An hour later, the screams stopped.
The forest fell silent, not the gentle silence of a winter night, but the heavy silence of a graveyard. No birds sang. No insects chirped. The wind itself seemed to hold its breath, afraid to disturb whatever remained inside that building.
Raven pushed herself off the tree. "Stay with the children," she told her second-in-command. "Do not enter the warehouse until I signal."
"Captain," the soldier began, concern etched on her face.
"That is an order."
Raven walked toward the warehouse alone.
The door hung from its hinges, twisted and broken, as if something had tried to escape and failed. Raven stepped through the opening, her boots crunching on shattered glass and dried blood.
The inside was destroyed.
Not damaged. Not wrecked. Destroyed.
