Letecia's car sped along the winding road that cut through the dense, wind-shaken forest. The sky, glimpsed through the bare arms of the trees, was the color of lead; the sun hid behind a woolen blanket of clouds. Everything around seemed to be holding its breath, waiting—though no one could say for what.

Inside the car, there was a thick, uneasy silence—only the soft hum of the engine and the light crunch of tires on gravel broke it.

William stared out of the window, trying not to look at Letecia. Her hands were tight on the wheel, knuckles pale. Beside him, on the back seat, Milagros sat quietly, gazing at the fogged glass. Her reflection was dim and grey, as if the sky itself had settled in her eyes.

Fifteen minutes passed before William finally spoke. He cleared his throat, pretending to sound casual.

"Hey, Les…" He hesitated, studying her profile. "What happened back at the cafeteria? You went pale when someone mentioned Arkham."

At the word, Letecia stiffened. It was as though a current of electricity shot down her spine. Her fingers clenched around the steering wheel hard enough for the plastic to crack faintly. The muscle in her cheek twitched; her breathing turned shallow.

"What?" she asked hoarsely, through clenched teeth.

From the back seat came a cool, unsettling voice.

"You're reekin' of fear," Milagros murmured. "I can feel it from here."

Letecia shot a glare through the rearview mirror.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, you too? That's so helpful. Maybe we should just have ourselves a whole damn therapy session right here in the car, huh?"

She swung the wheel sharply to the left, just missing a roadside branch that scraped against the mirror with a dry hiss.

"Sorry," William said quickly. "I just—wanted to understand. If it's that serious... maybe you should tell me. Is that professor dangerous? For the students, my friends... for us?"

He didn't notice when he said us.

Letecia stayed quiet, eyes locked on the road ahead. Then she exhaled hard, like trying to rid herself of a heavy thought.

"Listen here, sugar," she said at last, her voice softening into her drawl, "I got my own reasons for keepin' Arkham out my mouth. It's old. It's personal. Ain't none of your business."

She did glance at him then, and her eyes weren't angry anymore—just tired.

"But there's somethin' you oughta know. That professor... he ain't what he seems. Don't get too close to him, ya hear? Don't poke your nose where it don't belong. With your kinda luck, honey, best keep your head down and your mouth shut."

William frowned, turning her warning over in his mind.

"So, you're saying… he might be one of us? A phenomenon? Or worse—someone who hunts people like us?"

"For God's sake, William!" Letecia snapped. "Would ya just hush for once? Not every damn thing needs figurin' out!"

He flinched as if she'd struck him, biting down on whatever he was going to say next. The silence pressed in again, thick and uneasy.

Then Milagros spoke, voice calm but chilling.

"Letecia."

"What now?" Letecia barked without looking back. "Wanna throw somethin' else in the pot?"

"No," Milagros replied, her tone dropping into something cold and uncanny. She lifted a hand and pointed forward. "Look at the road."

Letecia followed her gesture—and her breath caught.

Standing dead center on the wet asphalt was an enormous bull, black as midnight. Its horns curled inward, warped and sharp like molten blades. Its eyes glowed faintly amber, and steam rose from its nostrils in slow, shuddering bursts.

"What the hell—" she started, but instinct took over before she could finish.

She jerked the steering wheel; the tires screamed against the slick pavement. The car skidded sideways, fishtailing. William slammed into the door; Milagros grabbed the headrest in front of her, eyes wide but calm.

The trees rushed toward them—dark, skeletal shapes in the fog.

"Hold on!" Letecia shouted.

An earsplitting crack. The car slammed into a tree. Metal crumpled. The air filled with the acrid sting of fuel and smoke. The world tilted, then went still.

Milagros was the first to move. She lifted her head with effort, tasting blood.

"Damn it," she whispered.

The headlights flickered weakly. The car leaned at a crooked angle, hood smashed in. Letecia sat rigid behind the wheel, chest heaving, fingers still latched tight like the crash hadn't yet stopped in her mind.

"You two alright back there?" Letecia rasped, slowly prying her white-knuckled fingers off the steering wheel. They trembled — whether from adrenaline or fury at herself, she couldn't tell. The engine had gone silent, leaving only the faint hiss of steam from under the hood. The air inside the car was thick with the smell of blood, gasoline, and scorched rubber.

She turned her head left, then back over her shoulder, her eyes scanning frantically. Her whole body ached, but nothing seemed broken — a few bruises, a sore shoulder.

Could've been a whole lot worse, she thought. But then she caught sight of Milagros's face — calm, far too calm, with a flicker of wary focus in her eyes — and unease prickled through her chest.

"I'm… okay, I think. But William—oh, hell," Milagros began evenly, then her voice faltered.

"What about him!?" Letecia barked, twisting in her seat.

And then she froze.

William's head hung out the shattered window at an odd angle, glass glinting in his hair. Two long shards were lodged in his neck, jutting upward like crude knives, with blood pulsing sluggishly down his shirt.

Silence dropped like a lid.

"Aw, Jesus H. Christ…" Letecia hissed, shoving her door open so hard it slammed the trees with a metallic thud. Shards of glass crackled under her boots as she stumbled out. Milagros climbed out a moment later, moving smoothly, her expression unreadable — except for a faint, predatory glint in her eyes.

The forest had gone deathly still, the air dense, unmoving. It felt like the trees were watching.

"Damn," Milagros murmured, her voice steady but low. "That bad?"

"See for yourself, sugar. Lord above… he ain't dead, is he?" Letecia bent down beside the window, carefully touching William's cheek. It was clammy, slick with blood.

"He's not breathing, but—"

"He ain't dead," Milagros cut her off coolly. "I can still feel his thread. Don't you see his aura?"

Letecia's eyes flashed green for a heartbeat. She squinted, then exhaled roughly in relief.

"Yeah. Still there. Shinin' bright as ever. But hell, I can't rightly say if he's alive. Ain't no ordinary man could survive holes like that in his neck. Even us… we ain't built to walk away easy from that kinda mess."

She grimaced at the sight of blood darkening his shirt, dripping onto the moss.

"But he ain't 'ordinary,' Letecia," Milagros said, lips curling into a faint, animal smile.

She stooped, slid her arms under his, and hauled William out of the wreck like he weighed nothing, lowering him gently onto the damp grass.

"Guess you got a point…" Letecia muttered, stepping back, uneasy. "But don't go doin' anything stupid, ya hear?"

Milagros didn't answer. She took hold of one shard of glass, twisted her wrist, and yanked it free.

The sound that followed was wet and awful.

Letecia flinched. Milagros didn't even blink — she raised the bloody shard to her lips and licked it, slow and thoughtful, as if tasting wine. Her eyes half-closed. Then she turned to Letecia and offered it out casually.

"Want a taste?"

"Good Lord, put that down, you damn psycho," Letecia snapped, recoiling.

Milagros shrugged and tossed the glass into the bushes. Almost instantly, William's body jerked. His fingers curled, his chest hitched. A hoarse gasp tore from his throat as if someone had flipped a switch inside him.

"God—damn! My—neck—hurts like hell!" he choked, coughing violently. He grabbed at his throat, but the skin there was flawless — not even a scar. Blood dripped from his mouth, flecks of glass and dust spewing out as he gasped for air. But he was alive.

Alive.

"Thank the Lord," Letecia breathed, collapsing to her knees beside him. "I thought I done kilt you with my drivin'! Death by fender bender — what a godawful way to go, huh?"

Milagros gave a dry little laugh, wiping her bloody fingers on the grass.

"If you'd killed him, you'd be payin' for more than a busted bumper. But look at him — healing like a champ. Wolverine would be jealous."

She nudged his boot with hers. "You alive, or just pretendin'?"

"You're joking, now?!" William croaked, pushing himself upright. His head swam, his shirt soaked and sticky with blood. The fabric clung cold against his skin. He glanced down at himself and gave a bitter sigh.

"Perfect. Another shirt ruined. At this rate, I'll go broke before I die."

"Better lose a damn shirt than your head," Letecia muttered, brushing her palms on her jeans. "By the way, that 'little thing' in the road? You saw it too, didn't ya?"

William looked up, and that flicker of fear — the same one Milagros had sensed earlier — returned.

"The bull? Yeah," he said softly. "Only… I don't think it was just a bull."

"Maybe it was just an animal that got loose from some farmer's barn," William muttered, rubbing the back of his neck as he peered down the dark road. The huge black shape had long since vanished. "Or maybe the Amish misplaced a bull again?"

For a moment the air felt almost fresh—until a sour, burning stench rolled through the clearing. William winced, inhaled, then gagged and clamped a hand over his face.

"Ugh—what is that!? Y'all smell that too?" he managed between coughs.

Letecia glanced at Milagros. The two exchanged a look and sniffed the air, but caught nothing unusual—just the lingering mix of gasoline, sap, and damp soil after the crash.

"Your nose's sharper than ours," Milagros said calmly. "What's it smell like?"

William grimaced. "Like manure," he said, then shook his head, squinting. "No, worse. Sour and rotten, like something died in it and got cooked in the sun. God, it's disgusting—it reeks of death."

"Manure, huh?" Letecia said slowly, one brow twitching up. But before she could say more, the ground under her boots shuddered. Not hard, but deep—like something massive was moving below the surface. A low, thrumming vibration ran through her legs, and goosebumps prickled her arms.

"The hell was that…" she whispered.

From the nearby trees, a flock of birds exploded into the sky, their cries slicing through the silence.

"Now that, we all felt," Milagros said flatly, turning toward the forest. Her pupils widened as she listened. In the hush she picked up a rhythm—dull, heavy, fast. Thud-thud. Thud-thud. The cadence of hooves. Big ones. Getting closer.

"Something's coming," William said, his voice tightening. "And fast."

A heartbeat later, the quiet shattered.

A metallic screech split the air—metal against asphalt—and then it burst into view.

The creature thundered out from between the trees, catching the broken glare of the headlights.

A bull—enormous, black as oil, easily the size of a truck. Its hide gleamed with a wet, pulsing sheen, like its skin wasn't made of flesh at all but some slick, living tar. Its horns curled inward, warped like bones broken and re-fused. Steam bellowed from its nostrils with each breath, and its eyes glowed a sickly amber—like dying embers struggling for air.

Milagros didn't look at its face; her gaze fixed on its shoulder. Between the tangled hair and scars, a brand was burned into the flesh—symbols of tools: a hook, a knife, a long strip of leather, all melted into living tissue.

"Holy hell," she breathed. "That's not a bull. That's a phenomenon. The Skinners sent it for me."

"The who now?" Letecia blurted, stepping back. For the first time her voice carried real fear.

"The Skinners," Milagros said through clenched teeth. "They breed their monsters like hounds—faster, stronger, meaner. But this one…" she studied the beast's trembling hide. "It's too clean. Freshly made."

The bull stamped the ground, snorting a spray of black, tar-thick saliva that sizzled on impact. The earth vibrated.

"Wait, your little leather-loving buddies have pets now? You've gotta be kidding me!" William shouted. He backed up a step—just in time to realize the women were already gone, sprinting into the trees. Their shadows flickered through the branches.

"Oh, come on! You're serious right now!?" His yell echoed uselessly.

The bull turned its head toward him, slow and deliberate. Their eyes locked—human fear met something older, deader, and hateful. William swallowed hard.

"Of course," he muttered. "Why does it always have to be me?"

He ran.

The creature bellowed and lunged, shaking the ground as it charged after him. Every thunderous step sent dirt flying; saplings snapped like matchsticks. William dodged through the underbrush, stumbling, sliding between roots and stones, heart hammering in his chest. Behind him came the rhythmic quake of hooves, closer each time, every breath he took drowned under its snarling exhalations.

"You bastards!" he shouted into the dark. "You left me again!"

A sharp crack split the air—the bull hit a tree so hard it splintered clean through and toppled behind him with a roar. Branches clawed at William's face, but he didn't stop. His lungs burned, legs trembling, vision tunneling.

"I swear," he gasped out loud, half-prayer, half-curse, "if I live through this—no more damn burgers! I'm done! Vegetarian for life!"

Behind him, the bull howled—a low, resonant bellow that seemed to tear the forest itself apart. The ground quaked anew.

Up ahead, hearing the roar, Letecia skidded to a stop and looked back over her shoulder.

"He's fallin' behind?" she called to Milagros, breath ragged.

Milagros's expression hardened. "No. He's gaining." Her voice went cold as steel. "We need to split its focus. If it's chasing William, that means it sees him as a threat—or bait."

"He's just plain unlucky, that's what he is!" Letecia yelled back, breaking into another sprint. "If we don't think of somethin' quick, there's gonna be nothin' left of him but his damn shoes!"

And somewhere down below, between the trees, the bull's bellow rose again—closer this time. Much closer.

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