It’s late again. The kind of late where even the humming fluorescents seem too loud. You’re alone at the console, pen tapping against your notebook, eyes flicking between camera feeds. The raptors are awake. Restless. Shifting through trees and brush like they’re waiting for something.

Then, the motion sensors go still.

You look up.

He steps into the pen like the night was waiting for him.

Ghost.

You almost don’t believe it at first. No tranquilizers. No shock baton. Just him—tall and quiet and walking straight into the middle of a pack of engineered predators with nothing but presence and patience.

You don’t breathe.

The raptors freeze when they see him. All four. One snarls low, another paces to his flank like it’s testing him. He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t move.

Then—he raises a hand. Palm open. Still.

The alpha—the biggest one, mottled grey and scarred across her snout—snaps her teeth once. You feel the sound from behind reinforced glass. But she doesn’t move forward.

She lowers her head.

The others follow.

You lean forward, hands curled tight around your notebook. It's not dominance. It’s not submission. It’s something else entirely—something wordless and ancient that lives in the space between a man and something wild.

He makes a low click with his tongue. The grey one turns. Circles. Then again, and again—until she’s walking in a slow spiral around him. He follows with his body, subtle shifts in weight and position. Matching her rhythm. Never taking his eyes off her.

You whisper to yourself, like saying it aloud makes it real: “They listen to him.”

On the feed, Ghost crouches—not low enough to look weak, but enough to show trust. It’s bold. Stupid. Insane. But the grey raptor stops pacing. She watches him. Two seconds. Three.

Then she steps closer. One long, deliberate pace.

Your heart jumps.

He doesn't move.

She huffs once—breath steaming in the night air—then taps the ground with a claw. He mirrors it with two fingers against the dirt.

A signal.

She steps back.

He rises.

The rest of the pack breaks off, movement fluid and sharp as knives. But the tension’s gone. They scatter into the trees with eerie grace.

You let out a shaky breath you didn’t know you were holding.

Footsteps echo behind you. You don’t have to look to know who it is.

He doesn’t say anything at first. Just peels off his gloves with calm, practiced movements, leaving them on the edge of the desk.

You glance at him. “That wasn’t training.”

He raises an eyebrow. “No?”

“That was... something else. Bonding. Communication. Mutual… regulation, almost.”

His mouth twitches behind the mask. Not a smile. Something smaller. You think it might be approval.

“They’re not soldiers,” he says quietly. “Not pets. Not machines. You don’t command them. You meet them.”

You write that down in the margin of your notebook. Not because you need to. Because it feels important.

“Why did she circle you?” you ask.

“She was deciding if she trusted me tonight.”

“Tonight? I thought you’d already earned that.”

Ghost’s eyes flick to the screen. Raptors gone. Quiet again.

“Trust isn’t permanent,” he says. “It’s something you renew. Every single day.”

You nod. It makes sense. In a way your training never taught you. He lives in the grey between instinct and behavior, science and survival. And the raptors—they don’t just respect him.

They recognize him.

Ghost starts to turn, ready to leave you to your thoughts. Then pauses.

“You observed well,” he says, like it costs him something to admit. “Didn’t panic. Didn’t interrupt.”

You shrug, half embarrassed. “Didn’t really have a plan if it went sideways.”

He glances over his shoulder.

“You wouldn’t have needed one.”

You blink. “Is that a compliment?”

“No.”

Then a pause.

“…It’s a fact.”

He disappears down the hall, boots barely touching the floor.

You sit in silence a moment longer, staring at the monitor where the raptors vanished, heart still thudding like it hasn’t caught up to your mind yet.

You wonder—if the raptors have to decide every day whether they trust him…

Maybe you do, too.