The click lingered in the air, bouncing between the narrow alley walls like a ghost refusing to leave.
Mira didn't answer it. She couldn't. Her pulse was too loud in her ears — or maybe it wasn't her pulse anymore.
Elena tugged at her sleeve. "We're leaving. Now."
Mira let herself be pulled, but each step felt heavier, slower, as if sothing inside her resisted moving away from the sound. The rain had thickened to a fine mist, coating everything in a cold sheen. Their boots splashed through shallow puddles until they reached the broken street beyond the alley.
The city ahead looked hollow. Storefronts gaped like empty eye sockets, cars sat abandoned in the middle of the road, and the only light ca from a flickering streetlamp swaying in the wind. Sowhere far off, the faint crack of a gunshot snapped the silence.
Elena froze, scanning the shadows. "There's a safehouse two blocks east. We'll get you—"
Mira doubled over, a sharp pain lancing through her wrist. She gritted her teeth, clutching it, but the pain didn't stay there — it spread, blooming up her arm like fire chasing dry grass.
"Mira!" Elena's hands were on her shoulders, but the contact felt… wrong. Too hot. Too human.
A faint click answered from above. Mira's head turned on instinct toward the rooftops, though she didn't rember deciding to. There — a shadow moved, gliding across the edge of a crumbling building.
"They're following us," Elena hissed. "We have to run!"
"No," Mira said before she realized she'd spoken. Her voice was softer, slower. "They're… guiding ."
Elena's eyes widened in horror. "Guiding you? Do you hear yourself?"
Another click, closer this ti. Mira's vision blurred at the edges, and in that haze she saw not the rain-soaked street, but shapes — flickering outlines of Hunters moving in the distance, their positions and paths as clear to her as if they whispered directions in her ear.
The alpha was among them. She could feel it.
Elena shook her. "Fight it, Mira! Please!"
The pain eased just enough for Mira to stand straight. "I don't think I can."
The shadow above dropped silently to the street a few ters away. Not the alpha — a smaller Hunter. Its head cocked, clicking once, and Mira's arm twitched in response, the lines beneath her skin glowing faintly under the streetlamp.
Elena drew the poker. "Stay back!"
The Hunter ignored her. Its gaze locked on Mira, and for a mont, the noise of the ruined city fell away. All Mira could hear was the clicking — steady, deliberate.
It turned, glancing down the street toward the darkness beyond the safehouse. Then it looked back at her, waiting.
Mira took one step toward it.
Elena's voice cracked. "Don't do this."
Mira's breath misted in the cold air. "I think… I have to."
From sowhere deep in the shadows, the alpha's click rolled out like thunder — and Mira followed.
User Comments
0 comments from readers