Read Chapter 18: Jules Confesses

Jules’s breathing had gone wet. Declan heard it over the wind keening through the rock alcove—a shallow, rattling sound that spoke of blood pooling where it shouldn’t. He had the man’s leg propped on his own knee, the torn fabric of Jules’s pants peeled back to reveal a wound that looked like a hammer had taken a bite out of the muscle. The beast’s claws had raked deep, leaving furrows that wept crimson even through the pressure bandage.

“You need to stay still,” Declan said, tightening the wrap. Jules hissed through his teeth but didn’t pull away. His face was a pale mask of sweat and frost, eyes glassy with shock. The fever was already starting—Declan could feel the heat radiating off him even through his gloves.

“Still,” Jules repeated, slurring the word. “That’s funny. I’ve been still my whole life, Cross. Still and quiet and useful.”

Maya had ducked out ten minutes ago to scavenge for dry wood. The alcove was shallow, barely more than a shelf of granite tucked against a cliff face, but it shielded them from the worst of the wind. The sky above had gone a bruised purple, the brief clearing Nolan had promised already closing in.

Declan didn’t answer. He reached for the canteen, trickled water between Jules’s cracked lips. The man swallowed, coughed, and some of the blood-froth came up pink.

“She’s gone,” Jules said, jerking his chin toward the opening. “Good. Good, because I can’t—I can’t say this twice.”

Declan’s hands stilled on the bandage. “Say what?”

Jules’s gaze found his, and for a moment the delirium seemed to lift—sharpened by fear into something close to clarity. “You think I’m just some guide who got in over his head. Some local who knew the terrain and didn’t ask enough questions.” A dry laugh cracked his throat. “I’m not. I’m a geologist. Was. Before I took this job.”

“The expedition,” Declan said slowly. “You weren’t hired for your tracking.”

“I was hired for my eyes.” Jules gripped Declan’s forearm with shocking strength. His fingers were cold, clawing. “To identify the rock. To know it when I saw it. They said there was a meteorite fragment in the valley—a piece of something that fell a long, long time ago. Buried under the ice near the Nest. They said it was worth more than the lives of everyone on this mountain.”

Declan’s blood turned to slush. “Who’s ‘they’?”

“A corporation. Out of Calgary, nominally. Front companies up the chain—I never got past the second layer. But they funded everything. The equipment, the permits, the bribes to get us access to the restricted zones.” Jules’s voice dropped to a whisper. “They knew about the petroglyphs. They knew what they did to people. And they wanted a sample to reverse-engineer it.”

The journal Elias had left in the cave flashed through Declan’s mind—the scrawled warnings, the frantic final entries. *They want to harness it. They think they can control it.*

“The metamorphic agent,” Declan said. “The thing that changes people into—into things. They wanted to weaponize it.”

Jules nodded weakly. “Elias figured it out. That’s why he ran—took the map, took a sample of the fragment, disappeared into the wild. The corporation sent me to find him.” His laugh was bitter, hollow. “I was supposed to retrieve the sample and bring it back. But then the first snow hit and the tracking party got split, and I ended up with you people. And then I saw what he became.”

Declan’s throat tightened. “Elias.”

“I didn’t know it was him until the end. The creature that attacked us—the one that wore his face—that was Elias. He’d been fighting it. Holding on to whatever was left of himself long enough to destroy the fragment.” Jules’s grip on Declan’s arm intensified. “He failed. But he didn’t fail completely.”

“What do you mean?”

Jules’s eyes flickered to the pack leaning against the alcove wall. Declan’s pack. Then back to Declan’s face.

“There’s a sample on you. Right now. He must have slipped it in when we were—when we were moving through the caves. I found it two days ago. I’ve been carrying it since, waiting for the right moment.” Jules let go, sagging back against the rock. His chest heaved. “In the outer pocket of your pack. Deerhide pouch. I put it there after you helped me across the ravine.”

Declan’s heart hammered. He turned, unzipped the outer compartment, and his gloved fingers brushed against something soft—a small pouch, greased and weatherproofed, tied with sinew. He held it up. It was cold to the touch, and the pendant around his neck pulsed warm against his chest—warmer than it had been in hours.

“This is the sample,” he said.

“The piece Elias managed to chip off the main fragment before he turned. The corporation’s scientists think it’s a catalyst—something that accelerates the transformation, or maybe causes it outright. They wanted it contained in lead-lined boxes. They wanted it studyable.” Jules’s voice cracked. “They didn’t want it loose.”

Declan stared at the pouch in his hand. It weighed almost nothing. A world of destruction wrapped in deerhide.

“What happens if it breaks?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t think Elias did either.” Jules grabbed his wrist again, and his grip was fierce, desperate. “But you have to destroy it, Cross. Burn it. Bury it in the deepest crevasse you can find. Whatever it is, it’s not safe. Not for anyone. Not even for the people who think they can control it.”

“Why didn’t you destroy it yourself?”

Jules’s laugh was mirthless, and a tear carved its way through the grime on his cheek. “Because I’m a coward. Because I took the money and I told myself I could walk away. And because…” He swallowed hard. “Because I thought maybe if I brought it back, they could fix Elias. Reverse it. Give him back the man he was before.”

His voice broke on the last word. Declan looked down at the pouch, then at the man bleeding out beside him. Jules’s eyes were closed now, his breathing evening into something shallow but steadier. The confession had taken the last of his strength.

Snow hissed against the alcove mouth. Somewhere beyond the cliff, a howl rose—closer than the last one. Not answering. Hunting.

Declan’s fingers closed around the pouch. He could feel the shape inside—something hard and angular, small enough to fit in his palm. The source of all this. The reason Elias lay dead, the reason Lindqvist had been Taken, the reason last winter’s team had walked into a trap and never walked out.

He wanted to hurl it into the wind. He wanted to watch it sink beneath the ice and never be found.

But the pendant was warm against his chest, and Maya was still out there gathering wood, and Sgt. Nolan was a day away with a helicopter, and somewhere ahead, in a hidden valley marked on a map he hadn’t yet opened, the main fragment was waiting. If the corporations knew about it, if they’d sent more than Jules—

Jules had confessed he was one of them. He hadn’t said he was the only one.

The howl came again. Closer. And behind it, another.

Declan tucked the pouch back into his pack and pulled the strap over his shoulder, then knelt beside Jules and took his hand.

“I’ll destroy it,” he said quietly. “But the people who sent you—they’re still coming. Aren’t they?”

Jules’s eyes fluttered open, glassy and unfocused. “They never stopped,” he breathed. “Elias was just the first one who escaped. They’ll follow the signal.”

“What signal?”

Jules’s hand twitched toward the pack. Toward the pouch.

“It’s a tracker. They sealed the fragment with a chip—they wanted to make sure Elias couldn’t run without them knowing where he ended up. And now—” He coughed, wincing at the pain it brought. “Now you’re carrying it. They know exactly where you are.”

Declan’s blood went cold. He looked down at the pack. The pouch. The evidence of everything.

Maya’s boots crunched in the snow outside. She came in carrying an armful of wet branches, stamping frost from her coat, and stopped dead at the look on his face.

“Declan?” She dropped the wood. “What happened?”

He stared at her, the weight of the pouch like lead in his hands. The howls were closer now—he could hear claws scrabbling on rock, sense shapes gathering beyond the curtain of snow. They knew. They’d always known.

“We need to move,” he said hoarsely. “Now. Before they get here.”

He reached down, hauled Jules to his feet, and ignored Maya’s sharp questions as the first shadow appeared at the mouth of the alcove, humanoid and wrong, its eyes glowing like banked coals.