AUTHOR’S POV
Avery didn’t say anything to Priya immediately after they stopped walking.
She simply reached for her arm and pulled her towards the side of the street, putting enough distance between them and the others that their conversation wouldn’t carry but not so much that they couldn’t be seen.
Declan noticed, of course.
His eyes followed them for a few seconds before he turned his attention back to the road ahead, although something about the way his jaw tightened suggested he wasn’t nearly as uninterested as he wanted everyone to believe.
Avery folded her arms as soon as they were far enough away.
“Explain.”
Priya looked at her.
“What?”
“Now, Dr Voss.”
Priya sighed heavily.
“I don’t have all the answers.”
Avery didn’t waste any time.
“Then give me the ones you do have.”
There was no room for negotiation in Avery’s voice, and Priya seemed to understand that.
She glanced towards the others before looking back at her, her grip tightening around the metal case she still refused to let anyone else touch.
“I started looking into it.”
“Looking into what?” Avery’s voice shook.
“The Rigs.”
Avery’s brows pulled together and Priya lowered her voice.
“There are things about them that don’t make sense. Their behaviour isn’t completely random, and I don’t mean the way they move. I’m talking about the way they respond to certain people.”
Avery stared at her.
“Certain people?”
“Certain genetic profiles.”
For a moment, Avery didn’t say anything and Priya continued before she could interrupt.
“I was a virologist. I spent most of my career working with infectious diseases and genetic responses to pathogens. The government had been investigating certain possibilities for years. We didn’t know an invasion was coming. Not exactly. We knew there were things we couldn’t explain, and some of the research suggested that human biology might interact with whatever was out there. That’s why the genetic screening existed in the first place. I didn’t have a laboratory, proper samples or any of the equipment I would’ve needed, but I had enough information to start forming a theory.”
“And your theory is that some people are compatible with Rig biology?”
Priya gave a small nod.
“I don’t know exactly what compatibility means yet. It could mean their biology is easier for them to detect. It could mean the opposite. It could mean their cells interact with something the Rigs produce. There are too many possibilities, and without equipment I can’t tell you which one is correct. Your mother was the main head of it all.”
“My mother was studying the Rigs?”
Priya shook her head.
“No. We weren’t studying the Rigs. We didn’t know what they were. We were studying human responses to biological material we couldn’t properly identify.”
Avery’s face had gone still.
“But you’ve seen it happen.”
Priya sighed.
“It’s a theory. I wasn’t working alone. There was a research team before all of this happened, and your mother was part of it. We worked together for a while before everything fell apart. When the invasion started, I went back through what I remembered from the project. I don’t know if you’re one of them. That’s why I had to ask. And right now, I know what you’ve described matches the behaviour I’ve been studying. That’s all I can tell you.”
“Right. And you think that’s happening with me.”
Priya hesitated and Avery looked away, staring at the ruined buildings across the street.
Avery swallowed, then looked back at her.
“Joel noticed it too.”
“Joel?”
“The boy in the group with the crowbar. He thinks the Rigs are following me.” Avery muttered, recalling their conversation.
Priya’s expression tightened.
“He might be right.”
Avery laughed once, but there was nothing amused about it.
“That’s comforting.”
Priya raised a hand.
“I’m not trying to frighten you.”
“You’re doing a terrible job.”
Priya sighed.
“Avery, listen to me. I don’t know what this means yet. You asked me whether the behaviour you’ve seen could be connected to you. It could. I’m not going to lie and tell you otherwise.”
Avery stared at her for several seconds before asking the question that had been sitting at the back of her mind since Joel had first mentioned it.
“Am I dangerous to them?”
Priya didn’t answer and Avery’s expression changed.
“I asked you a question.”
“I heard you.” The woman sighed.
“Then answer it.”
Priya looked down at the metal case in her hand before meeting Avery’s eyes again.
She seemed to be choosing her words carefully.
“Not yet.”
Avery’s stomach dropped.
“Not yet?”
She sighed.
“I don’t know enough to say anything more than that.”
“So there is a possibility.”
The woman didn’t look like she had plans to be helpful.
“There is a possibility of a lot of things.”
Avery took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down before she said something she couldn’t take back.
“You’re not telling the others. Is that clear?”
Priya looked at her.
“Of course.”
They stood there for another moment before Avery turned back towards the group.
Neither of them noticed Declan watching them.
He hadn’t been able to hear what they were saying from where he stood, but he didn’t need to.
He wondered what Priya had told her.
He also wondered why Avery hadn’t said anything to him.
The thought irritated him more than it should have but he dismissed it.
There were more important things to worry about.
By the time they reached their next stopping point that evening, everyone was exhausted.
Declan found them an old office building that still had most of its doors intact and led everyone upstairs after checking the first two floors.
Priya settled against one wall with her metal case beside her and Derek kept glancing at her.
Nadia eventually whispered something to Hannah, who immediately shushed her.
Avery noticed but didn’t say anything.
The group was bigger now, and somehow that made everything feel less safe instead of more.
They had just finished dividing the food when something moved outside and Declan’s head snapped towards the door.
Everyone froze as a low, wet sound came from somewhere below them.
“Fractured,” he whispered.
He gestured for everyone to stay where they were before moving towards the stairwell and one appeared first.
Joel swung his crowbar before it could reach the top of the stairs, catching it hard enough to send it tumbling backwards.
Another came rushing behind it, and Derek immediately raised Declan’s rifle he had left behind.
“Don’t shoot!” Declan hissed.
Joel brought the crowbar down again and the second Fractured collapsed.
For a few seconds nobody moved.
Then Hannah exhaled shakily.
“That was close.”
Avery shook her head and sighed.
“Joel, please help Declan get rid of those bodies. And barricade the entrance. I’ll take second watch.”
Later that night, when everyone was asleep, Declan took first watch.
He sat near the window with his back against the wall, his rifle resting beside him.
After several minutes, he reached into his bag and pulled out the manual he’d taken from the dead HAVEN soldier.
He hadn’t told anyone about it because there hadn’t been a reason to.
The soldier was dead.
The manual had been sitting in his pack.
Declan had taken it because information was useful, especially information that belonged to the people they were trying to reach.
He turned the pages slowly.
Most of it was standard military material.
Supply routes.
Emergency procedures.
Communication protocols.
Nothing that explained why a HAVEN soldier had ended up dead in the middle of the road with a warning pinned to his uniform.
He was about to close it when something caught his attention.
A handwritten note.
It had been scribbled into the margin of a supply requisition form, almost hidden beneath a printed section about intake procedures.
Declan leaned closer and read it once.
Oh?
His expression hardened as he read it again.
“Genetic screening at intake. Flag and isolate Class-7 profiles. Do not inform subject.”