They found the first sign at dawn: a line of small footprints leading away from the eastern flank, the prints spaced unevenly as if someone had been limping, then suddenly running. A scout named Jory came stumbling back to the cabin, shoe half-full of mud, breath ragged.
"A trap," he said without preamble. "We set one by the stream and— it's gone. Snare's cut, and Lila's not at her post."
The pack went quiet the way a forest goes quiet before a storm. Ari's shoulders squared; Riley's amber eyes turned knife-sharp. Ethan felt the panel's faint pulse under his sleeve, private and steady like a compass. Only he could see its menus. Only he could read the ledger of PP and modules that might smooth the next steps. He kept his fingers curled over the leather as if the physical contact alone could steady the decision weighing in his gut: protect the pack using what the panel could offer, but never let them see the ghost hands at work.
"Where'd she go?" Ethan asked.
"Tracks head north-east," Jory said. "Small. Blood." His voice lost steadiness at the edge.
Ari moved like a man who already had a plan. "We split. Two teams to track, one to cut off if we find movement. Ethan, you're with Riley. Take the ridge. The others flank through the low hollow. No lone moves. We bring Lila home if she's still breathing."
They set out within minutes. The forest felt close—every twig a potential tripping wire, every shadow a mouth. Ethan followed the track like a chord of memory: recent, raw, edged with panic. The panel's tracking enhancement hummed in his mind like a background instrument, but he let Riley lead. His job, he told himself, was to look like a man learning, not a conduit for secret miracles.
They found Lila in a shallow dip beside the old logging road, curled against a fallen trunk and clutching her forearm. She was pale, but alive. Around her, three marks scarred the earth in a triangular pattern—strange, deliberate. A smear of red stained the bark above, and at the base of the tree someone had painted a crude mark in red sap, a sigil of three slashes crossing a circle. It looked like a brand meant to claim territory.
Riley cursed softly. "Evan's lot have a signature like that," she said. "They mark before they take. The scumbags."
Ethan crouched beside Lila, hands careful and practiced as he cleaned a superficial cut. She flinched less than Ethan expected; the scouts were made of tighter stuff than city lungs. He could feel the pack's collective breath behind him—hope, fear, a reliance that tasted like iron.
The panel nudged in the corner of his vision, private as a whispered suggestion: Deploy non-lethal restraint field — 300 PP — will immobilize up to five targets for two minutes. It would buy a margin of safety if they ran into a trap. He pictured the field materializing, invisible like fog but stopping blades and limbs alike. It would look odd if anyone saw its edges. He imagined Ari's face if the pack suddenly had a ghostly safety net appear.
He tucked the thought away. "We need to find where they took her," he said aloud. "They were careful. They wanted us to see the mark. This is escalation."
Riley's hand found his arm. The touch was quick—part comfort, part warning. "They're baiting us," she said. "Evan wants us to rush. He likes to take what looks like our weakness and twist it."
They moved higher, following a thin line that led up to the old quarry. The wind rose off the exposed rock like a cold breath. At the quarry edge the world opened: a jagged bowl of stone with a slope dotted in old wheel ruts and the sagging skeleton of a cart half-buried in brush. Smoke drifted near the center like a chimney for something still warm.
They skirted the rim and then saw them—two sentries lounging like wolves, one of them leaning against a rock and flipping a coin. Both looked too casual for men who had recently taken a captive. Nearby, a group of three figures moved among the boulders, their silhouette a study in knives and careful silence.
Ari's plan snapped into action. He raised a hand; the pack tightened into a semi-circle, a low-visibility formation they'd practiced until the moves were muscle-deep. Ethan felt the panel pulse a faint, insistent nudge—Evade sensors; Tactical Camouflage Module available — 120 PP—a cheap but useful thing: a transient veil that dimmed a contour and blurred a nearby shape's outline for a handful of seconds.
He did not take it. Not yet. The temptation to mask the pack's approach and make the operation look supernatural was strong; his ledger hummed at him like distant money pressing against his ribs. But secrecy demanded restraint. Every module used in view of the pack would become a question. He wanted their trust to be earned by his body and his choices, not by invisible scaffolding.
Ari signaled. The pack moved. Ethan was at the flank, heartbeat even. They crept down into the shallow bowl like a visiting wind.
They closed in on the sentry who'd been flipping the coin. He looked up at the last second and shouted. The quarry erupted into motion.
Ethan braced himself, muscles wound tight. The first blade flashed. He met it with a parry he hadn't known he could make a week ago—muscle memory aided by the Combat Instinct Core he'd chosen earlier. The man who lunged at him was strong, quick, but crude. Ethan moved as he'd been taught: step, redirection, leverage. Two quick strikes, and the attacker crumpled into a heap clutching his side.
But the fight was far from choreographed. A second attacker came at Riley. She ducked under a hook and drove a knee hard into his midsection, sending him backward with a painful grunt. Ari and the others were in a cold, practiced ballet, dispatching men not to kill but to dominate.
Then a shout from the center broke the pattern. "Get the cage! Don't let them free the girl!"
Ethan saw it then: a crude stock of timber lying beside a rock, a makeshift cage built into a null. Two captors yanked a lever and a drop slammed into place near the quarry lip—an iron grate woven like a trap door. If Lila was being held there, escaping would be a nightmare.
The pack surged. Ethan ran toward the grate. For a moment the world whittled down to the sound of breath and the rhythm of steps. He thought of the panel's private prompt—Restraint Field — READY—and the choice compressed like a fist.
He ran, hands outstretched, and threw himself at the lever. Someone hit his back, a solid weight that sent him rolling. He hit the rock and felt a hot, fierce pain lace his shoulder. He tasted iron. He tasted the old warehouse tile under his tongue in memory. He kept moving.
Riley was at the grate first, slicing ropes and prying boards. Ari shoved his shoulder under a smashed beam and lifted with a grunt. The cage gave in one grating groan, and a slim figure—Lila—tumbled into the dirt, coughing and thin and very alive.
Ethan rolled and came up ready to fight. A man with a blade swung for him—fast, practiced. For a fraction of a beat his world blurred as the Combat Core optimized his timing, and his arm moved almost of its own accord. He caught the strike at the wrist, twisted, drove his knee upward. The man doubled over, spitting curses. No one around him had seen a ghost. They'd only seen a man who'd trained and hit true.
Then, as the pack pushed the last attackers back and bound them with cords, Ari moved toward the red sap sigil scrabbled into the rock. He touched it like a scientist touches a specimen and shook his head. "This is a message," he said. His voice was low. "They want us to know they can mark us."
Later, around the small fire, with Lila wrapped in a blanket and drinking broth, the pack exhaled in a way that made exhaustion look like a truth. No songs were sung that night. Instead they checked gear, counted bindings, made sure everyone had water.
Riley sat close to Ethan. Her fingers found his arm and she pressed hard enough that the pressure said, without words: you did good. He looked down at the spot where she'd touched him and felt the panel like a secret pulse. For all the ugliness of the quarry and the red mark, something had held: the pack, the formation, the choice not to let the secret make them less real.
Ari's voice cut through the low murmur. "We need to know who's behind this. Evan's not just greedy. He's making a statement."
Ethan swallowed. He thought of the diplomacy template he'd used at the river, the way it had turned a potential fight into an exchange. His ledger scrolled options: reconnaissance tools, a better pack alarm, a short-term command module that could help coordinate a silent sweep. Each had a cost. Each would change the shape of his secret.
He said nothing of the menu. He folded his hands and felt the ledger like a stone in his palm.
Outside, beyond the ring of light, the red mark seemed to hold its place in the dark like a promise or a threat. Ethan watched the smoke thin and thought of the multiplication ten had given him: the ability to purchase a hundred solutions to a single problem. He also thought of something else — that the right answer was not always the most expensive one.
When the watch changed and the younger scouts shuffled off to slumber, Riley stayed awake with him on the pallet's edge. She set her head against his shoulder, simple and human. He let the quiet gather around them.
"We'll find out who left that mark," she said softly.
"We will," he answered.
Only he knew how many ways he could have answered before he chose this one. Only he kept the ledger. Only he carried the secret tally that would hang over all their nights to come.
And somewhere, beyond the ridge, someone with a red sap bottle and a steady hand had drawn a circle and waited to see what would be done about it.