You sit on a fallen pine log, rough bark biting into the fabric of your uniform, legs stiff, muscles coiled from too long in one position. The cold has seeped through your boots, through your gloves, through your skin. But you don’t move. You can’t. Just ahead, tucked beneath a hastily built lean-to of snapped branches and torn tarp, Logan lies crumpled like something broken—his chest rising and falling just barely, as if life itself were weighing the choice to return or leave for good.

The claw marks across his chest are deep. Too deep. Ripped across him in savage arcs, pink and glistening even beneath the gauze. You cleaned them, stitched what you could, gritted your teeth as you pressed down with shaking hands. But now it’s out of yours. Now all you can do is sit here and wait—for what, you don’t know.

You’ve lost track of time. The forest doesn’t care. It blurs the hours into something eternal, the moon hiding behind clouds and bare branches like it wants no part in this. The fire you built—your one comfort—crackles softly nearby, spitting sparks into the night like whispers. You’ve fed it with careful, trembling hands. Kept it alive. Kept him alive. The flickering light throws shadows across Logan’s face, making him look even more like a ghost than a man. His skin’s pale. His jaw slack.

Your ribs ache where you were hit. Blood crusts on your sleeve. You ignore it.

But something gnaws at you now, worse than pain. Not just fear. Not just fatigue. Something colder. A weight in the air. Like the trees themselves are holding their breath. Watching.

You go still. Hear it.

Crunch.

A soft sound—too soft to be the wind. Too deliberate. Something’s moving between the trees. Hunting.

You rise slowly from the log, every nerve lighting up like a wire pulled taut. The fire throws your shadow long and uncertain behind you. You feel the pull to look back at Logan, but you don’t. Not yet. You can't afford to show your fear.

"Logan," you whisper, not turning your head. "If you can hear me... now would be a really good time to wake up."

Nothing.

You swallow, heart hammering in your chest. Your hands tremble, but you curl them into fists, digging fingernails into your palms until it grounds you. You’ve seen worse. Fought worse. But never without him. Never when he looked more corpse than man.

Then—

A figure steps from the darkness. Slowly. Deliberately. As if the night itself had decided to grow a face.

Daken.

He looks... different. Taller than your memory allows, or maybe it’s just the way he moves. Like someone who never forgot how to kill and never cared to stop. The firelight gleams off the leather of his jacket, the dark lacquer of his claws—retracted for now. His hair's longer, streaked with snow. The tattoos on his arms twist and shimmer with every shift of muscle. But it’s his eyes that stop you. Amber. Cold. So familiar and yet not. So much like Logan’s. And nothing like them.

“Well, well,” he says, voice like silk pulled over a blade. A crooked smile tugs at his lips. “The little mutant, playing nurse. Adorable. Really.”

You don't answer. Your throat is dry. Your brain races behind a mask of blankness, grasping for anything—anything—to tip the scales. But there's no plan that ends with you walking away clean. Not with him. Not tonight.

Daken steps closer. Slow. Unhurried. Like this is a game and you’re already his piece.

“I could smell the blood three miles out,” he drawls, glancing toward the shelter without real fear. “Told myself—no way the old man went down that easy. But here you are. Tender little vigil.” He turns his eyes back to you. “Sweet.”