The silence stretched, thick and unnatural.
No wind. No rustling leaves. No distant sounds of the forest. Just nothing.
Mira's hand inched toward her weapon, but she didn't draw it yet. Julien shifted beside me, eyes scanning the treeline. The others weren't as quick to notice, but they felt it.
The wrongness.
I exhaled slowly. "Stay alert."
No one argued.
I took a cautious step toward the marked tree. Up close, the scratch looked ordinary. But I knew better. It wasn't deep enough to be from an animal, and it was too irregular for a blade.
Something had passed through here.
Something not normal.
Julien muttered, "Tell me we're not about to fight some ghost."
"If it bleeds, we can kill it," Garrick said, rolling his shoulders.
Mira didn't look convinced. "Not everything that hunts needs to bleed."
That shut him up.
I turned to Wallace. "Check the area for anything unusual."
