The safehouse smelled of damp metal and old blood.
The lantern's flame flickered against the walls, stretching Selene's shadow until it swallowed the room. Ethan lay on the thin mattress she had kicked his way, staring at the ceiling where cracks spider-webbed out like veins of rust. He couldn't sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he was back in the subway: the beast's black eyes widening, the spray of gore, the way his hands had trembled with hunger instead of fear.
The hunger was still there. It wasn't a normal ache; it pulsed. A quiet thrum in his veins, like a second heartbeat just beneath his skin. The Core. Feeding. Growing.
He rolled onto his side and exhaled slowly. His hands had stopped glowing hours ago, but faint streaks of crimson still glimmered under his skin, like dying embers refusing to go out. He clenched his fists until his knuckles whitened. Stop. Just stop. But the more he thought it, the more he could feel it — the Core flexing like a predator stretching its claws.
Across the room, Selene sat by the window, silent, rifle across her lap. Her hair hung loose now, dark strands hiding her face as she watched the ruined street below. She looked like a statue carved out of shadow.
Ethan found himself whispering. "You're not sleeping either."
She didn't turn. "Can't afford to."
He swallowed. "Do you ever… hear it? After a fight?"
That made her glance back at him. Her eyes caught the lantern-light, sharp and pale. "Hear what?"
"The… echo. Like it's still inside you. The kill."
Her gaze flickered over his glowing veins before she looked away again. "Yes," she said at last. "At first. It fades. Eventually."
"Does it?" he murmured.
Selene's lips thinned, but she didn't answer.
He sat up, rubbing his temples. "It's not fading for me. It's louder. Like it's trying to…" He searched for the word. "…push."
Selene's voice was flat. "Then you have to push back."
He gave a dry laugh. "That easy, huh?"
"No," she said softly. "It isn't."
For a long moment the only sound was the distant groan of wind through the broken city. Ethan tried to steady his breathing. He'd never been good at stillness. Back before the world ended, he had been a paramedic, always in motion, always with something to fix. But here he was, sitting in the dark with a monster inside him, and for the first time in his life, there was nothing to fix.
The hunger swelled again. His skin felt too tight. His vision sharpened, edges of the room etched like glass. He could hear Selene's pulse — steady, low — under the scrape of her glove on the rifle. He could smell the iron tang of her blood where it had dried at her temple.
It terrified him how much he wanted it.
He dug his nails into his palms, forcing himself to look away. "I need air."
Selene's eyes flicked to him. "Stay inside."
"I just—" His voice cracked. He forced it steady. "I won't go far."
She studied him for a beat, then nodded once. "Don't take long."
He pushed open the heavy door and stepped out into the cold. The sky had shifted to a bruised violet; mist curled low across the street. The silence of the city was deeper here, broken only by the distant drip of water from a broken pipe.
Ethan leaned against the wall, hands braced, trying to breathe past the hunger. His breath came out in white clouds. The Core shifted inside him like a living thing.
He closed his eyes — and something moved. Not outside. Inside. His muscles coiled without his command. He felt the memory of the beast's movements bloom in his body: the way it had twisted, the way it had leapt. For a second his balance shifted forward, light and predatory. He opened his eyes, startled.
His hand shot out to the side. The brick wall he touched dented under his fingers, as if it were soft clay. He jerked back, heart hammering. The faint crimson glow in his veins brightened, flaring up his arms.
No no no—
He forced his fists closed, trying to stop the trembling. The Core pulsed once, hot and sharp, and then subsided, like it was testing him.
Ethan backed away from the wall. His breath came fast. He could feel it now — not just strength, but speed, hunger, instinct. The beast's echo, threaded into his blood. He wasn't just stronger. He was… different.
"Ethan."
He spun. Selene was in the doorway, rifle hanging at her side. She must have followed him out. Her eyes flicked to the dented wall, then to his glowing hands.
He looked at her helplessly. "It's not stopping."
Selene walked toward him slowly, deliberately, as if approaching a wounded animal. "It won't. Not by itself."
"I'm changing." The words tumbled out, raw. "I can feel it. Every time I fight, every time I feed it—" He pressed a hand to his chest. "I'm not going to come back one of these times."
Selene stopped a few feet away. Her face was unreadable, but her voice was quiet. "You will if you choose to."
He laughed bitterly. "And if I can't?"
"Then I'll stop you."
He met her eyes. There was no threat in her tone, only certainty. Somehow, that steadied him more than any promise could have.
They stood there in the mist, two silhouettes under a dying sky. Ethan's hands stopped trembling. The hunger was still there, coiled and patient, but for the first time since the fight, it didn't feel bigger than him.
He straightened slowly. "Teach me," he said.
Selene tilted her head. "Teach you what?"
"How to push back. How to stay me."
A long silence. Then, finally, she nodded. "At first light."
Ethan exhaled. The Core pulsed once, like a heartbeat, but quieter now. He could almost believe it was listening.
Selene turned back toward the safehouse. "Get some sleep. You'll need it."
Ethan followed her inside. He lay down again, but this time the darkness behind his eyelids wasn't just blood and claws. It was the faint shape of a path — narrow, dangerous, but his.
Somewhere in the city, something roared back, answering his new power. But for now, in the flicker of the lantern and the soft scrape of Selene's boots, Ethan held on to himself.
The night dragged on like an open wound.
Ethan drifted in and out of a restless doze, his body heavy but his mind wide awake. Each time his eyes slipped shut, he was back in the subway tunnels, standing over the beast, feeling its blood pulse into the Core like a tide. He would jolt awake, breath ragged, nails digging crescents into his palms.
Selene didn't sleep either. He could hear her boots pacing faintly across the room, the sound as steady as a heartbeat. She hadn't said another word since promising to train him at first light. But every so often, Ethan felt her eyes on him — a quiet weight in the dark. It was strangely grounding, like a tether keeping him from floating too far into the hunger.
The Core hummed under his skin, not angry now, but… curious. A low vibration, as if it were listening. He remembered Selene's words: You will if you choose to. Could it really be that simple — a choice?
He turned onto his back and stared at the cracked ceiling again. "Selene?"
A pause. "What."
He swallowed. "Back there. When you said you'd stop me… did you mean kill me?"
Another pause. This one longer. "If I have to."
Her tone was flat, but he thought he caught a thread of something under it — regret, maybe, or the faintest flicker of sorrow.
"Would you?" he asked quietly.
Selene didn't answer. Instead, her boots stopped pacing. He heard her set the rifle down, then the scrape of metal as she slid a chair closer to the mattress. When she spoke again, her voice was softer, but no less steady. "Don't make me find out."
Ethan shut his eyes. For the first time since the world collapsed, he wanted to reach for someone. But he didn't. He couldn't. Not yet.
The lantern burned low. The city outside groaned like a wounded beast. Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed once and then died.
When dawn came, it was pale and red, bleeding through the boarded-up windows like diluted wine. Ethan sat up slowly, body stiff but brimming with a coiled energy that wasn't entirely his own. The Core shifted eagerly under his skin, as if sensing what was coming.
Selene was already standing by the door, hood up, rifle strapped to her back. She tossed him a black scarf, rough but clean. "Cover your veins. You're glowing."
He obeyed without a word, wrapping it tight around his forearms. The cloth smelled faintly of gun oil and ash.
Selene's eyes swept over him once, clinical. "We're moving."
"Where?"
"Somewhere quiet. You can't learn control in a cage."
They slipped out of the safehouse into the ruined city. Mist still clung to the streets, hiding the skeletons of burned-out cars. Ethan followed her silently, feeling the Core pulse with every step like a second heartbeat.
He thought about what she had said in the night. About stopping him. About choice. The Core seemed to thrum at the word, faint and dark.
As they reached the edge of the street, Selene glanced back at him, her hood shadowing her face. "Rule one," she said. "If you feel it pulling too hard, you tell me. Out loud. No matter what."
He nodded.
"Rule two," she went on, "You don't fight to win. You fight to stay human. Understand?"
Ethan drew a slow breath. "Yeah."
Selene studied him for a moment longer, then turned away. "Good. Then let's see if you're worth saving."
The words should have cut, but instead they lit something in him — a spark of defiance that was his alone. He straightened his shoulders and followed her into the mist.
The Core stirred again, eager, hungry. But this time, Ethan felt his own pulse rising to meet it.
For the first time since the beast's death, he wasn't just reacting. He was preparing.