"We should burn it."
Tiger was the first to speak, his voice flat, unblinking. He stood with his gun resting casually against his shoulder, but his eyes never left the open crate.
Mick made a choked sound. "Burn it? Are you serious?"
Tiger pointed at the sleeping thing in the box. "You want to keep that with us?"
"It's dormant," Jai offered. "The cryo-unit's stable. It hasn't moved."
"Yet," Tiger growled.
We stood in a rough circle, the night thick around us again. The ambushers were long gone—either scared off or waiting for us to move.
But the real threat lay in front of us.
Still, cold, and silent.
Kol leaned back against a rock, arms crossed over his chest, still favoring his injured side. "If it's what the data says, this isn't like the others."
"It's not," I said quietly. "The other hybrids—they were engineered to be controlled. Pretty faces. Responsive bodies. Toys."
This wasn't that.
This wasn't beautiful.
It was terrifying.
"Then why keep it?" Mick asked, voice shrill. "Why not destroy it now?"
Tiger raised a hand. "Finally, something we agree on."
Jai shook his head. "You saw the seal. The funding logs. Someone high up is invested in this thing."
"Exactly why we dump it," Kol muttered. "Let the bastards come pick it up themselves."
Nyx had been quiet until now.
Then she whispered, They'll weaponize it. If we let it live, they'll unleash it on the world. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not next year. But they will. That's what humans do with monsters.
I walked a slow circle around the crate, eyeing the containment systems. Redundant locks. Layered cooling. Pulse monitors tucked discreetly into its frame. Not even Nine's display modules were this sophisticated.
Whoever built this, they expected it to be dangerous even in sleep.
And they wanted it transportable.
"What if it wakes up on the road?" I asked aloud, not meaning to.
Mick's face paled further. "Then we all die?"
Tiger gave a grim nod. "Exactly."
Kol wiped blood from his lip. "Let me play devil's advocate. We kill it here, the boss finds out, we're the ones on the slab next."
"If we bring it back," I said, "we give them the weapon they want. And it won't just be us who dies when they use it."
Tiger frowned. "What if we don't destroy it, but… hide it?"
Everyone looked at him.
He shrugged. "Find a pit. Bury it. Deep. No signal. No transport logs. Say it was lost in the firefight."
Mick scoffed. "And hope it doesn't dig itself out in a hundred years?"
"I'm just saying, we've got three bad options here," Kol said. "One gets us killed by the organization. One gets us killed by the monster. One gets someone else killed later."
I met his eyes. "So we pick who dies?"
He didn't blink. "Aren't we always?"
That quieted the group.
I stepped closer to the crate again, letting the frost roll against my skin. I could hear it, faint under the ice—the heartbeat. So slow. So steady.
And I hated how familiar it felt.
Not because it reminded me of Nine.
But because it reminded me of me.
Nyx growled, Let me end it. Just one strike, and we're free of this.
I placed a hand against the lid.
And hesitated.
Because sometimes, power wasn't just in the claws. It was in the choice not to use them.