The word hung in the heat.
"Halt."
It didn't echo. The border ate sound. The only thing that moved was dust, drifting slow around the boots of the soldiers who had appeared out of the shimmer.
Zubair kept both hands on the wheel.
He didn't look at anyone in the Hummer, but Elias saw the small tendons in his forearms tighten.
Beside him, Sera tilted her head as if someone had played a new note in a song. In the back seat beside him, Lachlan had gone very still, and Alexei's gaze tracked—not the men—but the spaces between them.
Luci's claws clicked once in the cargo space. Then he stilled too.
They are better trained than you, the creature in Elias's head said, bored. Better synchronized. Better fed. That is what order looks like when it fears extinction.
Elias ignored it. "Hands visible," he said quietly. "No weapons."
"We didn't reach for any," Lachlan muttered.
"You were thinking about it."
