The road was half-rotted and forgotten, swallowed by the forest. Logan drove with the headlights off, tires crunching quietly over gravel. Beside him, Mason checked the magazine on his rifle. Reyes sat in the back with the kid, Finn, who hadn’t spoken much since they left the cabin.
“You sure about this place?” Reyes asked.
“No,” Logan answered. “That’s what makes it the right place.”
The entrance was hidden beneath a landslide. The only giveaway was the steel hatch barely peeking through the soil, its hinges rusted but not broken.
Finn stepped forward. “They dragged her in through here. I watched from the ridge.”
“Anyone else guarding it?”
“Two men. Both smelled—off.”
Logan nodded. “Means they weren’t men.”
Mason tensed. “Werewolves?”
“Or something worse,” Logan said.
They pried open the hatch. Cold air rushed out, stale and metallic.
Below them, darkness waited.
They moved quietly through the old power trail, using the canopy for cover. Rhea led with two others: a sharp-eyed woman n
