Four days passed after the night Ares hid the case beneath his spare clothes.
He went out each morning with the others and came back each evening with nothing.
Twice he found tracks worth following and lost them before dark.
Once he sat motionless for three hours near a game trail and let a rabbit walk past him rather than risk a sound that might carry to whatever else was moving through those woods.
He said nothing about the case, and he brought nothing back through the gate.
By the fifth morning, the hunters stood in a loose line near the center of the yard.
Ares was among them, rebar resting against his shoulder.
The young man who had gone out with him stood several places away.
The two men who had returned with the deer stood near the front.
Mara stood on the steps of the command building.
She surveyed the group before speaking.
“You all know why you’re here.”
The yard fell silent.
“This camp survives on what people bring through that gate.
Food.
Ammunition.
Weapons.
Medicine.
Useful skills.”
She paused.
“When you arrived, we assessed your capabilities.”
Her eyes moved across the hunters.
“Some of you had skills we needed.
Mechanics.
Construction.
Cooking.
Guard duty.
Medical work.”
She glanced toward the workshops.
“We already have sufficient personnel in most of those areas.”
Her gaze returned to the hunters.
“That leaves one thing we still require every day.”
No one spoke.
“Food.”
A few hunters shifted their weight.
“If you hunt, you eat.”
She let the words settle.
“If you return with nothing, you do not eat.”
The young man beside Ares lowered his eyes.
Ares said nothing, but the thought came anyway, flat and familiar.
The guards at the gate ate every day whether the hunters brought anything back or not.
So did Mara.
So did the men who ran the workshops.
The rule only ever pointed one direction toward the people sent out to bleed for the camp’s food while everyone who stayed behind the walls never missed a meal.
Mara continued.
“This rule does not change because you are tired.
It does not change because you are injured.
It does not change because you believe someone should feel sorry for you.”
Her voice remained steady.
“Five days without bringing food into this camp, and your membership will be terminated.”
A murmur moved through the group.
Mara raised one hand.
“No arguments.”
The yard fell silent again.
“You want to remain behind these walls?
Earn your place behind them.”
She pointed toward the gate.
“You bring food, ammunition, medicine, or something this camp actually needs.
You demonstrate your value.”
She lowered her hand.
“We do not have the resources to support individuals who do not contribute.”
Ares listened without moving.
He thought of the case buried in his pack, wrapped in cloth, sitting under the cot in the room that was no longer his.
A month of research samples.
A gene that killed forty-two out of forty-seven people who carried it.
He could have laid it at Mara’s feet right now and called it something the camp actually needed.
He decided not to.
He said nothing.
Mara looked across the entire group.
“That is the rule.”
A voice came from the edge of the yard.
“Commander.”
Mara stopped.
One of the watchers was moving quickly down from the wall.
He crossed the yard without acknowledging anyone else.
When he reached the steps, he leaned in close to Mara and whispered into her ear.
Her expression shifted.
Only slightly.
But Ares noticed.
The watcher whispered again.
Mara looked toward the eastern wall.
Then toward the forest beyond it.
The hunter beside Ares frowned.
“What is it?”
Mara did not respond.
The watcher spoke again, quieter this time.
“We found tracks.”
Mara’s eyes narrowed.
“How many?”
“Several.”
“Camp tracks?”
The watcher shook his head.
“No.”
Ares’s grip tightened around the rebar.
The watcher continued.
“Someone has been moving through the woods around our hunting area.”
Mara looked at him.
“How recently?”
“Fresh.”
Ares kept his expression controlled.
The watcher lowered his voice further.
“They’ve been observing us.”
Ares looked toward the eastern wall.
He recognized those tracks.
He had seen them before.
The same deliberate movement.
The same people who had pursued him through the forest.
The same group from the hollow.
His jaw tightened.
He thought of the woman with the bone necklace saying if they come this way we don’t wait, and of the direction those tracks would take anyone who followed them straight toward this gate.
He said nothing.
Whatever happened to this camp once he was outside its walls, it would happen without his warning.
They had made it clear tonight what his place here was worth.
Mara turned back toward the hunters.
For a long moment she said nothing.
The yard went still around her.
Hunters stopped shifting their weight.
Someone’s hand moved to the strap of a rifle and then went still again.
The young man beside Ares looked at the ground.
No one looked at Mara directly.
Then she spoke.
“Step forward.”
Her voice carried cleanly across the open ground.
“Anyone who has been in that area.
Anyone who has seen those people.
Anyone who knows something the rest of us do not.”
No one moved.
Ares felt the eyes of the young man beside him, the faint shift of bodies farther down the line.
He knew how many had watched him leave that morning.
How many had seen the direction he took.
Staying silent would only delay what was already inevitable.
He stepped forward.
The rebar rested against his shoulder as he stopped a few paces ahead of the others and looked up at Mara.
Every face in the yard turned toward him.
Mara studied him for a moment before speaking.
“You know them?”
“I saw them.”
“Where?”
“West of the orchard.”
Mara waited, as if expecting more.
Ares said nothing else.
He did not mention the hollow, the fire, the bones, or how close they had come to catching him.
He did not mention how many days ago it had been, or that he had already walked out of that forest once with a spear mark in the trunk behind him.
What he had seen was his.
He would decide what it was worth, and to whom.
Someone near the back of the line let out a short, bitter breath.
“No wonder.
First the ants.
Now cannibals.
Everything that boy touches turns to bad luck.”
Ares did not answer.
Mara’s eyes remained fixed on him.
“You went out there.
You saw them.
You said nothing until now.”
Ares looked toward the eastern wall.
“Do I have to report everything I see?”
Mara said nothing.
Ares continued.
“We all know what’s out there.
Every hunter does.
Every time we leave through that gate, we know something can be waiting in the trees.”
“You saw people.”
“We see tracks all the time.”
“Not these.”
Ares looked back at her.
“You don’t know that they were following me.”
Mara stepped down one step.
“They followed you.”
Ares’s expression did not change.
“You know that?”
“I know they were in the area you were hunting.”
Ares said nothing.
Mara continued.
“Whether you knew they were following you or not doesn’t matter.”
Ares tightened his grip on the rebar.
Mara’s voice hardened.
“They reached our hunting ground.
They watched our walls.
They moved through an area our people use for food.”
Ares started to speak.
Mara cut him off.
“This is the second time.”
The yard went quiet.
“First the ants.”
She looked directly at him.
“Now people.”
Ares held her gaze.
Mara took another step down.
“I will not wait for a third.”
Ares was silent for several seconds.
“So that’s why you’re sending me out.”
“Not because you brought back nothing.”
Mara’s answer came immediately.
“Because twice now, danger has followed your movements back toward this camp.”
Ares looked at the gate.
Then back at Mara.
“You could be wrong.”
“I could.”
She paused.
“I won’t take that chance.”
Ares said nothing.
Mara pointed toward the barracks.
“Pack your things.”
The words were final.
“The rules are the rules.”
Ares stood still for another moment.
Then he turned and walked away, toward the small shelter where he had left what little he owned.
The yard stayed silent behind him.
A few mouths opened as if someone might speak might protest, might ask for time, might say that one successful hunt should count for something but no voice rose.
He gathered his sparse belongings without hurry.
The pack went over one shoulder, the case still hidden at the bottom of it beneath his spare clothes, exactly where it had been since the night he came back.
No one asked to check it.
No one ever had.
When he returned to the open ground, the line of hunters had not moved.
Mara still stood on the steps.
The watcher waited near the wall.
Ares stopped in the center of the yard and looked at them all.
“I want to thank you,” he said, “for the food I was given.
And for the place I was allowed to sleep.”
His eyes found the girl who had brought him a meal the night he returned.
She stood near one of the buildings, arms folded tight against herself.
When his eyes reached her she looked down first, then quickly back up, and gave one small nod not enough for anyone beside her to notice, but enough for him to see it.
He held her gaze for a single heartbeat, then looked away.
Without another word he walked toward the gate.
The heavy doors opened just wide enough for one person.
He stepped through.
Behind him the gate closed with a long scrape of metal and timber.
Ares kept walking.
He did not look back.
The forest waited beyond the fields.
His pack was light.
The medical case was not.
It rested against his back beneath his clothes.
Forty-seven had been tested.
Five had survived.
And Doctor Hana was still looking for the case.
He reached the tree line and stopped.
The tracks were there, exactly where the watcher had said.
Fresh.
Deep.
Deliberate.
They did not lead away from the camp.
They led toward it.
Ares stood at the edge of the trees for a long moment, looking back at the walls he could no longer enter and forward at the path the hollow’s people had already chosen.
This time, he had nowhere to return to.