Chapter 7: Extraction
The surveillance room was quiet. Too quiet.
Rows of screens glowed cold in the dark—heat signatures, motion tracking, boundary monitors. The scent of gun oil and steel hung in the air, sterile and sharp.
Eden’s father stood with his hands clasped behind his back, suit crisp, hair slicked into a perfect line. His eyes weren’t on the screens.
They were on the girl sitting in the chair across from him.
She looked nervous. Eighteen. Barely.
She twisted a bracelet on her wrist, her voice uneven. “I already gave the report. It was a coyote.”
“You said it was strange.”
Her eyes flicked up. “I mean… it didn’t run. It just stood there. Looking at us. I don’t know, maybe it was sick or—”
“Did it shift?”
Her lips parted. “What?”
“Did it shift into something else?” he asked again, calmly. Too calmly.
She blinked. “No. I—I didn’t see anything like that. Just an animal.”
He took a step forward. “Anyone else with you?”
“My brother. He was already back in the car.”
“What about a person?” His tone didn’t rise, but the room grew colder anyway. “Near it. Behind it. Someone watching.”
“I don’t think so. I mean… maybe. There could’ve been someone near the trees. I can’t say for sure.”
That was all he needed.
He turned his back to her and walked toward the control panel.
“Thank you,” he said. “You can go.”
The girl stood quickly, clearly wanting to leave.
But before she reached the door, he added without turning:
“If anyone asks, it was just a coyote. Not a word more.”
She hesitated. “Okay.”
The door shut behind her.
He pressed a button on the panel. A low beep answered him.
“Reopen the primary facility,” he said.
“Under what directive?” a voice answered through the intercom.
“Extinction protocol.”
A pause. Then:
“Yes, sir.”
He stared at the wall of monitors. One flickered—static tearing across a camera near the gas station.
“The werewolves are moving again,” he said.
Behind him, a metal panel hissed open, revealing a wall of weapons.
He reached for the one on the far left. The oldest. The one stained with dried blood he never bothered to clean.
“They should’ve ran the first time.”
Eden walked out of the school.
She didn’t remember leaving the building.
One moment, She was walking down the math hall, her head full of static and murmurs, Sierra calling something behind her.
The next—
She was outside.
And alone.
The wind bit at her face. Pine needles crackled underfoot. Her sneakers were damp.
She stood at the edge of the woods behind the school, where the fence had long since rusted and slumped inward, a half-hearted barrier between manicured lawns and the wild.
The bell hadn’t rung. No one else was around. There was no one to follow her.
At least… no one she could see.
The forest in front of her was still.
Too still.
Not dead—but watching.
Eden looked down and realized she’d walked nearly a quarter mile from the building. Her hands were tucked into her hoodie. Her phone was gone.
Her pulse thudded in her ears.
But not out of fear.
It was something else.
Not panic. Not dread.
Pull.
That strange, invisible tether tightening again, dragging her back toward a place she couldn’t name.
A rustle behind her. Then a voice.
“You’re not supposed to be here.”
Eden turned fast.
It was a girl—dark curls, hoodie zipped up to her throat, silver studs in her ears. Her eyes were narrowed, but her posture was relaxed.
Too relaxed.
“I was just walking,” Eden said automatically.
“No, you weren’t,” the girl replied, stepping forward. “You were drifting.”
Eden blinked. “What?”
“You don’t remember leaving the school, do you?”
Eden’s spine stiffened.
The girl smiled softly. “Didn’t think so.”
She walked past Eden, stopped at the tree line, and looked into the woods like she was listening for something.
“Don’t go in there,” she said without turning. “Not yet.”
Eden stepped forward. “Who are you?”
The girl didn’t answer.
Instead, she looked back with one brow raised.
And said:
“You’re waking up.”
Then she was gone.
No sound. No footsteps. Just the wind in the leaves.
Eden stood alone.
And the woods stared back.
Caleb and Lira moved like smoke.
From across the field, beneath the bleachers and behind the row of evergreens that lined the back of the school, they tracked Eden’s every step. She was alone again—her gait slower, shoulders tense. Her breath visible in the cold.
“She’s still drifting,” Lira whispered. “Like something’s pulling her and she doesn’t know it.”
“She’s off-pattern,” Caleb muttered. “She was supposed to be in last period.”
“She’s not going back to class.”
They didn’t need to speak after that. A silent nod passed between them. Caleb reached for the comm clipped to his collar.
“Silas,” he said. “Target is isolated. Moving west—toward the utility path behind the old pool.”
A beat of static. Then:
“Stand by.”
Silas stood at the edge of the trees, one hand resting on the hilt of the blade strapped to his thigh. His eyes were locked on Eden.
She wasn’t moving like prey.
She was moving like a magnet. Like something deep inside her already knew she didn’t belong in that human body anymore.
He narrowed his gaze.
But then—
Something shifted.
The air grew heavier. The sky didn’t darken, but the shadows around the trees deepened like they were breathing.
He felt it first. Not scent. Not sound.
Pressure.
Like something pushing back.
“Do you feel that?” Lira hissed over comms. “Something else is—”
She didn’t finish.
The world tilted.
Wind exploded through the clearing.
From behind Eden, the air seemed to bend outward—like a pocket of wrongness had torn through the fabric of the forest.
Something stepped through.
But it wasn’t visible.
Not fully.
Only the effect of it could be seen: grass bowing in its wake, bark splitting on trees it passed, sound dying where it moved.
Caleb cursed, stepping between Eden and the distortion.
It hit him without touching him.
He staggered back, nose bleeding, gasping.
Lira bared her teeth and tried to shift—but her limbs locked. Frozen. Trapped.
And Eden?
She stood still, staring into nothing.
Then—her eyes rolled back.
She collapsed.
Just like that.
The pressure vanished.
The thing—whatever it was—was gone.
The woods snapped back into place, too quiet, too normal.
And then—
Gunfire.
Sharp, metallic, real.
The first shot struck the ground inches from Lira’s boots. The second caught her shoulder, spinning her sideways.
“Hunters—!” Caleb roared.
From the ridge above the trees, they moved in—black-clad, masked, and precise.
One bullet clipped Eden’s arm. Her body jerked.
Silas moved.
In a blur, he crossed the space, scooped her into his arms, and vanished into the trees.
Two more shots chased them.
Neither landed.
And just behind the team of hunters, standing at the edge of the clearing, weapon drawn and breath white in the cold, stood Eden’s father.
He watched the place where she’d fallen.
Where she’d been taken.
And for the first time in years—
He looked shaken.
Not because of the werewolves.
But because of what came before him.
