Another year had passed. More small hunts. More scars. He'd grown taller, leaner, stronger. His reflexes were sharp now, instinctive. He could load and fire a shotgun in seconds, recite exorcisms without hesitation, identify most North American monsters by their tracks alone.
He still didn't know why his body healed the way it did, or why he moved like he'd been training for decades instead of two years—but he'd stopped questioning it. The work demanded too much to dwell on mysteries he couldn't solve yet.
Training with Roy had evolved from basic defense to advanced hunting tactics. They spent less time on how to survive an attack and more on how to prevent one—how to track, how to anticipate, how to kill efficiently.
"Hesitation gets you dead," Roy would say, watching Adam practice knife strikes on a makeshift dummy. "Or worse, gets someone else dead."
Professor Reed added her own form of training—the academic side of hunting. Her office had become a secondary base of operations, walls lined with ancient texts, folklore collections, and historical accounts that she now read with new eyes.
"Knowledge is as important as weapons," she insisted, pushing another book toward Adam. "You need to understand what you're fighting, not just how to kill it."
Between them, they were molding Adam into something formidable. Something dangerous.
Something he wasn't sure he was meant to be.
John came by sometimes.
A birthday. A holiday. A "just passing through." They'd talk, sometimes even laugh. But John never stayed long. And Adam never told him the truth.
His most recent visit had been for Adam's fourteenth birthday. John had brought a new baseball glove—store-bought, still stiff with newness. They'd played catch in the backyard, an awkward ritual of forced normalcy.
"You're getting strong," John had remarked, catching Adam's throw with a raised eyebrow. "Playing sports at school?"
"Just stay in shape," Adam had replied with a shrug. "Run a lot."
John had studied him with that hunter's gaze—the one that missed nothing. His eyes had lingered on the small scar on Adam's forearm (werewolf, three months ago), the calluses on his palms (knife training), the way he automatically scanned the tree line (situational awareness, drilled into him by Roy).
Maybe John suspected. Maybe he saw the calluses on Adam's hands, the look in his eyes, the knowledge that shouldn't be there. But he never asked. Never dug. Maybe he didn't want to know. Maybe pretending Adam was still a normal kid was the only peace John had left.
Adam let him have it.
Sometimes Adam wondered what would happen if he told John the truth. If he laid out his journal, his weapons, his scars. Would John be proud? Angry? Would he drag Adam into his world completely, or try to pull him out?
Adam wasn't ready to find out. Not yet. Not until he understood more about what was coming.
The hunt that changed everything came in late fall.
The leaves had turned, painting the Minnesota landscape in fierce oranges and reds. The air had that crisp, clean quality that made breath visible in the mornings and promised snow before Thanksgiving.
Adam was at Reed's office reviewing banishing rituals when Roy called.
"Cattle mutilations near St. Cloud," Roy said without preamble. "Got a contact at the sheriff's department. They're treating it like a cult thing."
"Any signs of ritual?" Reed asked, having picked up the extension.
"No pentacles, no altars. Just clean kills, specific organs removed. Very precise."
Adam frowned. "Could be anything. Skinwalker, wendigo, even a ghoul with specific tastes."
"There's more," Roy continued. "A farmer claimed his son saw something 'wearing a man's skin wrong.' Said it looked human at first glance, but moved 'all wrong,' like the joints were backwards."
Reed was already pulling books from her shelves. "Classic skinwalker description. The Navajo legends describe them as able to don animal or human skins, but imperfectly. The disguise is never quite right."
Adam checked his watch. "Mom's working a double shift tonight. I can be ready in an hour."
"Pick you up at your place," Roy said. "Doc, you in or out on this one?"
Reed hesitated. She'd gone on a few research outings with them, but rarely anything that might involve direct confrontation. Her role was primarily support, not combat.
"I'm in," she said finally. "If it's a genuine skinwalker, I want to see it. For research purposes," she added quickly.
"Your funeral," Roy muttered, then hung up.
Adam raised an eyebrow at Reed. "You sure about this? Skinwalkers are dangerous. Fast, strong, unpredictable."
"Which is why you might need an extra set of eyes," she replied, already gathering her notes. "Besides, I've been studying Native American hunting rituals. I might know something useful."
Adam didn't argue. Over the past year, Reed had proven herself more valuable than he'd expected. Her academic knowledge often filled gaps in Roy's practical experience, and vice versa. Together, they'd built a research-hunting operation that was surprisingly effective.
They reached St. Cloud by nightfall.
Roy had checked it out and called in Adam and Professor Reed once he'd confirmed suspicious activity.
"Could be a skinwalker," Roy muttered, loading his shotgun as they prepared to leave the motel. "Or something worse pretending to be one."
"What's worse than a skinwalker?" Reed asked, checking her flashlight batteries.
Roy and Adam exchanged glances.
"Trust me, Doc," Roy said flatly. "There's always something worse."
Adam checked his gear one last time. Silver knife, iron blade, holy water, salt rounds for the shotgun Roy had modified for his smaller frame. Basic hunter kit.
He'd been through this routine dozens of times now. The preparation, the hunt, the confrontation, the cleanup. It was almost normal.
Almost.
They tracked it to an old granary just outside town. The building stood skeletal against the night sky, weathered wood and rusted metal barely holding together after decades of neglect. Perfect hiding place for something that didn't want to be found.
"Stay close," Roy whispered as they approached. "These things are fast. If it charges, aim for the heart or brain. Silver works best."
Reed nodded, clutching her flashlight like a lifeline. She wasn't a hunter, not really, but she'd insisted on coming. Adam admired her courage, even as he worried about her safety.
The granary's interior was a maze of shadows and dust. Moonlight filtered through broken slats in the walls, painting stripes across the concrete floor. The air smelled of rot and something else—something metallic and organic that made Adam's stomach clench.
Blood. Fresh blood.
Roy signaled for them to split up—Adam taking the ground floor's east side, Roy the west, Reed checking the small office area by the entrance.
Adam moved silently, feet placed with practiced care. His senses felt heightened, the way they always did during a hunt. Every sound crisp, every shadow distinct. His hand rested on the silver knife at his belt, ready.
The first sign came from above—a soft scraping, like nails on wood. Then a thump that sent dust raining from the ceiling.
Reed's voice crackled through the walkie-talkie at his hip: "I think it's in the upper loft. I can hear—"
A crash interrupted her. Then silence.
"Reed?" Adam whispered urgently into the radio. "Reed, come in."
Nothing.
Adam moved quickly toward the metal staircase leading to the upper level. Roy was already coming from the other direction, shotgun raised.
"Stay behind me," Roy ordered.
"No time," Adam replied, already taking the stairs two at a time.
The upper loft was darker, the moonlight barely penetrating. Adam flicked on his flashlight, sweeping the beam across empty grain containers and abandoned equipment.
"Reed?" he called softly.
A whimper came from the far corner. Adam's light found her, pressed against the wall, eyes wide with terror. Between her and the stairs stood a figure—human in shape, but moving with a jerky, unnatural gait.
It turned toward the light, and Adam's breath caught. It looked like a man—middle-aged, weathered face, flannel shirt—but something was fundamentally wrong. The skin seemed too tight in some places, too loose in others. The eyes reflected the light like an animal's.
"Adam," Reed's voice shook. "It's fast. Be careful."
The skinwalker tilted its head, studying Adam with predatory interest. Its mouth opened in what might have been a smile on a human face, revealing teeth too sharp for comfort.
"Young," it said, its voice a raspy imitation of human speech. "Tender."
Roy's footsteps sounded on the stairs behind Adam.
The creature's head snapped toward the new sound, and it snarled. In that moment of distraction, Reed tried to move along the wall toward Adam.
The floorboards creaked beneath her feet.
The skinwalker whirled, impossibly fast, and lunged at Reed. The rotted floor beneath them groaned, then gave way with a sickening crack. Reed screamed as she and the creature plummeted partially through the opening, catching herself on a support beam.
The skinwalker wasn't fazed. It scrambled up from the broken floor and reached for Reed's legs, trying to drag her down.
Adam had been on hunts before. He'd seen things. Fought things. Killed creatures that weren't human.
But this one was.
Or at least—it used to be.
It moved like a skinwalker, but it talked like a man. Trapped Reed in the upper loft, tore through the floor like paper trying to get to her. Adam reached her first, shoving her out of the way as the thing lunged.
Time slowed down. The creature's momentum carried it forward, its face twisted with inhuman hunger. Reed's panicked breathing filled Adam's ears. Roy was shouting something from the stairway.
Adam's hand found the silver knife at his belt. Pure instinct. Pure reaction.
He stabbed it in the chest.
And it died screaming.
Not hissing. Not evaporating. Screaming.
The blade slid in easy. Too easy.
It bled like a person. Collapsed like a person. Looked up at him, eyes wide, confused. Human.
The creature's—the man's—mouth worked silently, blood bubbling between his lips. The animal reflection faded from his eyes, leaving behind something terrifyingly human. Confusion. Pain. Fear.
Adam froze. Time slowed. He could hear Reed breathing behind him, shallow and fast. The wind through broken beams. His heart pounding in his ears.
He looked down at the body. Then at the knife in his hand.
And then he dropped it.
The silver blade clattered on the wooden floor, blood glistening black in the dim light. The man's chest rose and fell one last time, then stilled.
"Adam." Roy's voice came from very far away. "Adam, you okay?"
Adam couldn't answer. His throat had closed up. His hands were shaking violently now, spattered with cooling blood.
Reed was there suddenly, pulling him back from the body, her arm around his shoulders. "It's okay," she was saying, though her voice trembled. "You saved me. It would have killed me."
But Adam couldn't tear his eyes away from the man's face. In death, he looked ordinary. Just a middle-aged man with weathered skin and a week's growth of beard. Someone's neighbor. Someone's friend. Maybe someone's father.
"Was it—" Adam's voice cracked. "Was it really a skinwalker? Are we sure?"
Roy knelt beside the body, examining it with clinical detachment. "Silver reaction," he noted, pointing to the faint sizzle where the blade had pierced skin. "Retractable claws. Definitely not human." He looked up at Adam. "You did good, kid. You did what you had to do."
Adam nodded mechanically, but the reassurance felt hollow.
Later, Roy confirmed it had been a skinwalker. DNA on file. Previous kills. "It was dangerous," Roy said. "It would've killed her. Probably you, too."
They gathered at Reed's office afterward, the professor unusually quiet as she cleaned a cut on her arm. Roy nursed a whiskey, his expression grim but satisfied. Case closed. Monster dead. Hunters alive. In his book, that was a win.
Reed didn't argue with Roy's assessment.
But she didn't look at Adam the same after that.
Neither did Adam.
Something had changed the moment that knife slid home. A line crossed that could never be uncrossed. Killing monsters was one thing—they evaporated, exploded, crumbled to ash. Clinical. Clean. Abstract.
And even if there is some that resemble Human, Roy usually gives the last hit.
This had been messy. Human. Real.
Adam had taken a life. Not just a creature's existence—a life.
They buried the body deep in the woods.
No fire this time. No salt. Just dirt, and silence, and a weight Adam would carry for the rest of his life.
The digging helped, in a way. Physical labor, methodical and exhausting. Adam worked without stopping, sweat soaking through his shirt despite the cool night air. Roy offered to take over several times, but Adam refused. This was his responsibility. His burden.
When it was done, when the last shovelful of earth covered the makeshift grave, Adam stood silent for a long moment.
"Should we say something?" Reed asked softly.
Adam shook his head. What could he possibly say? Sorry I killed you? Sorry you were a monster? Sorry I can't feel as bad as I should?
Because that was the truth that gnawed at him. Beyond the shock, beyond the visceral horror of watching someone die by his hand, was a deeper, more disturbing realization: he wasn't as devastated as he should be.
A part of him—the hunter part, the part that had been growing stronger over the past two years—recognized the necessity of what he'd done. Reed was alive because he hadn't hesitated. Others would live because this skinwalker wouldn't hunt again.
The moral calculus was simple. One monster's life versus many innocent ones.
So why did his hands still shake when he thought about it?
He didn't cry. But he couldn't sleep for two nights.
On the third night, he sat on his bed, staring at the silver knife he'd cleaned meticulously. The weapon that had taken a life. His weapon now, in a deeper sense than before.
His phone buzzed. A text from John: Passing through next weekend. Thought we could catch a movie.
Adam stared at the message for a long time.
He still kept the secret from his dad.
John didn't need to know what his son had done.
Didn't need to know that Adam Milligan—fourteen, quiet, careful Adam—had taken a life.
To save someone he cared about.
To stop something evil.
To survive.
That's what he told himself, anyway. That's what Roy and Reed told him too, in their different ways. Roy with his gruff reassurance that it had been necessary, Reed with her quiet support as she helped him process what had happened.
But in the dark of his room, with only his reflection for company, Adam faced the truth.
And the worst part was... he'd do it again.
If faced with the same choice—Reed's life or the skinwalker's—he wouldn't hesitate. Not for a second.
And somehow, that realization was more terrifying than anything he'd hunted.