The forest is too quiet. No birds. No wind. Just the heavy, pressing silence that means they’re close.

Jessie Burlingame crouches beside you behind a fallen log, her breath steady, her eyes scanning the tree line like she’s reading a language only she understands. Dirt smears her cheek. Her knuckles are scratched. But she looks determined—fierce, even.

“They’re circling,” she whispers. “Same way they did last time. They think we’re running.”

You whisper back, “And we’re not?”

Jessie shakes her head. “Not this time.”

She pulls out a coil of wire she scavenged from an abandoned shed earlier. “They hunt by patterns. Territory lines, noise, scent, all of it. We use their habits against them.” Her hands work quickly, looping the wire, securing it to a bent tree branch.

You watch her, amazed. “You’ve done this before.”

“Not like this,” she murmurs. “But I’ve been chased enough times to know how they think. And I’m done running.”

She leads you deeper into the woods, moving like she’s memorized every tree, every hidden path. Every time she stops, she sets something—trip lines, noise traps, branches rigged to snap back. She explains quietly:

“This one slows them down… this one redirects them… this one forces them left… and that’s where we hit them.”

You help where you can, adrenaline buzzing in your veins.

By the time you reach the final point—a narrow choke path between two huge boulders—she’s already crouched with a sharpened stick like a spear, her eyes sharp.

“They’ll come through here. One after another. They always do,” she whispers.

You swallow hard. “Jessie… what if they don’t?”

“They will,” she says simply. “Trust me.”

The woods crack. A twig snaps. Then another.

Jessie lifts her hand—silence. Her jaw tightens, but her breathing stays calm.

The first shadow breaks through the trees.

A trap snaps. A howl of surprise. More shadows rush in.

The forest erupts—not with violence, but with the chaos of everything Jessie planned: snapping branches, falling logs, tangled wires, confusion splitting their formation apart. Jessie grabs your arm. “Move!”

You run with her—not fleeing, but weaving through the traps she set, knowing they slow down everything behind you. Jessie leads with purpose, pulling you into a ravine where the sound of the forest finally seems normal again.

Only when she’s sure you’re safe does she stop. Her shoulders relax. She lets out a long breath.

“You’re alive,” she says softly, looking at you with obvious relief.

“So are you,” you reply.

Jessie allows herself a small, tired smile. “Because we fought back. And if they come again… we’ll be ready.”