### Chapter Three – The Hunter's Eye ###
(Mayer's POV)
The city looked different through a rifle scope.
From the rooftop, Mayer adjusted her stance, her body aligned with the weapon as if it was an extension of her bones. The crosshairs hovered over the third-story window of the pawn shop where Bryan lived.
The glass reflected only faint shapes, a desk, a chair, the blurred outline of movement. He was in there. She could almost feel the heat of him radiating from behind the glass, restless, unsettled.
Why didn't you shoot him?
Owen's voice replayed in her head like a cracked record. He was right—she had hesitated. The boy should've been a corpse last night. One twitch of her finger and his blood would have painted the floor.
But something had stopped her.
And Mayer didn't know if it was instinct… or weakness.
She pulled her eye away from the scope, rolling her shoulders to ease the tension. The rooftop wind slapped her hair across her cheek, carrying the scent of the city, oil from passing cabs, the faint copper tang of exhaust.
Her gloved fingers tightened on the rifle. "Focus," she whispered to herself.
This wasn't about her. It was about the mission. About Owen's trust. About loyalty.
And yet, when she pictured Bryan's face, she didn't see a target. She saw eyes burning with something raw, something that reminded her too much of the wolves she'd been trained to kill—anger sharpened into survival.
---
The church compound was colder than the streets above it. Mayer descended into its bowels hours later, her boots clicking on stone steps slick and slightly wet. Torchlight flickered along the walls, shadows dancing across carved wolf skulls mounted like trophies.
At the bottom, she found Owen waiting.
He wasn't a man who belonged in shadows. Shadows bent around him, as if even darkness feared his presence.
"You've been watching him?" His voice was low, calm, yet edged with steel.
"Yes, sir," Mayer said. She kept her stance straight, her tone clipped.
"And?"
She hesitated, just long enough for him to notice. "He's… disciplined. Trained. More than a stray kid should be."
Owen's eyes narrowed. "Trained by who?"
"I don't know," she admitted. "But his instincts are sharp. Too sharp."
A slow smile spread across Owen's face, though it never reached his eyes. "Good. That means he'll lead us where we need to go."
Mayer frowned. "Sir, with respect, what if he's not what you think?"
Owen's gaze pinned her. "Then he'll be exactly what I need him to be. One way or another."
Something twisted in Mayer's gut. She'd been raised to follow orders, to kill without hesitation. But Owen's words—what I need him to be—sat wrong. As if Bryan wasn't a person at all, just a piece on a board.
And worse… Mayer feared she was just another piece too.
---
By the following evening, she was tailing Bryan through the streets.
He moved with restless energy, slipping between alleys like a shadow that hadn't made up its mind about where to land. He carried a crossbow in a case hunged over his shoulder, casual enough to blend with the night, dangerous enough to make her keep her distance.
From across the street, Mayer kept him in sight. She matched his pace, adjusting whenever he stopped to glance over his shoulder. He was cautious—paranoid, even—but not enough to spot her.
He's not a hunter, she reminded herself. He's prey. Always prey.
But prey wasn't supposed to move like that, fluid, alert, muscles coiled as if ready to spring. He looked more like the wolves she hunted than the humans she protected.
Her breath hitched when he suddenly stopped, turning into a narrow alley. For a moment, Mayer thought he spotted her. But then she heard it.
A growl.
Low, guttural, vibrating against the brick walls.
Bryan froze. Slowly, he removed the case and pulled the crossbow free, loading it in one practiced motion.
Mayer moved behind a dumpster and looked searchingly out just enough to see.
A shape moved in the darkness at the far end of the alley. Too tall, too broad, too wrong to be human. Fur glistened under the streetlight, wet with something dark.
Bryan aimed. His hands didn't shake.
The beast moved suddenly.
Mayer's training screamed at her to intervene, to strike, to finish it. But something made her stay still, watching.
Bryan didn't hesitate. He loosed the bolt, the string snapping like a whip. The arrow buried itself deep into the creature's throat.
The beast staggered, gurgled, and collapsed.
Bryan stood over it, breathing hard, crossbow still raised. For a moment, Mayer swore his eyes glowed in the dim light—amber, wild, wrong.
Her chest tightened.
Then the glow vanished.
Bryan wiped the blood from his face with the back of his hand, muttering something she couldn't hear. The corpse at his feet smoked faintly, silver burning its veins.
Mayer's heart pounded. He hadn't fought like a hunter. He hadn't fought like prey either.
He fought like one of them.
---
Hours later, back in her apartment, Mayer sat at her desk, staring at her notes.
Subject: Bryan.
Behavior: abnormal reflexes, efficient kill. Displays instincts not consistent with standard human training.
Observation: possible contamination?
She dropped the pen, pressing her palms into her eyes. Contamination. That was what hunters called it when humans got too close to wolves—when their bloodlines got messy.
But Bryan wasn't contaminated. She'd seen him. He was something else.
The memory of his eyes flashing amber burned behind her eyelids.
She shivered, though the room was warm.
For the first time in years, Mayer realized she wasn't sure if she wanted to kill her target… or understand him.
---
The next night, she followed again. Bryan didn't make it easy. He moved faster, sharper, as if he sensed the eyes on his back.
At one point, he stopped beneath a broken streetlamp, tilting his head just slightly, listening. Mayer flattened against the wall, her breath shallow, heart in her throat.
For a long moment, neither of them moved. The air between them tightened like a wire.
Then Bryan spoke.
"I don't know who you are," he said into the darkness, voice steady, "but if you keep following me, you'd better hope you shoot straighter than the last one."
Mayer's stomach flipped. The she remembered when she shot the half dead man that was talking to Bryan when they first met.
She muttered, "so he knew".
She gripped the handle of her knife, but didn't move.
Bryan waited, scanning the shadows, before finally walking away.
Mayer let out a slow breath she hadn't realized she was holding.
And in that breath, she admitted the truth she couldn't put in her report:
Bryan wasn't prey.
He was a wolf who haven't learn how to howl yet.