I woke with my neck twisted and my hand clutching the gun like a lifeline.
Dawn light filtered through the rotten boards covering the windows. It was cold.
I looked at the couch.
Ayla sat on the backrest, crouched like a gargoyle, watching the street through a tiny gap between the planks. She hadn't moved in hours.
"Any movement?" I asked, voice thick and mouth dry.
"Three civilian cars. A dog marking a post. Nothing that's a direct threat," she replied without turning. "But the air feels heavy. Too much invisible activity."
"What?" I rubbed my face, trying to shake sleep and fear.
Ayla dropped from the backrest in a silent leap, landing without creaking the floor, and threw my phone at me.
"Your device hasn't stopped buzzing. I turned it off so it wouldn't make noise, but it smells like trouble."
I powered the phone on with trembling hands. I expected to see a "Search and Seize" alert. I expected my face on a wanted banner.
But no.
There were twenty text messages. All from unknown numbers or burned contacts. None from Kowalski. None from Internal Affairs.
They were from "Rat," my usual snitch in the south district.
Message 1: Where did you disappear to, Walker?
Message 2: The precinct is chaos. You need to see this.
Message 3: I know the girl was with you. I've got an offer.
My blood ran cold.
"Shit."
"Trouble?" Ayla tilted her head, sniffing my mood change.
"Rumors," I said, standing and brushing dust from my pants. "Graves and his people haven't called off the dogs. They're waiting for us to make some stupid mistake. But in the meantime… people are talking. And if people talk, the hunters listen."
I looked at Ayla. She wore my dirty T-shirt and her hair was wild, but her eyes were two wells of maximum alertness.
"I have to see this guy. I need to know how much they know."
"Going is dangerous," she said, blocking my path. She moved fast, putting herself in front of the door. "It's a trap. It smells like an ambush."
"No, it's business. And if I don't cut it off now, your face will be on every screen in the country before lunch. You stay here. If I don't come back in an hour… well, you know what to do."
Ayla looked me in the eyes. A second of dense silence. She sized me up like a pup leaving the den unsupervised.
"If you don't come back, I'll hunt down whoever has you," she said. It wasn't a romantic promise. It was a statement of fact, cold and simple.
The meet-up point was a car wash in the industrial zone, away from traffic cameras. A noisy place where nobody asks questions.
I arrived in my car, praying there wasn't a GPS stuck to the bumper.
Rat was already there, smoking a menthol, leaned against his old rusted Honda Civic. He was a skinny, nervous guy who sold police info to reporters and vice versa. A necessary leech.
When he saw me he dropped the cigarette and smiled; a tooth was missing.
"Walker!" he spread his arms. "Thought you'd been abducted, man. Or Kowalski'd have killed you for being late again."
"Shut up, Rat," I said, looking around, paranoid. "What's happening at the precinct?"
Rat lowered his voice, leaning to my window though we were alone.
"Total madness, buddy. Internal Affairs came, sealed your desk, and took your computer. But that's not the interesting part. The interesting part is the video."
"What video?"
"The truck one." Rat pulled his phone out, its screen cracked. "Someone in Traffic leaked the security footage before the Feds wiped it. Look."
He put the phone up in my face. The video was grainy and black-and-white. You could see the truck losing control. You could see me pulling the girl out. And then… you could see Ayla. Not her face clearly—just a blurry shape moving too fast to be human. You could see her plant her hands on the bumper. You could see the truck's metal crumple like aluminum on impact. And you could see her eyes. Two bright white dots in the dark.
"They call her 'The Anomaly' on the forums," Rat whispered, excited. "They say she's a super-soldier, or an android. But you were there, Walker. You put her in your car afterward."
I tensed. My hand went to the concealed pistol under my jacket.
"It was a reflection, Rat. Adrenaline. Nothing else."
"Don't bullshit me, Walker. That's not adrenaline. That's money." Rat leaned in, greedy shine in his eyes. "I've got a contact at a digital tabloid. They pay ten grand for a clear photo of the girl. Twenty if you give an interview."
"Forget it."
"Come on! I know you've got her hidden. Rumor is she's your girlfriend or something." He winked, complicit. "I just need a photo, Evan. One picture of her face. We split sixty-forty. You get the larger cut—cover lawyers when Kowalski fires you and rips your badge off."
I grabbed Rat by the cheap jacket lapel and slammed him against his car. Metal crunched.
"Listen to me, asshole!" I shouted in his face. "That 'girl' isn't a celebrity. Those people… the people looking for her don't pay with money. They pay with bullets to the back of the head. Capisce?"
Rat went pale and raised trembling hands.
"Hey, calm down! It was just an idea…"
"Delete the video," I ordered, squeezing his throat. "And if I hear you talked to anyone else about this, I'll come for you. And I won't come alone. I'll come with her. And you've seen what she does to ten-ton trucks."
Rat swallowed loudly.
"Okay, okay. I'll delete it. I swear on my mother. I don't know anything. I'm a vault."
I let him go. He hit the ground coughing.
"Go home, Rat. And forget my name."
I turned and walked to my car, feeling like my heart would explode.
I'd shut Rat up. But he was only one. If the security footage had leaked… Graves was right. The hunt had started, and now the bloodhounds weren't just the government. They were the whole internet.
---
POV: Ayla
Evan comes back. He smells of victory, but also of sour sweat, of fresh fear.
He enters the abandoned house and locks the door with three turns of the key, like metal could stop a hungry pack.
"Solved?" I ask from the darkness of the hallway.
"I scared him," he says, dropping onto the old couch. He rubs his face, exhausted. "Told him if he talked, you'd go after him. He pissed himself. I think we bought a little time."
I move closer.
Evan thinks fear is an effective control tool. It's cute, but naive. He doesn't understand that fear in scavengers, like his informant, only breeds betrayal. Fear makes them unpredictable; it makes them bite when you aren't looking.
"Fear doesn't erase what he saw," I say, sitting beside him. I touch his arm. His muscles feel like stone. "You should have eliminated him. It's the only sure way to cut the trail. A dead prey doesn't squeal."
"We don't kill people over gossip, Ayla. That's not how this works here."
"Their system is flawed. They leave loose ends that later choke them."
Suddenly Evan's phone buzzes on the coffee table.
Once. Twice. Then it starts vibrating non-stop, like an insect trapped against glass. Zzzzt. Zzzzt. Zzzzt.
Evan stares at it like it's a bomb about to go off. He grabs it. The screen lights up. His face, bathed in blue light, goes white as paper.
"No…" he whispers.
I lean in to see, squinting. It's one of those human social hives. A platform where people share pointless images.
On the screen is a photo. Blurry, shot from far away—probably with a long lens or a cheap phone from a moving car. But it's clear enough.
It's me.
Leaving the abandoned house a few hours ago, when I peeked out the window for perimeter watch. You can see my profile, my black hair, and Evan's T-shirt.
The caption under the photo reads:
#TheAnomaly #SuperHuman #SeenOnOakSt
Is this the girl who stopped the truck? Hiding in the foreclosure zone. Share before it's deleted!
Evan drops the phone to the floor.
"Rat didn't take that photo," he says in a dead voice. "Someone else followed us. Someone else was watching Rat to get to me."
I jump and go to the window in one motion. I peer through the planks.
The street's silence has changed. A minute ago there was only wind. Now, in the distance, I hear the hum of engines. Many engines. Heavy ones. And the high whine of sirens trying to be quiet, which my ears pick up perfectly.
"Evan," I say, feeling my skin harden, my claws scraping the wood of the frame. "Your diplomacy failed."
I turn to him. My eyes no longer pretend to be human. They shine with the anticipation of violence.
"The digital pack has marked us. We have five minutes before this nest burns."