Chapter 186
Winter reacted instantly.
He yanked his rifle back up, sweeping his torchlight across the corridor. The beam trembled in the heat haze, catching the fractured outline of something behind Mireille. It loomed tall, barely humanoid, shifting like oil on water. His finger pulled the trigger.
Bullets tore into the shadow, but passed straight through.
The figure didn’t flinch.
Winter didn’t wait. He dove behind the nearest support pipe, just as the thing lunged. The metal shrieked as claws carved into the wall where he’d stood seconds ago. A valve burst from the impact. Scalding steam flooded the corridor, curling white against the low red emergency lights. Winter coughed, eyes burning, heat crawling under his armour like ants.
The growl came again. Lower this time. Closer.
It vibrated the air, deep enough to press into his chest cavity. Pipes groaned. Floor plates buckled under unseen weight. Somewhere—inside the walls—Winter heard it crawling. Metal scraping against metal. Not blindly. Not randomly.
Stalking.
Dr. Mireille’s projection glitched—her image crackled with static as the projection warped. Then, with a pop and a hiss, she vanished. The shadow lunged through the space she’d stood in, claws swiping uselessly through empty air. But Winter saw it—just for a second.
Long limbs. Emaciated body, pale flesh stretched tight over joints like angular hinges. The skin shimmered like translucent insect wings. And those eyes—
Dead, but aware.