Breathing hard, he looked down at his hand, at the knife in it. He remembered how much he’d wanted these in their carries. It was a Combat Troodon, one of the best fighting knives in the world. But how he was beginning to use it seemed more and more beyond his or anybody else’s skill.

Was he a hybrid? But how could that be? He was completely human in every detail.

It had to be a lie. If he wasn’t fully human—if he was some sort of biological machine—he decided that he would kill himself.

Linda shouted at him, “For God’s sake, Mark, how did you do that?”

He looked from Linda to Pete, their earnest young faces, innocent.

Linda’s face was flushed, her uniform wet in places from blood that he assumed would be leaking out of her abraded skin.

“We need to get out of here right now,” he said, speaking to them with the same earnest tolerance he would use with children. He also thought, They came here and they saved me. I was lost, and they found me.

Ahead, there was the sound of drumming, and what might be laughter. Peering through the forest, he saw lights. For the first time since Gina’s attack had come in, he took enough note of his surroundings to see that night had fallen. Battle eats time in great, speeding gulps.

“Is that a camp? What is that?”

“There’s no camp there,” Linda replied.

“That’s people screaming,” Mark said. “That’s panic.”

“I’m afraid it’s Willoughby,” Linda said.

The hybrids were there, and they were having a party.

Mark began to run.

Linda caught up with him. “Mark, you need to be careful.”

“We all need to be careful. They used me as bait just now, remember that. To lure you.”

“And now they’re using the town as bait to lure you.”

“Never miss a trick, do they? Clever bastards.”

“What’s happening, Mark? This isn’t what we thought.”

“I’m not sure.” He did not want to share his suspicions with them, especially not the ones he now had about himself.

From Willoughby cries joined the laughter, ululating through the moonlit forest. Nearer, an owl cackled softly, if it was an owl.

Mark headed toward the screaming town, but Linda took his arm.

“You can’t go wading into that, Mark.”

“There’s still a chain of command in this unit, and I’m going to go over there and deal with whatever the hell is happening, and I want you to back me up, both of you.”

Pete said, “You’ll want a Metal Storm.”

No gun would be needed, not now that he’d discovered the true speed of his hands.

“My knife is my tool.”

“How can you kill that way?” Linda muttered.