Kaelen tried to move. His fingers brushed against the cold marble, scraping over the copper wish-coins that had spilled from the fountain. He needed to get up. He needed to put miles of steel and concrete between himself and the wet, rhythmic sounds of the "Little Girl's" harvest.
But as he pushed against the floor, the world tilted.
A sudden, nauseating surge of vertigo slammed into him. The back of his head—where it had struck the pillar after being launched by the girl's impossible strength—felt like it was being split by a white-hot chisel. His vision didn't just blur; it fractured. The flickering emergency lights of the Atrium multiplied, dancing in jagged, nauseating patterns.
He felt a warm, sticky trickle of blood slide down his neck, seeping under the collar of his tactical vest.
"I have to... move," he whispered, but the words were a slurred mess inside his respirator.
He managed to drag himself three feet toward the shadow of a shattered kiosk. His breath was coming in shallow, ragged gasps. Every time his heart hammered, a fresh pulse of agony throbbed at the base of his skull. The "Uncapped Strength" that had saved his life had also nearly ended it. Being thrown by a high-tier Cannibal was like being hit by a car; the kinetic energy had rattled his brain inside his skull.
His hand fell limp. The last thing Kaelen saw before the darkness swallowed him was the silhouette of the girl. She was still hunched over Miller's remains, her black-red hair shimmering under the violet pulse of the facility's dying power grid. She didn't look back. She didn't check on him.
Then, the lights went out in his mind.
Awareness returned in fragments. First, the smell—the sharp, metallic scent of dried blood mixed with the cold, damp stone of the fountain. Then, the weight.
Kaelen's eyes fluttered open. The Atrium was bathed in the deep, indigo shadows of a facility running on its final reserves. He was still on the floor, tucked against the base of the pillar, but he wasn't alone.
Lying directly beside him, curled into a small, silent ball, was the girl.
A jolt of pure, cold adrenaline spiked through Kaelen's chest. He went rigid, his breath catching in his throat. She was inches away. But she wasn't hunting. She was fast asleep.
Kaelen looked down and felt his heart skip a beat. His right hand was resting directly against her chest, right over her heart. Her own small, pale hands were wrapped around his, her fingers interlaced with his, pulling his hand upward so that his knuckles brushed against her cheek.
She was holding onto him like a lifeline.
In her sleep, the dark red bruising under her eyes had faded almost entirely, leaving her looking hauntingly like the fifteen-year-old girl she appeared to be. The void-black dilation had receded, though her eyelids remained slightly parted. The rhythmic thrum of her heart—unnaturally fast and powerful—vibrated against Kaelen's palm.
Why? Kaelen wondered, his mind racing through every bio-tech manual he'd ever read. Why would an Apex predator sleep like this?
He felt a wave of nausea and panic. Being this close to a Cannibal was a death sentence. Every protocol told him that the "Frenzy" could trigger the moment she woke and smelled his proximity. He needed to move. He needed to get his hand back.
Slowly, agonizingly, Kaelen began to retract his fingers. He moved an inch at a time, his skin crawling as he felt the warmth of her face.
The moment his hand broke contact, the girl's eyes snapped open.
Kaelen scrambled backward, his heels skidding on the marble as he threw himself away from her. "Stay... stay back!" he choked out, his voice a dry rasp. He hit the pillar with his shoulder, his eyes wide and terrified.
The girl sat up with a fluid, terrifying grace. There was no grogginess, no slow awakening. One moment she was asleep; the next, she was a coiled spring. Her pupils were already dilating, the black pits expanding to swallow the amber as she locked onto him.
She didn't lunge. She simply sat there, watching him with that eerie, silent curiosity.
"You... you were holding my hand," Kaelen stammered, his hand shaking as he pointed at the spot where they had been lying. "Why were you doing that?"
The girl looked at her empty palms, then back at him. "The quiet," she said. Her voice was small, almost fragile. "Their hunger screams in the dark. You... you are the only thing in the South Building that is quiet. I wanted to hear it."
Kaelen stared at her, the "Technician" in him trying to make sense of the data. She was a high-tier predator, capable of decapitating a woman with her bare hands, yet she had sought out the "quiet" of a human to sleep.
"I'm nineteen," Kaelen said, his voice gaining a sliver of steadiness as he realized she wasn't attacking. "I've lived in the North Labs most of my life. I'm looking for my parents. My name... it doesn't matter right now. Who are you?"
The girl tilted her head, her black-red hair swaying. "I do not have a name. I am only... what the Debt made me."
She looked at the dark stain on the floor where Miller had been. The harvest was complete. She looked stronger now, her movements less frantic.
"You hunt them," Kaelen noted, leaning against the pillar for support. "You don't hunt people. You hunt the Cannibals."
"They are the only ones with enough cells to pay the Debt," she replied, standing up. She didn't offer a hand, but she didn't leave. "The South Building is awake now. The loud ones are coming for the scent of the kill."
Kaelen looked at the dark corridors stretching out from the Atrium. He had no decoys. No weapons. Just his knowledge and a girl he didn't know the name of.
"I need to get out of here," Kaelen said, adjusting his tactical pack. "Will you... will you help me? Or am I just the next meal when you get hungry again?"
The girl looked at him, her void-black eyes unblinking. "You are quiet, human. I like the quiet."
She turned and began to walk toward the darkness of the maintenance hatch, her small frame casting a long, jagged shadow. She didn't look back to see if he was following, but she left the path open.
Kaelen took a ragged breath and followed her into the dark.