Chapter 2

  Kelix jerked his hand back as if the core had bitten him. The blue heat flared, then collapsed into his skin. The text vanished with it, leaving only the core's dull glow and the weight of his own breathing.

  He stood still, listening to the park's dead quiet, listening for anything that could explain what had just happened. A gust of wind pushed through the ruined walkway, rattling a loose sign. Somewhere in the distance, metal groaned as a support beam shifted.

  Nothing else.

  His eyes slid to Finn.

  The Fenrir had stopped licking his leg. His head was angled slightly now, ears forward, gaze resting on Kelix with an attention that made Kelix's neck prickle. Finn's expression did not change, but the stillness in him did. It was the stillness of a predator that had noticed movement.

  Kelix tightened his grip on the core until the cold bit into his palm. The urge to ask was there, hot and immediate.

  Did you see that?

  Do monsters know about this?

  Is this a thing they live with, like another sense?

  He swallowed hard and held Finn's leash. It was colder than he expected. Hesitantly, he acknowledged that Finn was not his friend. Finn was Dariel's problem; his leash was wrapped in Kelix's hand only because the rules demanded it.

  Kelix slid the core back into his backpack as if he could bury the moment with it. The blue heat did not return, but his hand felt wrong, too aware of itself, as if it had been briefly used as a key.

  He forced his voice steady. "You said you heard something. Where is the other one?"

  Finn's gaze lingered a second longer, unreadable. Then he looked away, almost casually, and sniffed the air.

  "Further in," Finn said. "And it is not alone."

  Kelix tightened his grip on the leash and slowed his steps, trusting Finn's instincts even when he hated doing so. If the Fenrir had caught something, it was rarely wrong. He followed Finn's gaze as the beast angled his head toward a collapsed concession stand half-buried in rubble.

  They moved carefully, their footsteps crunching softly against broken concrete and faded ticket stubs. Kelix ducked behind a toppled statue base, pulling Finn in close despite the size difference. He expected the telltale stench of reptile scales and damp earth. Instead, he heard voices.

  Whatever he had heard was not stalking prey. It was careless. Loud in the way only humans could be.

  He frowned and eased his head around the edge of the rubble. A group was walking through the park's central plaza, moving with an almost casual confidence that did not belong in a place like this. Four of them. A party.

  Kelix watched them for another second, letting the pattern settle in his head.

  Were they a patrol? Were they from the Association? They were not from the government. Not the kind of people who came with cages and paperwork and that stiff politeness that meant they would still ruin your day. These looked like the sort who treated danger like a group project.

  He could almost hear the chatter in his imagination, the confident planning, the casual talk about ranks and drops, the way people got when they had numbers on their side.

  He kept his expression mild. It was a habit. A mask he wore so often he sometimes forgot it was there.

  At the front was a cheerful girl no older than her late teens, a sword resting easily in her hand as she chatted animatedly with the others. She was a problem. Not because she looked strong, though she probably was, but because she looked loud.

  Loud people drew attention. Loud people pulled monsters out of hiding just by existing. Loud people also asked questions. Kelix did not want questions.

  Beside the girl, the boy with the staff and the floating book was worse in a different way. Mages and support types were usually the first to notice things that did not fit, and Kelix had just had a moment that did not fit. Even thinking about the core made his right hand feel faintly irritated, like it was waiting for another pulse.

  Trailing slightly behind, the man in the suit looked like he did not belong here. His scowl said he knew it, too. Maybe he was a sponsor, maybe a handler, maybe someone important enough to complain until someone else fixed his problems.

  Those were always the most annoying, because they were never the ones who bled. He checked his wristwatch every few seconds while clutching a briefcase as if it might bite someone.

  Next to him, the young woman with the phone moved like she had not slept properly in weeks. She looked like she was juggling finals and a life that refused to pause, the kind of person who was a month away from graduating and already tired of being asked what came next. The ferret creature in her purse made Kelix's eyes narrow a fraction.

  A familiar. Or a small Soulbound. Either way, it meant she had more going on than her distracted posture suggested.

  Kelix shifted his weight, keeping his body tucked behind the statue base. Finn's leash lay cold across his palm, and Finn himself had gone still beside him, head lowered, ears angled forward.

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  Finn's eyes tracked the group with a calm focus that made Kelix uneasy. The Fenrir did not look hungry. He looked entertained.

  Kelix leaned closer, voice low. "Do not."

  Finn did not look at him. "Do not what."

  "Do not start something."

  Finn huffed through his nose, a soft puff of frost. "You are the one using me to hunt illegal dinner lizards near a restricted park. You do not get to talk to me about behavior."

  Kelix ignored the jab. He kept watching the group as they crossed the plaza, stepping over cracked tiles and weeds that had claimed the seams between them. The cheerful girl gestured with her sword as she spoke, like it was an extension of her hand.

  The mage's book flipped another page on its own. The man in the suit checked his watch again, then pointed at something ahead as if time itself were offended by their pace. The woman glanced down at her phone, nearly stepped on a broken beer bottle, and corrected herself without looking up.

  The group laughed about something, their voices carrying easily through the empty park. He felt a familiar annoyance settle in his chest as the name Chimeron Association came up more than once.

  They were heading in the same direction Finn had indicated. Kelix exhaled slowly, irritation bubbling. Great.

  If there was another crocoraptor, and it was not alone, and these four walked straight into it, the odds of something loud happening went up.

  That could be useful. It could also be a mess.

  Kelix did the quick calculation he always did. Risk versus reward.

  If they drew the monsters out, he could pick off what slipped past them. If they got hurt, the Association would show up. If the Association showed up, they might check the area. If they checked the area, they might notice him. If they noticed him, they might ask for his permit. And if they asked for his permit, he would have to lie, and he was tired of lying to people in uniforms.

  He rubbed his thumb against the leash, feeling the cold bite into his skin even through the glove. Would Finn just warm up a bit? Darn it!

  Finn's ear twitched. "They smell like city."

  "We are in a city," Kelix whispered.

  "You know what I mean."

  Kelix did. People who lived their lives indoors carried a certain scent. Clean laundry. Soap. Plastic. Electronics. The faint tang of anxiety that sat under everything when you were constantly thinking about schedules and grades and rent.

  It was different from hunters who spent most of their time around by muck, must, and dust from various environments.

  So why were they here?

  Kelix's eyes narrowed again, not out of anger, but focus. Perhaps they were a student team. Maybe it was a ridiculous training exercise. Or they were here because the rumors about crocoraptors had spread far enough to attract bargain hunters.

  Cores sold well. Even F-Rank cores, if intact, paid for groceries. A Dark Blue core paid for more than groceries.

  He did not like how that thought landed in his chest. He wanted to move.

  He wanted to follow at a distance, keep them in sight, keep the monsters in mind, keep his own hands where he could see them. He also wanted to turn around and leave the whole park behind.

  He stayed where he was.

  Finn shifted, chains along his limbs clinking softly. Kelix tightened his grip on the leash without thinking. Finn did not protest, but Kelix felt the moment of tension anyway, like the Fenrir was letting him do it for now.

  The group passed behind a warped carousel frame. Their voices faded, swallowed by broken glass and rusted metal. Kelix waited until they were far enough that even the mage's floating book would not give him away if it turned in the wrong direction.

  He straightened slightly, then paused.

  Something felt off. Not danger. Not the crocoraptor. Not Finn's attention.

  It was something smaller, quieter. Like a gap.

  Kelix's gaze swept the plaza again, confirming what he already knew. Four. They had all moved on.

  He motioned Finn forward with a tug of the leash.

  "Stay behind them," Kelix said. "If things go sideways, we slip around the edge and I finish what I came for."

  Finn's eyes gleamed faintly. "You are going to use them as bait."

  Kelix's mouth twitched. Guilt and uncertainty burned in his chest, but he knew he must do what he could. "They are already bait… they just do not know it yet."

  Finn let out a sound that might have been approval, or amusement, or both.

  Kelix stepped out from behind the statue base, careful with his footing. His sneakers crunched softly on gravel and fragments of tile. He kept his shoulders loose, his face neutral, like he was just another person wandering through a dead park at dusk.

  He followed the direction the group had gone, keeping his distance and keeping his breathing steady.

  Sometimes that was all it took to survive.

  The black haired girl at the back had glanced at him.

  Kelix froze mid-step.

  No. That was not right. There were only four. He had watched four walk across the plaza. A loud sword girl, a mage with a floating book, a suit with a briefcase, and a near-graduate with a phone. Four bodies, four sets of footsteps, four voices.

  He tightened his grip on the leash, slow and controlled, as if the motion could anchor his thoughts.

  Then he replayed the scene in his head again, not as a memory, but as a scan. The way he replayed a fight after it ended, looking for the moment he could have died.

  One. The cheerful girl's laugh. Two. The mage's book turning pages. Three. The suit man's watch glinting in the last light. Four. The young woman's purse shifting as something inside moved.

  They were four. His eyes shifted left, then right, searching the shadows along the broken ride supports and the gaps between concession stands. The park was full of places for a person to stand and not be noticed.

  Kelix swallowed.

  He had thought he saw black hair. Waist-length. He had thought he saw red threads on hands that did not move. He had thought he felt a look settle on him for the briefest instant, cold and distant like the blue heat that sometimes crawled across his skin.

  If that was true, then he had missed someone standing right there. His stomach tightened in a way that had nothing to do with excitement.

  He forced himself to breathe and turned his head back toward the path the group had taken.

  A beautiful figure lingered near the edge of the carousel frame, half-hidden by the twisted metal. She was not walking with the others, nor catching up.

  She was simply there, as if she had always belonged to the background of Kelix's mind: black hair, long enough to swallow the last of the daylight. Red threads wrapped around her hands.

  Her gaze lifted. For a moment, it landed on Kelix.

  It was not an aggressive stare. It was not even curious. It was empty in a very specific way, like she was looking at him because something told her he was present, not because she cared who he was.

  Kelix's throat went dry. So there were not four. There were five.

  He hated how easily his count had been wrong. It made him think of the core's text, the way it had appeared inside his sight without permission. It made him think of the feeling that something had been watching the world in categories while everyone else pretended it was normal.

  Finn did not growl. He did not bare his teeth. He simply stared at the girl the way he stared at prey he had not decided to chase.

  Kelix kept his voice low. "Finn."

  Finn did not look away. "I see her. Her vibes are terrible."

  Kelix's fingers flexed around the leash. His right hand stayed calm. The girl's gaze drifted off him as quickly as it had landed. She turned her head toward the direction the others had gone, then stepped forward with silent ease.

  One moment she was near the carousel frame. The next she was gone from that spot, swallowed by the clutter and the dusk, as if the park had decided to keep her. Kelix stood there for another heartbeat, then moved again, slower this time.

  His earlier plan shifted, subtle but immediate.

  Though it might have been frustrating, he decided it would be best to follow the group. Perhaps the girl would inform her companions of his presence.

  Either way, it would be better to stay in motion than to linger, wondering what she was up to.

  Hunter Tip: Never assume four is four. Always trust your Intuition, but not too much.