Ashfall's bones creaked at midnight, stitched together by rusted cranes and cargo trucks that rattled through Dockside's rotten veins. The first truck rolled in slow, headlights dipped, exhaust coughing ghosts into the night. Behind it, a second — same markings, same hum of chained souls inside steel walls.
No one at the port lifted a hand. The Dockside watchmen turned their collars up against the rain and their eyes away from the truth. Umbra's bribes bought silence thicker than the storm.
Somewhere above those trucks, perched on a rusted scaffold forty feet up, the Black Raven had no idea yet. Not about the children packed in cages, or the forged manifests hidden in Silas Madox's encrypted ledgers. Tonight she was hunting smaller monsters — the ones stupid enough to wear the Flock's colors like a badge.
Below her, three Flock enforcers stumbled out the side door of a gambling den, pockets fat with cash, laughter echoing off graffiti-tagged walls. They moved like kings who'd never seen the guillotine.
Selene Kain dropped behind the last one like a curse whispered in an unlit chapel.
One feather-shaped blade kissed the man's spine, slipped clean under the ribs. He buckled without a sound, breath caught in his throat. She dragged him between two dumpsters, rain hissing down over fresh blood.
The second man turned at the wet thud — too slow. Selene's baton cracked his knee backward. He shrieked, tried to run, but she hooked his collar, slammed his head into the concrete once. Twice. The third tried to bolt. She was already moving.
He made it ten paces before her boot clipped his heel. He sprawled face-first in a reeking puddle. She pinned him there, blade pressed to the soft flesh under his ear.
"Who's moving Moloch Horn?" Her voice was so calm it barely rose above the drip of rain.
The thug sobbed into the grime. "I—I swear I don't—King Crow's got the leash—Silas knows—big trucks tonight—Dockside—"
"Where?"
"I don't know—swear—swear—"
She pushed the blade just deep enough to taste his pulse on the edge. "You people always swear. And you always lie."
When he didn't give her another word, she left him there — breathing, barely — and vanished into the downpour. Overhead, the cranes kept groaning. The trucks kept moving.
---
By dawn, the mask was gone. The wings folded under drab scrubs and the hum of Ashfall County Morgue's flickering fluorescents. Selene walked the halls like a shadow that belonged — invisible to everyone but the dead.
Dr. Edwin Rourke barked orders from his office, a mug of cheap coffee steaming beside stacks of backlogged reports.
"Kain! You logged the evidence tags on the Davidson overdoses?"
She didn't look up from the stainless-steel gurney. "Already done."
He grunted, shuffled papers like they owed him something. In this place, they did. Rourke didn't want questions — he wanted the bodies logged, the cause stamped, the files buried. He was stubborn, but predictable. Just how she liked him.
Across the hall, Damian Holt leaned against the breakroom door, arms crossed, a sly grin playing under yesterday's stubble. He held up a takeout cup.
"You look like you didn't sleep, Selene. Coffee?"
She eyed him, deadpan. She took the cup anyway. He watched her like he was reading a puzzle he couldn't solve.
"You ever wanna talk about… y'know…" He gestured vaguely at her bruised knuckles — always there, always "accidents."
"Drink your coffee, Damian," she said, turning back to her gurney.
He laughed it off. He always did. And she always made him wonder. Wondering was fine — wondering was safe.
---
By mid-afternoon, she slipped out to the rear stairwell, wire pressed to her collar. Micah's voice drifted through the hiss of static.
"Got you something. You'll like it."
"Go on."
"Remember those crates Silas is moving? Turns out they're not all chemicals. Two trucks last night — human cargo. Kids, teens, a few unlucky adults. Dockside. No manifests on record, only Umbra's signature buried deep."
Selene's hand clenched around the stair rail. "Where now?"
"New safehouse. East Quarter textile mill, abandoned since the riots. Flock muscle guard the trucks, Umbra's fixer inside. Warren Bellows — name ring a bell?"
"Trafficker. Umbra puppet."
"Bingo. He's the leash that keeps the cargo invisible."
Selene's eyes darkened. "Not tonight."
---
By nightfall, rain clawed at the old East Quarter like hungry fingers. Selene crouched behind a rusted sedan across from the shuttered mill. Micah fed her the grid — patrol routes, guard rotations, blind spots in the half-broken security feed.
Inside the fence: three trucks parked tight under a floodlight's harsh glare. Two armed thugs paced near the trailers, rifles low but ready. A prefab office sat at the far end — warm yellow light spilling through a cracked door. Bellows' den.
Selene ghosted across the gravel yard. One guard leaned against the cab, fidgeting with a lighter. She stepped behind him — a soft exhale, blade under his ribs. He sagged against the truck with a sigh, eyes wide at the nothing above him.
The second turned at the dull thud — saw her shape in the rain, eyes wide. He raised the rifle. She was faster. Baton cracked his jaw sideways, then a follow-up slam into his solar plexus. He gasped, dropped to his knees. She pressed the blade to his throat — no words this time. His last breath fogged her glove.
---
Inside the prefab, Warren Bellows muttered over a ledger thick with fake bills and forged IDs. He didn't hear her come in — not until her shadow swallowed the room's cheap lamp light.
He spun, a fat hand fumbling under the desk for something heavy. Selene shot him in the knee. He crumpled behind the chair, squealing like a hog in a butcher's stall.
"Quiet now, Warren," Selene murmured. "I don't need your noise."
He sobbed. "Don't—don't kill me—Umbra—Umbra needs me—Silas—Silas signs—he's the chain—"
"And you're the hook that drags them in," she said. Her eyes flicked over the files. Kids, sold by the pound. Names typed like grocery lists. She knelt beside him, pressing the barrel to his forehead.
"Where's the next shipment?"
"Next week—new docks—container yard—please, please—"
She nodded. "You ever see your own guts, Warren?"
His eyes widened, but the question wasn't really for him. The barrel barked once — quick, clean. Blood spattered over his spreadsheets. Mercy was a lie she didn't owe men like him.
---
She stepped back out into the yard. Micah's whisper tickled her ear.
"Cops will be on this in ten. You're clear."
"Not yet. Send the extraction for the kids. Quiet. Clean."
"Already working. Kain? We're gonna need Silas next."
Selene wiped Bellows' blood from her glove, slipping back into the shadows. The rain washed the alley behind her clean — but not clean enough.
---
At dawn, Ashfall's cheap morning light found Selene back under flickering fluorescents, same stained scrubs, same stale coffee. Rourke barked about missing tags. Damian Holt leaned in her doorway again, grin crooked, eyes sharp.
"You look tired," he said.
She said nothing — just sipped the coffee. Her mind replayed the trucks, the cages, the small eyes that wouldn't have to see the mill's walls again.
The city rotted under marble courts and neon rain. But tonight, Ashfall's monsters found out what it felt like to be prey.
And tomorrow, Silas Madox would learn too.
---
END OF CHAPTER THIRTEEN