence." His outstretched hand didn't waver. "The portfolio."
Sloane knew she was outranked, out-muscled, and on the wrong side of his jurisdiction. But she also knew she'd just found the pressure point. She handed over the portfolio, her mind racing.
"The cyber unit," she said, as if making casual conversation. "Would that be the same unit that logs extraction times? That creates a digital fingerprint for every time a piece of evidence is accessed? So we can see, for instance, if the phone was data-dumped before the official investigation even began?"
Holt's eyes narrowed, just a fraction. It was all the confirmation she needed.
He hadn't just taken the phone. He'd taken it immediately. He'd gotten to it before the body was even cold, before James Wilson was even called. Whatever digital trail Hale had been following—texts, location data, photos, search history—Holt had seen it. And he had sequestered it.
"Your speculation is noted, and irrelevant," Holt said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous register. "The investigation into Corporal Hale's tragic accident is proceeding. You are here as a consultant on cultural sensitivities, Dr. Hayes. Not as a detective. I suggest you stick to your ancient bones and fairy tales, and leave the modern tools to those qualified to handle them."
He turned and left, the portfolio clamped under his arm, his footsteps echoing with finality down the linoleum corridor.
Sloane remained in the silent, sterile room. She looked at the empty space on the desk where a phone should have been. Holt had made a mistake, she realized. In his rush to contain the story, he had created a new, damning artifact: the absence itself.
He hadn't just hidden a phone. He had made the phone—and whatever it contained—so important that he was willing to blatantly obstruct a murder investigation to control it. That single act told her more about Corporal Hale's death than any of the folklore printouts.
The phone was no longer just evidence. It was a testament. And Commander Holt, by taking it, had just sworn a silent, damning oath that whatever was on it was worth any cost to bury.
Sloane Hayes left the barracks, the fine mist clinging to her hair like a ghostly veil. She needed to find James Wilson. The investigation had just found its true north.
The target wasn't just in the forest. It was in Commander Holt's secure evidence locker. And it was ringing with a silent, digital scream.