Derek yanked Olivia through the splintered foyer, boots crunching on glass, Karen’s laughter still echoing behind them. The night air hit cold. He shoved her into the F-150, threw the M249 across the back seat, and gunned the engine. Drywall dust rose behind them.

  For two blocks, neither of them spoke. Sirens wailed somewhere in the distance. Olivia’s hands shook once, then stilled. Derek’s knuckles were white on the wheel.

  “Do you believe me now?” he snapped, voice ragged. “Do you believe me?”

  Olivia stared forward. “I watched your cousin’s skull take a nine and smile about it. Then she grew a muzzle in my living room. Yeah, Derek. I believe you.”

  He swallowed. “She’s not my cousin anymore.”

  They hit the highway. Sodium lights strobed past. Olivia wiped blood from her cheek with the cuff of her sleeve.

  “We need to lay low,” she said. “Daytime moves. No patterns. Assume they’re watching everything.”

  “They are,” Derek said. “Karen said as much.” He exhaled hard, trying to slow his heart. “Silver buys us time. I’ve got a stash. Not enough. I’ll need more rounds made.”

  “I want some.” She finally met his eyes. “Backup gun, ankle holster. I’m not dying because we were sentimental.”

  “Done.”

  His phone vibrated on the center console. Unknown number. He glanced at the screen. KAREN.

  He let it ring once, twice. The cab got very quiet.

  “She’s still alive,” Olivia said.

  Derek flipped the phone face down. “It wasn’t a silver bullet, so yeah.”

  They drove another mile before speaking again.

  “We move you out tonight,” Derek said. “My motel is sixty minutes out. No housekeeping, no neighbors, cash desk. You grab essentials in daylight only, and you don’t go alone.”

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  Olivia almost laughed. “Heavily armed and invisible. Got it.”

  He nodded toward the rear, where the M249 lay under an oil-stained tarp. “No belt-feds in public. Pistols, short shotgun. Keep your head down.”

  “I know.”

  They reached the motel just before dawn, two stories of sun-faded stucco and a buzzing ice machine. Olivia took the room next to Derek’s, back doors facing a strip of woods and a narrow service road. He handed her a cloth bag. Six heavy rounds clinked inside.

  “Silver,” he said.

  She weighed them in her palm. “Feels like a prayer.”

  “Feels like a deadline.”

  By noon, she was gone. Shower, uniform, badge, a tired ponytail, and the lie she told herself that she could still do her job. Derek watched her taillights burn down the service road and disappear into the heat shimmer.

  He turned on the room’s old TV for noise. A local anchor in a blue blazer looked rattled but practiced.

  “In breaking news out of East Parish, an African male lion escaped its enclosure overnight at the Pine Ridge Zoological Park. Wildlife officials urge residents to remain indoors. Search teams are canvassing the wooded areas along Route 19.”

  Derek stared at the screen a second too long. “Sure. Why not?”

  There was no housekeeping on Tuesdays. He took out his own trash.

  The dumpster sat at the far end of the lot, beside a stand of pine and river birch. He shoved the lid up with a shoulder, tossed the bag, and turned back toward his room.

  The air changed first. It thickened.

  Something hit him like a freight train.

  Derek slammed face-first into the asphalt, breath blasted out of his lungs. A weight pinned him, hot and muscled. The lion was on him before he could react—yellow eyes. Black mane matted with dew. Its roar shook his ribs.

  Jaws broke through everything. Teeth found his right bicep, just above the sleeve, and sank in deep.

  He didn’t scream. He choked on it.

  Then, as suddenly as it came, the weight was gone. The lion sprang off him in a single motion and vanished into the treeline.

  Derek lay there. His arm burned, blood already soaking through his sleeve. He rolled, pushed up, staggered to his feet, and walked the long ten yards back to his room on legs that weren’t quite steady.

  He called Olivia. He called 911. He said the words "lion," "bite," and "hotel," and heard dispatchers tell him to sit down and apply pressure.

  They took him to the County. A young doctor with shaky hands irrigated the wound and stitched it closed. Tetanus shot. Bandage. A cop at the door asked if he was sure it wasn’t a big dog.

  “Yeah,” Derek said. “I’m sure.”

  He stayed two nights. The news said the lion was still at large. When he was released, Olivia picked him up at the front entrance. She didn’t ask how he was feeling. She just looked at the bandage on his arm and handed him a bottle of water.

  “We need to talk to Marsh again,” she said.

  Derek nodded. “Yeah. We do.”

  They drove back to the motel in silence, the weight of what was coming settling over both of them.