The mist of the Weeping Hollow was both a shield and a prison. It swallowed sound and distorted direction, but it also slowed them to a stumbling, blind flight. Jenkins moved like a phantom, his knowledge of the terrain the only thing keeping them from crashing into trees or stumbling into another scalding vent. Alex followed the faint, grey shape of his back, his lungs burning with the sulfurous air and adrenaline.
Behind them, the pursuit was methodical, not frantic. They didn't hear shouted commands now, only the occasional, precise radio chirp and the soft, relentless crunch of boots on damp ground. The Covenant team was fanning out, using their tech to navigate the mist, driving them like beaters in a hunt.
Jenkins suddenly veered left, dropping into a shallow, ice-cold stream. "Follow the water. Muffles sound, breaks thermal," he hissed. The shock of the water soaking through his boots and jeans was a brutal clarity. They sloshed upstream for a hundred yards, the babble of the stream covering their splashes.
At a bend, Jenkins hauled himself out onto a slick rock shelf and pulled Alex up after him. They crouched behind a fallen hemlock, its massive root ball creating a shallow cave of mud and stone. The sounds of pursuit seemed to circle, then fade slightly downstream.
"They'll backtrack," Jenkins whispered, his breath ghosting in the cold. He was peering into the gloom, his crossbow resting on a root. "They're not giving up. Carver doesn't strike me as a man who tolerates failure."
"They saw Lily," Alex said, the image of those tortured human eyes seared into his mind. "They know she's… transitional. She's more valuable to them now than ever."
"And they saw us," Jenkins added grimly. "Two locals interfering with a high-stakes corporate operation. We've gone from gossips to combatants. They'll want to know who we're working for, what we know." He glanced at Alex. "Your journalist cover is ash. You're a hostile actor now."
The truth of it settled in Alex's gut, cold and heavy. He had fired a weapon at another human being. He had declared war. There was no walking back into his cottage and pretending to write a novel.
A new sound cut through the mist—not boots, but a low, electronic hum that set Alex's teeth on edge. A small, black quadcopter drone, its running lights off, ghosted into view fifteen feet above the stream. Its camera lens, a dark, unblinking eye, swept back and forth.
Jenkins didn't hesitate. He raised his crossbow, aimed, and fired. The bolt was silent. It struck the drone's central body with a crack of plastic and a shower of sparks. The machine lurched, emitted a high-pitched whine, and spun into the stream with a sizzle.
"That'll tell them exactly where we are," Alex said, already moving.
"It already knew," Jenkins grunted, pulling another bolt from his quiver. "It was the pin on the map. Time to move again."
They abandoned the stream, clawing their way up the steep, western slope of the hollow, away from the town, deeper into the heart of the Blackwood. The mist began to thin as they gained elevation, replaced by the familiar, dense canopy and profound silence. But the silence was different now. It felt observed.
After another thirty minutes of grueling, silent travel, Jenkins led them to another of his prepared spots—a hunter's blind so well-camouflaged Alex didn't see it until they were inside. It was little more than a space between two giant, lightning-blasted firs, walled with woven branches and lined with dry moss. It smelled of earth and old fear.
"We hole up til dawn," Jenkins stated, checking the perimeter with a practiced eye. "Their thermal gear is good, but the biomass out here is a noisy blanket. If we stay still, we might fade into the background. They won't want to be caught in these woods after sunrise."
They sat in the dark, listening. The forest's night sounds slowly returned: an owl, the scuttle of something small in the leaves. But underneath it, Alex now heard the absence of other sounds—no howls, no distant crashes. The events in the hollow had sent a shockwave through the forest's unseen inhabitants. Everything was hiding.
"Jenkins," Alex said quietly, breaking the long silence. "The scar on your chest. Your sister… was she 'treated' by the old Committee, or by something like the Covenant?"
Jenkins was silent for so long Alex thought he wouldn't answer. "The old ways were brutal, but they were local," he said finally, his voice a dry rustle in the dark. "A silver bullet, a covered-up grave in the woods. It was crime of passion, almost. This… the Covenant… it's crime of policy. Of profit. They'll put her in a stainless steel room and measure her screams. They'll take her apart to see what makes the curse tick, and then they'll try to patent it." He shifted, the old wood of the blind creaking. "What we did tonight… it bought her a reprieve. A short one. They'll be back with more drones, more men, better tech. They've got her scent now. Literally and figuratively."
"We have to warn Kiera," Alex said. "Carver will use this failure to pressure Sebastian even more. He'll say the old methods are creating uncontrollable monsters, that only his science can manage the problem. He'll want Kiera as the 'stable' counterpart to Lily's 'feral' specimen."
"Aye," Jenkins agreed. "And Sebastian, scared for his legacy and his daughter, might just hand her over to the devil he thinks he can bargain with." He sighed, a sound of immense weariness. "We need to get a message to the manor. But going there directly is a trap. Carver will have it watched now, expecting us to run to our allies."
An idea, fragile and dangerous, began to form in Alex's mind. "We don't go to the manor. We go to the one person in town who has to act like nothing's wrong, but who gave us the tip in the first place."
Jenkins peered at him through the gloom. "Walker."
"She's caught. She helped us, however indirectly. If Carver finds out, she's finished. But if we can show her that Carver's next move is to essentially seize control of the town's oldest, darkest secret—to take the Blackwoods and the curse into corporate custody—it might push her off the fence. She's the law. She has access, authority."
"Or she might hand us over to save her own skin and preserve the town's peace," Jenkins countered bluntly.
"It's a risk. But we're out of good options. We can't stay in the woods forever. We need information, resources. And we need to know what Carver is planning next."
Dawn came grudgingly, a grey seep of light through the woven branches. The forest remained silent. No drones hummed, no tactical teams crashed through the underbrush. The Covenant had withdrawn, but their absence was more ominous than their presence.
They moved at first light, sticking to the deepest woods, circling wide to approach Millfield from the north, away from the main roads. From a ridge, they watched the town wake up. Smoke curled from chimneys. Cars left for work. It looked deceptively normal.
"You go," Jenkins said, squatting behind a mossy boulder. "I'm too well-known. My face at the Sheriff's station this morning would raise every flag. You're still the new guy, even if you're a person of interest now. Use the front door. Be bold. Tell her you're following up on your statement. You have 'new concerns.'"
"And if she arrests me on the spot?"
"Then you'll know where she stands," Jenkins said, handing him a small, sealed metal tube. "But give her this first. It's a piece of the drone you shot down. The serial number is mostly intact. It's military-grade, not commercially available. Proof that Carver's 'philanthropic foundation' is running black ops in her county. Might give her the leverage she needs, or the spine."
Alex took the tube, its metal cold against his palm. It felt like both a weapon and a peace offering. He nodded, took a deep breath, and started down the slope towards the back fences of Millfield, leaving the safety of the woods and Jenkins behind.
Walking into the heart of town in his damp, torn, muddy clothes felt like the most exposed he had ever been. He felt every glance from early-rising shopkeepers, every curtain twitch. The air smelled of baking bread and woodsmoke, a cruel parody of safety.
The Sheriff's station was just opening. Deputy Miller was at the front desk, sipping coffee. His eyes widened when Alex walked in.
"Mr. Reed. You're up early." The deputy's tone was carefully neutral.
"I need to speak with Sheriff Walker. It's urgent. About… last night."
Miller's expression didn't change, but his eyes flickered. He picked up the phone, muttered into it, then nodded. "Go on back."
Elena Walker's office door was open. She stood by her filing cabinet, her back to him. She turned as he entered, and for a fraction of a second, he saw raw, unguarded shock on her face before the professional mask slammed down. Her eyes took in his disheveled state, the mud, the tear in his jacket from the brambles.
"Close the door," she said quietly.
He did.
"You look like hell, Alex. And you smell like a sulfur pit." She didn't sit, didn't offer him a seat. She just stared at him, arms crossed.
"The Weeping Hollow," he said, meeting her gaze. "Carver tried to take a subject last night. A Moon-Touched. It was Lily Greene."
Walker flinched, her mask cracking again. "Is she…"
"Alive. Changed. But a part of her is still in there. We disrupted the capture. She got away, back into the deep woods."
"'We'?" Walker's voice was sharp.
"Jenkins. He's been preparing for this war longer than any of us." Alex placed the metal tube on her desk. It clinked against the wood. "Carver's team used this. Military surveillance drone. They're not researchers, Elena. They're an extraction team. And when we interfered, Carver gave a new order: abort the capture, apprehend the interlopers. We're now primary subjects."
He let the words hang. Walker looked from the tube to his face, her own pale. The conflict he'd seen in the garden was now a full-scale battle behind her eyes.
"You're telling me you engaged in a firefight with a private security team on county land," she stated, her cop voice trying to reassert control.
"I'm telling you a corporation is conducting paramilitary operations in your town to kidnap and experiment on a sick woman, and they're being facilitated by the mayor and God knows who else on the old Committee." He leaned forward, lowering his voice. "They failed last night. What do you think Carver's next move is? He'll go to Sebastian Blackwood and say, 'Your way is failing. The monsters are loose. Only we can contain them. Give us your daughter, give us access, or we'll go public and let the federal government burn this forest and everyone in it to the ground.' He'll force a partnership, and then he'll own everything. The curse, the forest, this town. And you'll be the sheriff who helped him do it."
Walker sank into her chair, looking suddenly very tired. She picked up the metal tube, rolling it in her fingers. "What do you want from me, Alex? To deputize you? To raid the Veritas office? They have lawyers thicker than our town charter. They have permits for 'ecological survey.' That drone could be explained away a dozen ways."
"I want you to choose a side," he said simply. "Not the town's silent conspiracy. Not Carver's glossy future. The side that tries to save a lost girl and stop a bunch of fanatics from turning a tragedy into an industry. Be the law, Elena. Not the cover-up."
She closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose. The silence in the office was absolute.
When she opened her eyes, the indecision was gone. Replaced by a hard, resigned clarity. "Carver has a meeting with Mayor Vance and Sebastian Blackwood at the town hall. Tonight. Eight PM. 'Discussion of ongoing community partnership and land-use issues.' A closed session. No minutes."
Information. A time, a place.
"He's making his move tonight," Alex said.
"Yes." Walker stood up, opening a locked drawer in her desk. She didn't pull out a gun. She pulled out a slim, encrypted burner phone. She slid it across the desk to him. "This is clean. My number is pre-programmed. If you see something, if you need something… I can't be with you. But I can run interference. I can be a distraction. It's not much."
It was everything. It was an alliance.
"Thank you," Alex said, pocketing the phone and the heavy weight of what it meant.
"Don't thank me," she said, her voice bleak. "I'm probably signing my own termination papers, and yours. Now get out of here. And for God's sake, get cleaned up. You look like a walking confession."
As Alex left the station, the morning sun felt hotter, the gaze of the town heavier. He had an ally, but the web was tightening. Carver was moving to consolidate power tonight. And Alex, Jenkins, and a reluctant sheriff were the only threads left to snag his plan.
The board was set. The closed-door meeting at town hall would be the next battlefield. And they had less than twelve hours to prepare.