A pair of flashlights illuminate the narrow tunnel.

There are no ceiling supports of wood or stone. These tunnels weren’t engineered, they weren’t made by flowing water.

This is the kind of tunnel an animal would make.

Something dug this.

I sent D’souza’s Demons and Lahfah’s Creepers on the scouting mission—but told Lahfah herself to wait for me. Once I’m done with Huan, she will take me north. We know the rendezvous points for the check-ins, so as sprawling and vast as the jungle is, we should be able to connect with Maria.

Unless the Wasps get her first.

“Huan, I don’t give a damn if you’re afraid—keep moving.”

If only I was as brave as I sound. There’s something about this tunnel…something wrong.

Huan Chowdhury glares back at me. My climbing harness matches his. The rigs’ metal loops secure us to ropes when the inclines are too steep to walk, or when they drop straight down. I’m filthy, he’s filthy.

“You better watch your ass, Em. You get lost down here”—he smiles, rests his hand on the handle of the knife in his belt—“and they might never find you ever again.”

The growl in his voice…is he threatening me? I didn’t bring my spear—it’s too cramped down here for it—but I have a knife, too, and I know how to use it.

Test me, little boy, and I’ll add one more kill to my list….

I stop walking. What kind of a thought was that? You don’t kill someone for words. And Huan’s thinly veiled threat…that’s not like him at all.

Whatever release we gained with the fight against the Wasps, it’s gone.

Because the God of Blood is in us.

“Huan, we both need to relax,” I say. “The violent urges are coming back. Do you feel them?”

He glares at me, suspecting I am trying to trick him. Then he rubs his eyes. His face scrunches up.

“Yeah,” he says. He grabs his chest, fingertips digging into straps and black canvas. “In here…I’m so angry and I don’t know why.”

I’ve felt this thirst for violence before. Strong in the jungle. Stronger in the city. Stronger still in the Observatory, and strongest in the Control Room.

But in these tunnels, it’s even worse.

There is something evil down here. The source of all the hate and anger…we’re closing in on it.

Whatever it is, could it also be the thing that called so many races across the stars?

And it’s not just anger this time…there is also fear. My body screams at me to get out of this place, to just run.

I will not run. I will not give in.

“You were right,” I say to Huan. “It is spooky down here. Damn spooky.”

He looks at me doubtfully. “Are you mocking me again?”

I shake my head. “No, and I’m sorry I did before. It’s terrifying down here. I should have believed you. We all should have.”

I see the anger melt from his face. In that moment, Huan isn’t a little boy anymore—he’s a man finally getting the respect he deserves.

“Thank you,” he says.

Something unspoken passes between us. Whatever must be done down here, Huan and I will do it together.

We continue on. At the tunnel’s end, there is a Huan-sized dark shadow in the muddy wall.

“That was the spot I told you about,” he says. “I was able to push through into a new tunnel. A few meters farther in, there’s a bend to the right. That’s where I heard the voice.”

He doesn’t want to continue. Neither do I.

But we have to.

I slip through the muddy opening into a larger tunnel. Huan hesitates, then follows.

It’s hotter in here. Hotter and more humid, just like Huan said.

And then I feel it, just barely—a push/pull of air, soft, repetitive, insistent.

As if something is breathing.

I’m so afraid it’s hard to think. It’s like an entity is in my heart and head, making me afraid the same way I would make a puppet dance.

“Huan, I’m really sorry I called you a coward.”

He nods, a simple movement that tells me I’m forgiven. I believe him now, that’s all that matters to him.

We continue on. The soles of our boots squish in mud. Our flashlight beams play off of water slowly dripping from the ceiling and thin rivulets running down the walls.

Up ahead of Huan, I see the tunnel bend sharply to the right.

Huan points with a shaking hand.

“That’s where I heard her,” he whispers. “That’s where I heard my mom.”

We have to go on, but I can’t bring myself to take another step forward.

Then I hear it—a soft human voice echoing off the wet dirt walls.

“Don’t be afraid….”

Not a woman’s voice…a man’s.

My body trembles. I want to run away, but my feet have frozen solid to the tunnel floor.

“Don’t be afraid,” the voice says again, closer now. “I’m right around the corner. I’ll approach slowly.”

The voice of an older man. It sounds a little like Marcus.

I grab Huan’s arm.

“You said it sounded like your mom!”

He’s shaking his head, nonstop.

“It did! I swear it did!”

“Don’t be afraid,” the man says a third time. “I’ll step around the corner now.”

He does.

It’s a man. Older but not old. Jeans and a blue button-down shirt.

Black hair.

Black mustache.

Matilda’s memories are sparse, scattered and mostly fuzzy. Very few of them burn so clear they are real to me, like I experienced that moment myself.

One of those memories has come to life.

A memory of being a little girl, crying, sitting on a man’s lap.

I stare at that man now.

A single word escapes my tight throat.

“Daddy?”