“Right,” Caeyin drawled in disbelief when the human tried to dissuade him from opening the door. He knew she was just trying to pretend like she wasn’t afraid of his people. She was spinning a lie about another frightening creature to prevent him from reuniting with the other scouts and reinforcing the reality that she was outnumbered by a group that was here to make sure she died. He didn’t know why she bothered. No matter what, he was going to shoot her before he left her wretched vehicle. This way was just more entertaining for him, since he wanted to make her grovel after she had tried to turn him into her captive.

Unperturbed by her panicked begging, he lowered his silencer to the ground just in front of her feet and pulled the trigger to fire a warning shot. “Stay put,” he barked. “Or the next one will strike you in the head.” With an impeccably steady hand and a keen eye, it was far from an empty threat. Even if she tried to charge toward him, he was confident that he could kill her before she took two steps. He finally had the upper hand against her, and he wasn’t going to lose it again.

When he reached the door, he risked looking away from her for a flicker of an instant to locate the handle, then fixed his gaze on her again while he took it in his free hand and undid the latch. Keeping her in sight to make sure she didn’t run while he multitasked, he turned the handle and gave the door a sharp pull, calling out as soon as it opened, “Over here!” Unsure if the other scouts knew he was already inside the vehicle, he wanted to be certain they heard him and recognized his voice, so they wouldn’t mistake him for another human and blindly shoot.

However, when the door swung open and the figure on the other side came into view, he bristled, realizing too late that something was wrong. The person outside the vehicle wasn’t a scout. It wasn’t even a Lunairan. His clothes were tattered and not at all like those that were worn by his people. His hair was light brown, and his eyes were a similar shade. In his peripheral vision, Caeyin recognized that it was a human, but when he turned fully to look at it, he saw that it seemed different than the female that had captured him. It had a glazed look in its eyes, and it was spattered with dried blood.

The sight made his survival instincts flare, and he twisted at the waist to aim his silencer at it, but the deranged human was just as fast. It lunged and collided with him roughly, knocking the wind from his lungs and the weapon from his hand. The latter clattered to the floor and skidded out of reach, and he inhaled sharply as he hit the ground, barreled over by the weight of his attacker. Quickly, he scrambled to push back against it with his hands, turning his head away as the thing gnashed its teeth and writhed, attempting to overpower him.

As he wrestled against it, Caeyin’s mind raced. He was shocked that human had been right and that her warning hadn’t been a lie. He was perplexed as he tried to figure out what exactly was fighting with him now. He was even slightly frightened by the fact that it had managed to get on top of him so easily and pin him to the floor. Reflexively, his pupils dilated, and he attempted to take control of its optic nerves, relying on his trump card to confuse the human and slip away. But it didn’t work. He felt the connection take hold, but the thrashing didn’t stop. It was as if the creature was immune to his invasion into its mind.

Grinding his teeth, he severed the link and continued to try pushing it off of him, giving up on tricking the creature with a vision when his usual method didn’t seem to be effective.