Chapter 4: The Scent of Blood

Three days. That’s how long it took before Lena’s patience began to fracture like glass under a boot.

Cain had moved around her station with the restless curiosity of a child trapped in a cage. He touched everything — the reinforced steel shutters, the old ration crates, even her rifle when he thought she wasn’t looking. His wide, pale eyes soaked in each new sight with silent reverence, as though the battered world around him was some sacred ruin rather than the wreckage she had fought to survive in.

Lena had spent those days reinforcing her perimeter, sharpening traps, and ignoring the gnawing sense of unease that Cain’s presence brought. But she couldn't ignore him forever. The longer he stayed, the more she realized: if he didn’t learn how to fend for himself, he would become her death sentence. Or worse — he’d become the last crack in her already fragile armor.

On the fourth morning, she stood by the door, her breath fogging in the cold air. Cain watched her with the same unblinking intensity that made her want to drive him out into the rain and never look back.

She tightened the last strap on her combat vest, slung the old rifle over her shoulder, and met his gaze with a sharp, no-nonsense glare.

“We’re going out,” she snapped.

His head tilted slightly. “Out…?”

“You’re going to learn.” Her voice was iron, leaving no room for argument. “You can’t stay in here like a ghost forever. You either learn to survive, or you die the next time something claws at the door.”

His lips parted as if to ask a question, but she was already moving, motioning him forward. With hesitant steps, he followed.

The rain had finally let up, leaving the forest shrouded in mist and heavy with the earthy scent of wet pine and rotting leaves. The world felt like it was holding its breath, waiting.

Lena led them through narrow animal paths, her boots muffled against the spongy ground. Cain followed close, too close. His presence pressed against her senses like a second heartbeat she didn’t want but couldn’t ignore.

She paused at a low bend in the trail, her hand shooting up to signal silence. He stopped immediately, eyes darting to her fingers, then her face, as though trying to memorize every movement.

Lena knelt beside a crude snare she’d set days before. The wire glimmered faintly in the pale morning light. A fat rabbit hung lifeless, its fur matted with dew and mud.

Cain crouched next to her, head cocking to one side, studying the small creature with unsettling fascination. She didn’t miss the way his nostrils flared slightly, how he leaned forward, as if some deeper instinct was tugging at him.

She cut the rabbit loose with a quick flick of her knife. “Food,” she said, holding it up for him to see. “You set traps, you get food. You don’t starve. You don’t freeze.”

He nodded slowly, his fingers twitching as though he wanted to reach for it.

She noticed the subtle tremor in his hand. It was the same tremor she had seen when he looked at his own reflection in the rain barrel — that searching, terrified vulnerability.

Lena turned away abruptly, shoving the rabbit into her side bag. “Come on. We check the next one.”

Further down the slope, they found a second snare torn apart, the wire shredded and spattered with dark fur and blood. Lena cursed under her breath, dropping into a crouch to examine the scene.

She felt him behind her, looming. The weight of his curiosity pressed against the nape of her neck.

“Something big,” she muttered, tracing a claw mark in the mud. “Too smart for the traps. Probably a cougar or a crawler that wandered too close.”

Cain leaned closer, his breath shallow. “Big… animal?” His voice was rough, the words forming like stones grinding in his throat.

She didn’t turn to face him. “Bigger than you. Faster than me. You see it, you don’t fight — you run.”

He was silent, but she felt his eyes on the gashes in the ground. Something inside him was turning, some gear that didn’t quite fit, some echo he didn’t understand.

“Lena,” he said suddenly, his voice barely above a whisper.

She turned, eyes narrowing. “What?”

But he didn’t get to answer.

A low, guttural growl rolled through the trees. The hairs on the back of Lena’s neck snapped to attention. She rose slowly, her fingers tightening on her rifle.

Cain turned his head sharply, nostrils flaring again. His pupils dilated, swallowing the grey irises into black pools.

In one fluid, instinctive motion, Lena brought her rifle up, sweeping the treeline. A shadow moved between the pines — silent, sinuous, and impossibly fast. Then she saw it.

A cougar, its shoulders rippling under slick fur, stepped into view. Its eyes gleamed yellow in the mist, fixed directly on her. It was larger than any normal cougar she’d seen, its hind legs thick and powerful, claws long enough to gouge through metal. Mutated. Probably a product of the same apocalypse that birthed the Crawlers.

The creature crouched low, muscles coiling.

“Back. Slowly,” Lena hissed to Cain, stepping sideways to block his line of sight.

But he didn’t move. He stood, fixated, his chest rising and falling with increasing rapidity.

The cougar snarled, saliva dripped from its maw. Then it lunged.

Time snapped into shards.

Lena swung the rifle up, her finger tightening on the trigger — too slow. The beast was already in the air, a blur of muscle and claws.

Then everything changed.

Cain moved.

Not just moved — exploded forward.

He shot past Lena like a phantom, his body twisting mid-leap, intercepting the cougar in the air. They crashed into the mud with a bone-jarring thud that echoed through the silent forest.

Lena froze, the rifle half-raised, her breath caught in her throat.

Cain and the cougar rolled, a chaotic tangle of fur, limbs, and snarling jaws. The cougar’s claws raked across his forearm, tearing skin. But Cain didn’t flinch. He seized the cougar by its throat with a force that seemed to defy logic.

A sickening crack split the air. The cougar went limp instantly, its head lolling at an unnatural angle.

Cain knelt over the corpse, his hands trembling, blood dripping from his fingers. His chest heaved, each breath ragged and primal. His grey eyes were wide, uncomprehending. He looked down at the cougar’s lifeless body, then at his own blood-slicked hands.

Lena finally exhaled, her rifle lowering. Her heart slammed against her ribs like a trapped animal.

“Cain…” she whispered, stepping forward cautiously. “Hey. Drop it. Move back.”

But he didn’t move. He stared at his hands, horror blooming across his features.

“Lena…” His voice sounded broken, childlike. “I… I didn’t mean… I didn’t—”

He stumbled back from the corpse, slipping in the mud. His eyes flicked from the cougar to Lena, searching for something — forgiveness, understanding, salvation. He found none.

Lena took another step, her own hands shaking now. She had seen men kill before. She had done it herself. But this was different. This was an act of pure instinct, not choice. A predator waking up from a long, forced sleep.

“Cain… it’s okay,” she lied, the words tasting like ash on her tongue. “You were protecting us.”

He shook his head violently, his wet hair slapping his cheeks. “No… no… I felt… something. Inside. It wanted—”

His words dissolved into a ragged gasp. His knees buckled, and he crumpled forward onto all fours. His fingers dug into the mud as if he could bury the moment, erase it.

Lena hesitated, then dropped beside him. Against every instinct screaming at her to back away, she reached out and touched his shoulder.

He flinched, but didn’t pull away.

Her fingers tightened. “Look at me.”

Slowly, painfully, he lifted his head. Their eyes met — his wild, shattered, hers sharp and trembling.

“You saved me,” she said, forcing each word. “I don’t know what you are. But right now… you’re alive. And I’m alive. That’s all that matters.”

His breath hitched. A tremor ran down his spine, and his head dropped again, forehead pressing into the mud. For a long moment, they stayed like that, the cold mist curling around them, the forest silent save for the distant drip of water from the trees.

Finally, she stood, her hand slipping away from his shoulder.

“We need to go,” she said, her voice firm. “There might be more.”

She grabbed the cougar by its hind leg and dragged it toward him. He didn’t move.

“You did this,” she said. “Now help me. We take it back. We use everything.”

Cain hesitated, then pushed himself upright, wiping at his face with the back of his forearm, smearing blood and mud across his pale skin. He reached for the cougar, his hands trembling but resolute.

Together, they dragged the dead creature through the underbrush. Lena kept glancing at him, each glance sharpening the blade of her fear and wonder.

She didn’t speak again until the station came into view through the trees, its battered silhouette rising like a last stronghold of sanity.

As they crossed the threshold, Lena forced herself to shut the gates behind them with a solid clang. She turned and watched him collapse near the hearth, his chest heaving. The cougar's corpse thudded to the ground beside him.

She knelt, checking the gashes on his forearm. Blood welled up dark and slow, but as she watched, it began to clot rapidly, forming that same crystalline structure she had seen before.

Lena’s fingers hovered over the wound. “What the hell are you?” she murmured, almost to herself.

Cain didn’t answer. His eyes were locked on the fire, his expression distant and hollow.

She rose abruptly, moving to stoke the fire, shoving fresh wood into the flames with more force than necessary. Sparks danced up the chimney as though echoing her churning thoughts.

She had dragged him back because of a promise she couldn’t remember why she kept. Because of some echo of warmth she despised herself for feeling. Now, the man she had called Cain was no man at all. He was something else — a weapon, a monster, or both.

But he had saved her. That fact clung to her like wet clothes, impossible to shake off.

Lena paced the room, boots scuffing the old stone floor. Her thoughts churned, cold and sharp. She should force him out tomorrow. She should find another station, another forest. Move on. Alone again.

Yet when she looked at him, huddled by the fire, she saw not a monster — but a broken creature, terrified of itself. And for reasons she hated to acknowledge, that reflection cut deeper than any claw ever could.

She sighed, low and ragged.

"Tomorrow," she muttered, mostly to herself. "We figure out what the hell you really are."

Outside, the forest shifted and shivered in the moonlight. Far beyond the perimeter, in the deep dark, something else listened. Something that understood the scent of blood and the pulse of fear.

And it was moving closer.