The transport van rattled along, a cramped metal box vibrating with the smell of stale oil and nervous sweat. Sila sat across from Katherine and Sunio, while another squad of three occupied the opposite bench, their faces tight with impatience rather than fear.
The most irritating part? Axil was nowhere to be seen. He had told them to meet at the bay and then vanished, leaving them to ride with low-level drivers like excess cargo.
The engine swallowed most sound until one of the boys from the other squad leaned forward. He wasn't glaring. He was staring at Sila.
"Hey," the boy said, raising his voice over the hum. "How come you're still alive?"
Sunio stiffened, but the boy lifted his hands. "I'm not trying to be rude. We studied Halfs in prep school. Most don't make it past thirteen. The Tar blood destabilizes the organs. I've never seen one reach seventeen."
Katherine didn't look surprised. Sunio didn't argue.
Sila glanced at his hands, the faint heat beneath his skin pulsing like a warning. "I don't know," he said evenly. "I just am."
The boy flushed and leaned back. Silence fell, heavier than before.
The van screeched to a halt. When the doors opened, the White City was gone. District 9 lay before them, gray and skeletal, its windows hollow like empty eye sockets. The air carried the scent of wet ash layered over something metallic, making Sila wrinkle his nose.
A man with a narrow face and cutting eyes waited at the perimeter. A Vice Captain. Both squads formed lines automatically.
"Too many recruits this intake," he said, voice flat and controlled. "The Capital does not need numbers. It needs competence."
His gaze swept the line and lingered briefly on Sila's glacial eyes. "This is a culling."
No one reacted.
"There is a Tar in this sector. You will locate it. You will eliminate it. We will not assist you."
A subtle shift passed through the line. One boy adjusted the spike-like weapon strapped to his forearm. Sunio checked his bowstring. Katherine rolled her shoulders, composed and precise.
"If you do not know how to end it properly," the Vice Captain continued, "you will only make it worse."
Sila's stomach tightened. There was a method. Everyone else seemed to understand it. No one asked.
"Call me Vice. I will observe from the perimeter. If I step in, it means you have failed. Two hours until dawn."
He turned and walked away.
The other squad began speaking in low, focused tones. "If it's nested inside a structure, flush it first." "Break the outer mass, then target the center." "Don't let it split."
Split.
Sila kept his expression blank. Katherine glanced at him once and understood, but she didn't expose him.
The other squad headed toward the main road. Katherine turned back, maroon hair snapping in the wind. "Change of plan. You stay ten paces behind."
His jaw tightened. "Why?"
"They're already afraid," she said quietly, gesturing toward the houses. "If they see a Half approaching, they'll lock themselves inside. We need information. Stay back until we locate it. When it's time to finish it, we move together."
Sunio didn't look at him, but his grip tightened on the bow.
Sila remained in the street, watching their backs disappear into the gray haze. They were excluding him again.
He considered following, but trailing behind like an obedient shadow felt worse than staying put. He sat on a jagged rock and pressed his palms against his eyes. Forty-eight hours ago, he had a life. Now he was a soldier in a dead district.
The town felt wrong. No doors shifting. No muffled voices. Not even the subtle rhythm of someone moving behind a wall.
Then the air shifted.
A jagged chill crawled up his spine, the same sensation he had felt on the train. He straightened slowly and scanned the street. It was empty, but the feeling didn't leave. Something was here, and it was watching.
He stood. He couldn't sit through his first test.
Sila approached the nearest house and knocked. No answer. He knocked again, harder. Silence.
He leaned toward the window, but the grime was too thick to see through. Then the smell hit him fully, heavy, metallic, unmistakable.
Blood.
His stomach twisted. He didn't hesitate. He drove his shoulder into the door, splintering it inward.
Darkness swallowed him.
He fumbled for a switch. Nothing. The power was dead.
He pulled the flashlight from his belt. The beam cut through thick dust. The house looked sealed and undisturbed, yet the metallic scent grew stronger as he moved down the hallway.
His footsteps sounded too loud. The silence pressed in around him.
A creak echoed from the next room. Something tipped over.
The heat in his palms flared.
He swung the beam into the kitchen.
A hand protruded from beneath the table, pale, stiff and stained dark. The light lifted slowly, revealing the rest.
A family.
Not torn apart. Not devoured. Hollowed.
Their skin clung thin and gray to emptied frames, as if something had reached inside and drained them from within.
Sila stumbled backward, breath catching in his throat. He didn't check the other rooms. He fled, boots skidding against the floor, and burst back into the street, gasping for air that didn't taste like copper.
"Sila!"
He turned. Katherine and Sunio were running toward him, the other squad sprinting from the opposite end of the road. Every face looked pale.
The boy who had questioned him stopped a few feet away, chest heaving. His gaze flicked to the open door behind Sila. "You found them too, didn't you?"
Sila nodded.
"We don't need to ask," Katherine said, scanning the silent houses. "This isn't normal."
"Even a stray Tar couldn't wipe out this many people without a signal going out," the other squad's leader said. "Authorities would've evacuated. Executors would've sealed the area."
Which meant no signal had been sent or no one had time.
"We need to find the Vice," Sunio said quietly.
A sharp crack split the air.
Wood splintered above them.
Every head snapped upward. The rooftops groaned under something heavy moving across them, the sound slow and deliberate, as if whatever it was carried its weight with care.