The fog clung to everything like wet cloth. Selene's silhouette dissolved and re-formed as she moved between the wrecked shipping crates, silent as smoke. Ethan followed, still tasting copper on his tongue from the Core's retreat. His body felt wrung out, yet the Core pulsed under his skin like a tethered animal, restless and alert.
He hated how alive it made him feel.
Selene raised a hand, signaling him to stop. She crouched behind a collapsed forklift and tilted her head slightly, listening. Ethan mimicked her, but all he heard was the wind scraping across twisted metal.
Then—
There. A sound beyond sound. Not noise, but vibration. A shiver that crawled up his spine. The Core stirred immediately, a hiss of hunger threading through his veins.
"Tell me you feel that," he whispered.
Selene didn't look back. "Multiple. Flanking pattern."
Ethan's pulse spiked. "Hunters?"
"Not ours," she said flatly. "Move."
She flowed across the yard, low and fast, rifle already in her hands. Ethan tried to match her but felt clumsy, too loud. The Core whispered to correct him—shift weight here, step softer, breathe there. He wanted to ignore it, but his muscles moved on their own, echoing the beast's grace he'd felt last night. His boots barely made a sound.
Selene led him into the shadow of a half-collapsed warehouse. The metal walls loomed like ribs. Through a jagged tear in the sheet metal, he caught movement: figures fanning out through the mist. Not mutants. Human shapes in matte armor, faces hidden behind insectile masks. Guns and curved blades glimmered in their hands.
He counted at least five. Maybe more.
Selene's eyes flicked to him. "This is lesson two."
He stared at her. "Lesson two?"
"Control under pressure," she said, chambering a round. "Fight without losing yourself."
He almost laughed. "You're serious?"
"They're already here," she said. "Better you learn now than die later."
The nearest masked figure cocked his head, then signaled with two fingers. The others shifted, predatory. Ethan's chest tightened. His hands trembled.
You can do this.
The Core's voice wasn't words, but sensation—heat and speed and blood. He felt his claws itch to emerge. He swallowed hard.
Selene's voice cut through like a blade. "Anchor first. Then act."
He closed his eyes for half a heartbeat. I'm not a passenger. The words steadied him like a hand on his shoulder. When he opened his eyes again, the world had sharpened. He could see the hunters' pulses under their armor, hear their boots creak as they shifted weight.
Selene moved first. A single, silent shot dropped one hunter before he'd fully raised his gun. The others reacted instantly, scattering.
"Move!" she barked.
Ethan vaulted from cover without thinking. Bullets hissed through the mist. One grazed his shoulder, heat blossoming, but the Core surged, knitting flesh before he even flinched. His claws snapped out in a flicker of red light.
A hunter lunged at him with a blade. Ethan sidestepped, the Core whispering angles, momentum. He caught the man's wrist and twisted. The blade clattered to the ground. Hunger screamed in his blood—take him, feed, feed—but Ethan gritted his teeth and hurled the man into a crate instead, leaving him gasping but alive.
Another came from behind. Ethan spun, ducked low, and swept his claws in a warning arc that cut through the man's armor but not his flesh. He wanted to tear deeper. The Core wanted blood. He forced himself to stop, heart hammering.
Selene was a blur at the edge of his vision—striking, shooting, vanishing between shadows. Every time he faltered, he caught her eyes for a heartbeat, and the hunger dimmed just enough to think.
Three hunters left. Two circled him while the third broke for Selene's flank. She didn't see him.
"Selene!" he shouted. The hunger surged. Without thinking, he moved—faster than he'd ever moved, a burst of crimson light. He intercepted the third hunter just as he raised his gun at Selene's back.
Ethan slammed him into the ground. The man's mask cracked; his breath came ragged. The Core roared, claws pressing against the hunter's throat. He could smell blood under the armor. His mouth watered.
Do it, the Core whispered. This is what you are.
"Ethan." Selene's voice. Not a command. A lifeline.
He froze, claws trembling inches from the man's skin. The hunger clawed at him, desperate. He squeezed his eyes shut. I'm not a passenger. I'm not a passenger.
The Core hissed, then shuddered, retreating like water down a drain. The claws melted away. Ethan stumbled back, gasping. The hunter rolled over, coughing, and crawled away.
Two shots cracked. Selene dropped the last two hunters with precise, nonlethal rounds. The yard fell silent again except for Ethan's ragged breathing.
He braced his hands on his knees. Sweat dripped onto the cracked asphalt. His veins still glimmered faintly, but the hunger was… quieter. Not gone, but leashed.
Selene approached him, rifle slung over her shoulder. "That," she said evenly, "was control."
He looked up at her, throat tight. "I almost killed him."
"But you didn't." Her eyes were pale fire. "That's the difference."
He straightened slowly. "I don't know how long I can keep doing this."
"You don't have to know," she said. "You just have to keep choosing."
Something in her tone—quiet, certain—made his chest ache. He realized she wasn't just teaching him; she was remembering her own lessons, the ones she'd had to claw through alone.
He swallowed. "If you hadn't—"
"I told you," she cut him off gently. "I'll stop you if you can't. But today, you stopped yourself."
The mist was thinning now. Dawn's red light leaked through the clouds, catching on the broken cranes. Ethan stared at his hands, at the faint crimson glow fading from his skin.
"I didn't feel like prey," he said quietly.
Selene's mouth curved, not quite a smile but close. "Good," she said. "Lesson three will be harder."
He almost groaned. "There's a lesson three?"
"There's always a lesson three," she said, turning toward the safehouse.
Ethan followed her through the mist. For the first time since the Crimson Core fused to his blood, he felt a flicker of something like hope—not because the hunger was gone, but because for one heartbeat, it had obeyed him.
And that meant maybe—just maybe—he could survive what was coming.
The mist began to thin as they made their way back to the safehouse — a gutted train depot that had been reinforced with scavenged steel and wire. The echoes of the fight still pulsed in Ethan's skull like aftershocks. Every step felt like walking through water, his muscles heavy, the Core coiled and sulking in his veins.
Selene walked ahead of him without a word, rifle slung low. Her pace was steady but there was a tightness in her shoulders he hadn't noticed before. For a moment, she wasn't the phantom-warrior who had dragged him out of death's jaws; she was just… tired.
Inside the depot, the air smelled of oil and dust. The walls were painted with fading graffiti, ghosts of the old world. Selene set her rifle down on a crate and began stripping off her gloves, her movements quick, controlled, almost ritualistic. Ethan stood by the doorway, watching her hands. They were small, pale — and trembling.
"You're shaking," he said quietly.
She paused, flexed her fingers once, then began coiling the strap of her rifle. "Adrenaline."
"Selene—"
"I'm fine." She cut him off without looking up, but her voice wasn't sharp this time. Just tired.
Ethan moved closer, dragging a hand through his hair. "I almost lost it out there."
"But you didn't," she said, still not looking at him.
He laughed once, bitter. "That's a low bar."
Finally, she looked up. Her eyes were a pale, stormy silver in the dim light. "It's the only bar that matters. Control isn't a finish line, Ethan. It's a choice you keep making. Over and over. Even when you're exhausted. Even when it feels impossible."
He swallowed hard. The Core pulsed faintly, like a second heartbeat. "I don't even know who I am with this thing inside me."
"Neither did I," she said softly.
The words hung between them. Ethan blinked. "You?"
Selene dropped her gaze again, fingers tightening on the rifle strap. "Later," she murmured. "Lesson three first."
He wanted to press, but something in her posture warned him off. Instead, he sat down on one of the crates, elbows on his knees, and stared at the cracked floor. "I felt… strong," he admitted. "Too strong. Like I could end them all. It scared me how good it felt."
"That's the trap," Selene said. "Power feels clean when you're in it. But it leaves rot behind if you don't keep it in check."
He met her eyes. "How do you do it? Keep it in check?"
She hesitated, then said, "You don't. Not perfectly. You learn where the edge is. And you don't cross it unless you have to."
Silence stretched. The depot creaked around them, wind whistling through broken windows. Outside, the mist was almost gone. The blood-colored dawn lit the floor in streaks of red and gold.
Ethan exhaled slowly. "You said lesson three will be harder. What is it?"
Selene's expression flickered — part amusement, part warning. "You'll see," she said. "It's not something I can teach you with words."
He leaned back against the crate, closing his eyes. The Core shifted, restless, but quieter now, as if it too were listening. He wondered if it had felt her presence in that moment when she called his name — if that had been the thing that pulled him back.
When he opened his eyes again, Selene was watching him. Not the way a trainer watches a pupil, but the way someone watches a stranger they're afraid to care about.
"What?" he asked.
"Nothing," she said quickly, looking away. "Rest. You'll need it."
For the first time since the Crimson Core fused into his blood, Ethan realized he wasn't just learning how to fight. He was learning how to be himself again. And Selene — for all her mystery, her distance — was the only reason he hadn't already drowned.
He let out a slow breath. "Lesson three," he muttered. "Bring it."
Selene's mouth curved — not quite a smile, but close enough to sting. "Careful what you wish for," she said, slinging her rifle over her shoulder again. "The next one breaks more than bones."
And just like that, she walked toward the far end of the depot, her silhouette framed in blood-red light. Ethan watched her go, feeling the Core shift and sigh inside him like a sleeping beast.
For one heartbeat, the world felt still.
For one heartbeat, he felt like he might be ready.