Two days. For two days, every time I closed my eyes, I saw their faces. Tessa. Cody. The sheer terror. It wasn't a roar of guilt. It was a whisper. You did this. You're the monster.

  My new home, the derelict lab my uncle had called ‘The Kennel,’ was a five-star resort of self-pity. I’d been holed up, licking my wounds—both the physical and the soul-crushing kind.

  The purple leather of my outfit was stiff with dried grime, and my bare feet were a mess of cuts and bruises. But the actual injury was the gaping hole where my life used to be.

  “Good morning, sunshine!” Handy’s cheerful, synthesized voice chirped from my wrist. “Or, technically, it’s 3:47 AM, so… good morning, terrifying, all-consuming darkness! Did you get any sleep, or did you spend the entire night perfecting that thousand-yard stare? It’s very dramatic.”

  “I was busy having an existential crisis,” I grumbled, pushing myself up from a pile of dusty lab coats I’d fashioned into a nest. “Don’t rush my process.”

  “Process noted. While you were communing with your inner angst, I’ve been busy. I cross-referenced city-wide energy grid fluctuations with emergency services chatter and the migratory patterns of sewer-rats.”

  “And?” I asked, my voice flat.

  “And I found your brother-in-bioweaponry. Subject-17 has been… active.”

  A holographic map of the city flickered to life in the air above the wristband. A single red dot pulsed over the derelict freight yards down by the chemical canal. “Two power surges and a whole lot of screaming about twenty minutes ago. If you wanted to have a family reunion, now would be the time.”

  The whisper of guilt became a shout.

  Ravage was out there. Hunting. Killing. And it was my fault. My uncle’s fault. Our fault. If I hadn’t been so busy feeling sorry for myself, maybe I could have stopped him. Maybe I could have saved the people he terrorized now.

  A new feeling burned through the fog of self-pity: anger. Hot, clean, and sharp.

  “Okay,” I said, getting to my feet. The cuts on my soles stung, but the anger was a better painkiller than anything in my parents’ medicine cabinet. “Let’s go.”

  “Whoa there, tiger,” Handy said. “Let’s review the data. Subject-17 is an eight-foot-tall, cybernetically enhanced killing machine with combat protocols hard wired into its DNA. You are a seventeen-year-old girl who, until last week, thought a split lip was a major injury. Your current plan appears to be ‘run at it and see what happens.’ May I suggest a plan with slightly more… planning?”

  “I’m stronger now,” I shot back, the memory of shattering the backboard, of my reflexes, flashing in my mind.

  “Faster. I’m not the same girl he attacked in the alley.” A dangerous, unfamiliar cockiness was blooming in my chest. I had this power now. What was the point of having it if I didn’t use it?

  “I’ve got the element of surprise,” I continued, more to convince myself than the AI. “He won’t be expecting me to come at him. I’ll be a blur. In and out. I'll end it fast. What’s the worst that could happen?”

  “Let’s see,” Handy’s voice was dry as dust. “A short, incomplete list of worst-case scenarios includes: A) being disemboweled, B) being torn limb from limb, C) being horrifically maimed and left for the rats, or D) my favorite, being captured by Pandora and turned into Subject-18. But hey, you do you.”

  I ignored him, my mind already made up. The guilt demanded action. My newfound power demanded a test. I stalked out of the lab and back into the suffocating darkness of the industrial sector. I was going hunting.

  The freight yards were even more of a wasteland than the factory district. Towering stacks of shipping containers formed a maze of rusted steel canyons, the gaps between them dark and foreboding. The air was thick with the acrid stench of the chemical canal, a smell so sharp it made my eyes water. The only light came from the sickly, orange glow of a few flickering safety lamps, casting long, distorted shadows that danced like ghosts.

  “The tracking signal is getting stronger,” Handy whispered, its voice now stripped of its usual cheer. “He’s close. My thermal sensors indicate two heat signatures just ahead. One large, one small. One moving aggressively, one… cowering.”

  My heart hammered against my ribs. I crept forward, my bare feet making no sound on the oil-stained gravel. I peeked around the edge of a massive, graffiti-covered container.

  And there he was.

  Ravage. He looked even bigger, more monstrous, out in the open. He more hunched over, his massive, fur-covered back to me. His buggy, yellow eyes fixed on a figure huddled against the corrugated steel wall of a container. A man. A civilian, dressed in the simple gray uniform of a dockworker, his face pale with terror.

  “Please,” the man whimpered, his voice a thin thread of sound. “I don’t have anything…”

  Ravage let out a low, rattling growl, the sound of a machine trying to imitate an animal. He took a slow step forward, savoring the man’s fear.

  That was it. That was my cue.

  The cockiness surged, hot and intoxicating. I was the hero. The reluctant, sarcastic hero, maybe, but the hero. This was my moment.

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  I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t think. I exploded from behind the container, a blur of motion fueled by righteous fury. My legs, now packed with an unnatural power, devoured the distance between us in a handful of silent, predatory strides.

  “Hey, Fido!” I yelled, my voice cracking through the tense silence. “Heard you were a bad dog. I’m here to put you down.”

  Ravage spun around, his yellow eyes widening in what looked like surprise. He hadn’t heard me. He hadn’t smelled me. For the first time, I had the advantage.

  He lunged, a roar of fury tearing from his throat. But I was ready. I was faster.

  I ducked under his wild, sweeping claw-strike, the wind from the blow rustling my hair. I planted my feet and drove my fist into his gut.

  The impact was solid. A grunt of pain burned his lungs. It was working. I was actually doing it.

  He staggered back, and I pressed the attack. I was a whirlwind of motion, my cheerleading agility twisted into something deadly. I used his own bulk against him, darting in and out, landing a series of quick, stinging blows to his ribs, his legs, his head. My knuckles cracked against his cybernetically reinforced jaw with a spark.

  “Not so tough when your chew-toy fights back, are ya?” I taunted, a wild, breathless grin spreading across my face.

  The civilian, seeing his chance, scrambled away, disappearing into the shadows of the container maze. Good. One less thing to worry about. Now it was just me and the monster.

  Ravage roared again, this time a sound of pure rage. He swiped at me, but his movements were clumsy, brutish. All power, no finesse. I dodged, rolled, and came up swinging, landing a kick to the side of his knee.

  There was a wet, cracking sound, and he howled in pain, his leg buckling.

  Got him. The thought was a jolt of pure electricity. Wounded, off-balance. It's over.

  And then, he did something I didn’t expect. He turned and ran.

  He limped away, disappearing down a narrow, pitch-black gap between two towering stacks of containers.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” I muttered, my blood singing with the thrill of the fight. “You’re not getting away that easy.”

  “Nikki, wait!” Handy’s voice was a frantic squawk from my wrist. “His combat protocols just registered a tactical retreat! It’s a feint! It’s a…”

  But I was already gone, charging into the darkness after him, high on my power. The thrill of the hunt had consumed me. I was the predator now.

  I was in control.

  The gap between the containers was barely wider than my shoulders. It was a tunnel of pure blackness. The stench of rust and decay was overwhelming in the enclosed space. I couldn’t see a thing, but I could hear him up ahead, his ragged, hitching breath, the scrape of his claws on the gravel.

  He was just ahead. Cornered.

  Trapped.

  I burst out of the narrow gap into a small, enclosed clearing, a dead-end formed by three massive containers. It was empty.

  I stopped, my head whipping back and forth. Where did he go? He couldn’t have just vanished. The only way out was the way I came in.

  A single, metallic scrape from above.

  I looked up.

  Ravage was clinging to the top edge of the container directly over me, his silhouette a horrifying shape against the smoggy, moonless sky. His yellow eyes burned down at me, and for the first time, the hunger in them was gone. A cold had replaced it, calculating, tactical cunning.

  He had lured me in. He had faked the injury. He had played me like a fiddle.

  My blood ran cold. I wasn't the hunter. I was the prey.

  Before I could even process the thought, he dropped.

  He landed in front of me with a ground-shaking thud, blocking the only exit. The enclosed space suddenly felt like a cage. A tomb. The hunter’s swagger I’d felt moments ago evaporated, replaced by a cold, stomach-churning dread.

  He didn't roar this time. He just came at me.

  His movements were no longer wild or clumsy. They were precise, economical, and deadly. He wasn’t a beast anymore. He was a soldier. A trained weapon.

  He feinted left.

  I dodged right—directly into his other claw.

  Fire ripped across my ribs.

  I cried out, stumbling back against the cold steel wall.

  He pressed his advantage, not giving me a second to breathe. His attacks came in a blur, a terrifyingly efficient sequence of strikes, blocks, and grapples. I tried to fight back, but my wild, untrained swings parried. My strength was useless against his technique. He used my momentum against me, deflecting my punches and sending me staggering.

  He was dismantling me.

  A backhand sent me crashing to the ground. The world spun, the taste of blood, coppery and sharp, filling my mouth. I tried to scramble up, but his massive foot slammed down on my chest, pinning me to the gravel.

  He loomed over me, his crooked jaw twisting into what looked disturbingly like a grin. His ragged breath hitched in his chest, a wet, rattling sound. He lowered his head until his glowing yellow eyes were inches from mine. A single, warped, almost-human whisper slithered from his throat, a sound full of rage and pain.

  “Hhh… hurt… kill…”

  Then he raised his clawed hand, the one with the steel grafts fused into the bone, and brought it down. Not a killing blow. Something worse. He dragged the tips of his claws down my cheek, from my temple to my jaw. The pain was exquisite, a precise, calculated agony. It wasn’t the act of a mindless beast. It was the act of a torturer.

  He removed his foot. I lay there, gasping, every part of me screaming.

  The fresh blood from my cheek dripped into the gravel. I had been so cocky. So stupid. And he had torn me apart for it.

  Ravage stared down at me for a long moment, his chest heaving. Then, as if deciding I was no longer worth the effort, no longer a threat, he turned and scaled the wall of the container, disappearing over the top without a sound.

  He left me there. Broken. Beaten.

  Bleeding in the dirt.

  I lay in the dirt, tasting blood and chemicals. The adrenaline was gone, leaving only the screaming from my ribs and the new slash on my face.

  Handy was right. Raw power wasn't enough. He hadn't just beaten me. He'd played me. I wasn't the hunter. I was the bait. And I'd walked right into the trap.