Commander Viks's sharp eyes caught the young soldier frozen at the storehouse door, his hand hovering over the lock like a man reaching for something he would never touch.
"Hey." Her voice cut through the heavy air. "What are you doing here alone?"
Dale opened his mouth to answer. No sound came out.
His body wouldn't move. His arms, his legs, his lungs—all of them locked in place by something invisible, something that wrapped around him like silk, like sleep, like the moment before drowning. His pulse hammered against his ribs, but even that felt distant, muffled, as if his own heart was beating in a room he had been locked out of.
Viks's gaze didn't waver from the shadows above the door, from the shape that clung to the rafters like a patient spider.
"Release him." Her voice was calm, but there was something underneath it now—a warning, cold and precise. "He has nothing to do with this."
A soft laugh drifted down from the darkness.
