The freight car reeked of rancid soybeans and piss-soaked cardboard. Leo crouched behind a pallet of rotting avocados, Jessica's shallow breathing syncing with the clack-clack of wheels on tracks. Sixteen hours since fleeing Chicago, three since her fever spiked – her pulse fluttered like moth wings under his claw-tipped fingers.
"Should've left me," she mumbled, sweat gluing her temple to his leather jacket. "Like your daddy left those clones."
The bracelet pulsed in agreement.
Moonlight bled through bullet holes in the car's roof, illuminating Cyrillic graffiti that squirmed when Leo blinked. Не входите – здесь живет дьявол. He didn't need Russian to understand the warning.
"Food train's right on schedule."
The voice came from above. Leo's nostrils flared – gun oil, synthetic adrenaline, and beneath it... wet wolf fur. Three figures dropped through the roof gaps, steel-toed boots crunching avocado pits. Their neck tattoos glowed faintly – not gang ink, but bioluminescent runes matching the bracelet's pattern.
"Evening, mutt," the leader crooned, spinning a cattle prod crackling with blue arcs. "Nightwatch sends regards."
Jessica stirred. "Leo..."
"Stay down." His claws shredded the jacket sleeve. For the first time, the transformation didn't hurt – it itched, like shedding dead skin.
The goon on the left lunged. Silver glinted – not a blade, but a syringe filled with mercury. Leo's hand moved on its own, crushing the man's wrist. Bones snapped like kindling. The syringe plunged into the attacker's thigh instead.
Screams filled the car as the mercury spread. The man's veins turned liquid silver, eyes bursting like overripe grapes. His companions barely flinched.
"Beta testers," the leader chuckled, tossing aside his cattle prod. "Always messy."
Metal screeched. The freight car's walls peeled back like sardine cans, revealing eight more hunters clinging to the train's roof. Their weapons gleamed unnatural – flamethrowers modified to spray liquid nitrogen, crossbows loaded with vials of bubbling acid.
Jessica gripped Leo's arm. Her touch burned colder than the Chicago river. "They're herding us."
He smelled it too – the reek of electrified metal ahead. Trestle bridge. No guardrails. Two hundred foot drop onto granite boulders.
The leader tapped his temple. "Boss says you're predictable."
Leo's claws dug into the rotting floorboards. Memories flashed – Dad's lab rats pressing levers for food pellets, his own hands trembling as he signed Mom into hospice.
Always the maze. Never the Minotaur.
Jessica's breath hitched. Blood trickled from her nostrils – symptom of the silver poisoning from prom night. The bracelet pulsed faster, its runes burning through his skin to cauterize the wound.
"New rules." Leo grabbed a steel support beam.
The train hit the trestle.
Wood splintered. Wind roared. Leo tore the beam free, swinging it like a scythe. Hunters went flying – one impaled on his own flamethrower, another's acid bolts melting through the train cars behind them.
"Focus on the girl!" the leader barked.
A crossbow bolt grazed Jessica's shoulder. She didn't scream – just locked eyes with Leo as black veins spiderwebbed from the wound.
Not acid.
Nanites.
The bracelet's pulse became a scream. Leo's vision shifted infrared – he saw the nanites swimming in her bloodstream, tiny silver sharks homing in on her heart.
"Jump!" Jessica rasped.
The leader lunged. Leo grabbed his throat, feeling cartilage dissolve under his claws. "How do I stop it?"
"Should've... obeyed..." the man gurgled, grinning with mercury teeth.
Leo hurled him into the abyss.
Gravity shifted as the train hit a curve. Crates slid toward the gaping hole. Jessica crawled toward the edge, her movements jerky like a marionette.
"Stop!" Leo grabbed her ankle.
Her eyes rolled back, voice glitching with mechanical static. "Subject X-07: Terminate with extreme—"
The bracelet flared. Leo's claws sank into her infected shoulder. Flesh sizzled as he ripped out a fistful of wiring and synthetic tissue.
Jessica's scream split the night.
Her blood wasn't red.
It glittered.
The train plunged into a tunnel. In the sudden dark, Leo's enhanced vision caught the truth – circuitry woven through her bones, fiber optics replacing veins. The crossbow bolt hadn't poisoned her.
It had activated her.
"Jessica?" Leo whispered.
Her hand closed around his throat. Strength far beyond human.
"Directive override," she monotone. "Return specimen to—"
The roof caved in. Samuel's pickup truck crashed through, tires shredding the remaining hunters. The vagrant leaned out the window, grinning like a skull.
"Need a ride, cub?"
Leo hesitated. Jessica's fingers tightened, her eyes flickering between blue and silver.
Clack-clack went the wheels.
Tick-tock went the nanites.
Samuel revved the engine. "Choose fast."
Somewhere ahead, the trestle groaned.