The clinic was quiet, with no patients, when Boyd arrived. As he stepped inside, he found Kristi rubbing her temples, sitting across from Bing-Qian, who was asking her where Gina was.
"Kristi."
She stood up when she heard Boyd's voice and walked over to him.
"Looks like you're having trouble with Kenny's father."
"He's already asked me about Gina three times today," she replied, glancing at Bing-Qian, who was playing chess by himself.
The sheriff watched the man trapped in his own mind for a moment, then got straight to the point.
"So how did it go with Rick?"
Kristi let out a short sigh, as if she had already been expecting that question.
"It was exactly like you warned me. He didn't let me get close to the burn. But... that's not even the biggest problem."
"What do you mean?"
"His arm. The one that was broken," she began, straightening her posture. "When I removed the bandages, the skin was smooth. No wounds or bruises."
Boyd frowned in surprise. "There wasn't even any swelling?"
"There was nothing. As if the fracture had never happened." Kristi laced her fingers together. "Here, injuries heal faster, that much I already know. But this was something else. A broken arm doesn't become perfect overnight. Not even here."
"What did he say about it?"
"He said he didn't know anything about it," Kristi replied, her tone carrying medical frustration. "But that's where it gets bizarre. When I tried to palpate the area to check if the bone was still fractured, he started screaming in pain like I'd stabbed him with a knife, and he wouldn't let me check anything else."
"That's never happened before," the sheriff murmured, more to himself than to her.
"And I also thought it was strange that the bandage wasn't the way I wrapped it. It was like he had taken it off and then put it back on again," Kristi concluded.
Boyd shifted his gaze to the clinic's peeling wall. That information only deepened his suspicion. This wasn't normal. Something was acting on Rick.
He began to wonder if Sara's situation had something to do with it.
The town is changing the rules of the game.
"Keep an eye on it. If anyone else shows up with something strange like that, let me know."
---
A few houses down the road, Jade and Jim walked side by side along the uneven asphalt. The search for the sheriff at the station had ended in failure, forcing them to hunt him down through the town.
They heard the sound of a chainsaw near the trees and spotted Kenny in the distance with a few residents.
"Let's go over there. He should know where the sheriff is." Jade didn't wait for Jim's reply and was already striding toward the group.
They arrived just as Kenny had finished bringing the tree down. Three other residents stood nearby with axes, starting to chop off the branches.
"Impressive," Jade said, watching Kenny. "Yesterday he was boarding up windows. Today he's cutting down trees. At this rate, he's going to turn into Bob the Builder."
Kenny simply wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. Over the past few days he had witnessed Jade's personality up close.
The filter between the millionaire's brain and mouth simply didn't exist. He ignored him and turned to Jim.
"Do you know where the sheriff is?" Jim asked, ignoring his partner's provocation.
"Not exactly."
A thin young man who had just arrived carrying an axe pointed in a direction. "I saw him going up the street. I think he went to the clinic."
Jim nodded in thanks. "Thanks, Kenny. Good work here."
Jade merely gave a theatrical two-finger salute and followed Jim.
They didn't need to go inside the clinic. As they approached the place, the door opened and Boyd stepped out, his expression heavy and his eyes fixed on the horizon. When he noticed the pair walking toward him, the sheriff's posture stiffened even more.
"Did something happen?"
"No," Jim replied immediately.
Jade, with the patience of a child in a hurry, stepped forward. "That pickup truck you used to rescue us... is it yours?"
Boyd crossed his arms, evaluating Jade's hurried tone. "It doesn't have an owner. Mike fixed it up and left it available for emergencies. Why?"
Jim remembered the pot-bellied mechanic who had helped bring their belongings.
Jade straightened up into his CEO-in-a-boardroom posture. Chest puffed out, hands gesturing in the air, he began explaining his brilliant plan.
Boyd listened in silence. The idea wasn't entirely bad. He didn't have much hope that there would be any signal, especially after the recent supernatural events, but keeping people busy with hope was better than letting them sink into despair.
"It's a good idea," Boyd admitted after thinking it over. "But the town is full of abandoned cars. You could pull the wires from them and we can get a battery from Mike. Besides, your car is flipped over on the side of the road."
Jade rolled his eyes and let out a dry laugh. "Pull wires from rusty junk? My car is an Audi. The wiring is top-tier quality. Using the rotten wires from those terrible cars will only ruin the final result of my equipment."
Boyd sighed, realizing that arguing with that man was like talking to a brick wall. "Fine. I'll lend you the pickup. The ropes we used to pull the car out of the trees are still in the truck bed. You can try flipping the Audi back over with them. If you can't do it, don't push it."
They agreed.
The sheriff had thought about going with them, but with everything that had been happening lately, it was better for him not to leave town.
"The vehicle is in the shed next to Mike's workshop. Let's go."
During the short walk to the shed, Jim broke the silence. "Why didn't I see Mike at the meeting? Or at the choosing ceremony?"
"He's not a fan of crowds," Boyd replied casually. "When he's not buried under a hood at the shop, he's at the bar getting drunk. He has his own way of dealing with this place."
When they arrived, the sheriff opened the large double doors, revealing the sturdy pickup truck. He walked to the driver's door and motioned for Jim to come closer.
"No key," he explained, crouching under the dashboard. He pulled out a bundle of wires patched together with electrical tape. "It's a hotwire. You take the red and the yellow and connect them like this."
A spark snapped, and the engine roared to life, filling the shed with a deep, rhythmic sound.
"Once you're done, don't go driving this thing around," Boyd warned, staring at the two of them. "Fuel is scarce here."
"Understood," Jim agreed, taking the wheel.
"Great, amazing, mechanic class completed. Can we go now?" Jade was already in the passenger seat, tapping his fingers frantically on the dashboard.
As soon as they left, Jade pointed to the right. "Stop at Kenny's house first. I need to grab the radio and the antenna."
Jim obeyed. When he parked, Jade opened the door quickly. "Come on. I need you to help me carry the tools to dismantle the Audi."
They worked quickly, and moments later they were back on the road.
The trip to the location was made in silence, both men trapped in their own thoughts.
Jim watched the road, remembering the day they arrived. He began to wonder if, had he taken a different route, they might never have stopped there.
Those thoughts only faded when he spotted his trailer in the distance.
As soon as the vehicle stopped, Jade jumped out before Jim even turned off the engine.
He stood there for a moment staring at the car.
Jade thought about his life of indulgence before arriving here.
He had reached the absolute peak, selling his company for an obscene amount of money, and now he couldn't even enjoy it.
The mutilated body of Tobey crossed his mind.
No, the plan will work and I'll get out of here. I'll fulfill Tobey's wish to have his ashes scattered at sea.
He steadied himself, remembering the conversation he had with his friend when they were high.
Jade shook his head and grabbed the rope from the truck bed.
"Let's get this over with."
While he tied one end to the open door of the Audi, Jim secured the other end to the pickup's tow hitch.
"All set!" Jim shouted, jumping back into the vehicle.
He shifted into gear and slowly accelerated. The rope tightened with a tense snap. The Audi protested, twisted metal scraping violently against the dirt.
For a few agonizing meters, the car was simply dragged upside down, crushing the roof even further.
Then physics took over. The side of the vehicle slammed against a protruding rock on the embankment.
The impact acted like a lever, and with a loud metallic groan, the car flipped, crashing back onto its four wheels with a thunderous bang that echoed through the forest.
Jim shut off the engine, taking a deep breath, relieved he hadn't snapped the pickup's axle in the process. Jade didn't wait for the dust to settle; he already had a crowbar in his hands.
He stopped in front of the crumpled hood, shoved the tool into a gap, and pulled with all the strength his arms had. His face turned red. The tendons in his neck bulged. But it wouldn't open.
He tried from another angle. Nothing.
"Damn it!" He threw the crowbar onto the ground.
Jim picked up the iron tool without commenting. He wedged it at a slightly different position — closer to the hinge, where the structure was less deformed — and used the weight of his own body. With a sharp crack, the hood popped open.
Jade cleared his throat, adjusting the collar of his shirt, trying to recover his dignity. "I loosened it up for you."
Jim simply shook his head, hiding a restrained smile, and grabbed a wrench to loosen the battery terminals.
Jade picked up the pliers and forced open the dented driver's door to remove the wiring from the dashboard. The moment his body entered the dark, suffocating interior of the car, he froze.
His eyes locked onto the ceiling.
There were stains of dried blood there.
Tobey's blood.
He closed his eyes for a second, his fingers tightening around the pliers as he took a deep breath. Pushing the trauma to the back of his mind, he continued his work.
---
Far from there, on the sunlit grounds of Colony House, Daniel was bored. His right leg wouldn't stop bouncing, his hyperactivity kicking in.
Enough.
He came to the conclusion that keeping an eye on three suspects while doing absolutely nothing useful in the meantime was the worst possible version of a day.
The cameras are set up and configured. I don't need to waste my time here.
Taking long strides toward his motorhome, he stepped inside and opened the System Shop interface.
He navigated to the melee weapons tab and quickly found what he was looking for.
[Purchase confirmed: 2x Tactical Throwing Knives (Carbon Steel, perfect balance). Cost: 40 Silver Coins. Balance deducted.]
With that, his balance dropped to 1460.
[The System approves the martial initiative. Just try not to amputate your own fingers in the process. We do not offer health insurance.]
"Always so welcoming," Daniel muttered, feeling the cold, perfectly distributed weight of the two dark blades that materialized in his hands.
He had always found the surgical precision of knife throwers in action movies absurd. It was time to see if he could pull off the same thing while training his precision skill.
He stepped out of the vehicle with the two knives in hand.
Julie and Fatima were on the side of the house, hanging clothes on an improvised clothesline stretched between two wooden poles. Tabitha and Ethan had gone back to town.
Julie had a handful of clothespins. When he walked past, she looked up.
"Going for a walk?"
"Target practice. I'm going to throw these." He raised the knives slightly to show them.
"I didn't know that was one of your hobbies."
"There are a lot of things you don't know about me," Daniel said with a teasing smile.
"Then I guess I'll have to get to know you better," Julie replied boldly.
"You can try. But I'll warn you, the mystery is the best part." He winked at her and kept walking.
Fatima waited until Daniel had walked far enough away and whispered something that made Julie turn red with embarrassment.
Daniel headed toward the forest without rushing.
He found a tree with a wide trunk and thick bark, isolated enough not to put anyone at risk. With his eyes half-closed as he calculated the space, he took long steps backward, estimating a distance of seven meters.
He raised his right arm, elbow bent, and snapped his wrist forward in a sharp whipping motion. The knife cut through the air and struck the wood with a dull sound.
The metal handle had hit the trunk, and the blade fell sadly onto the grass.
"Physics is a bitch," he murmured.
He adjusted his grip, reduced the force slightly, and tried again. Failed.
On the third attempt, he found the right balance — the amount of force, the angle of the wrist, the exact moment of release. The knife sank into the center of the trunk with a clean, sharp sound of metal biting into hard wood.
He walked up to the tree, pulled the knives free, and returned to his mark.
The next hour was that: throw, retrieve, throw again. He adjusted the distance to five meters and then to ten, mapping the difference in rotation each distance required, filing the data away with the sharp clarity that photographic memory had brought him.
Every throw was recorded. The mistakes and the successes.
Out of every ten throws at a rapid pace — the kind of cadence a real situation would demand — seven embedded themselves into the target he had carved into the center of the trunk.
The other three landed in areas that, on a human body, would be inconvenient but not lethal.
Seven out of ten. He could work with that.
When his shoulders began to burn from the persistence of someone not yet accustomed to the specific movement, he stopped. He opened the panel and went straight to the skills.
[🎯 Hunter's Eye – Level 1 (1/5)]
Effect: +10 percent accuracy with thrown or ranged weapons.
"Not bad." He took a deep breath, picking up the knives. There was one more skill he needed to test out in the field: the Hunter's Web.
He walked back to Colony House and found Donna in the side hallway, pushing a cardboard box full of old tools under a shelf.
"Hey, Donna. Do you have any spare thin rope?" Daniel asked, leaning against the wooden pillar. "I want to set up a trap, see if I catch something."
The woman stopped what she was doing, raising an eyebrow. She pointed with her chin toward a supply box in the corner.
"There's a roll of nylon there. You can take it. We set traps too, but only cage traps. More reliable — the animal goes in, doesn't come out, and you collect it the next morning without any damage. Snare traps can let the animal escape if they're not made properly."
"And what do you usually catch?"
"All kinds of things: rabbits, agoutis, porcupines... wild pigs sometimes, if we're lucky."
"Good to know." Daniel grabbed the nylon rope. "Thanks."
Heading to his motorhome, he checked the cameras, but they still hadn't captured anything. He then went to the kitchen and grabbed a 20 cm knife with a sheath, fastening it to his waist. He also took a few pieces of jerky to use as bait.
Back in the forest, he went deeper than during the training session.
The Hunter's Memories had deposited a considerable amount of knowledge into him that he had never applied in practice. Building traps was one of those skills — the theory was there, clean and organized, waiting for execution. He began by cutting branches with the knife.
"System. If I have the materials in hand and activate the Hunter's Web skill, will the trap magically assemble itself in front of me?" he asked after gathering all the materials.
[Affirmative response. Efficiency is a priority.]
Daniel paused. He knew he was being watched, probably by that damned crow. He wasn't going to be the idiot who made branches twist and tie themselves in midair in the middle of the forest.
He crouched down and, using his own hands and the instinctive memories, began building the first snare trap for small animals, measuring the tension perfectly.
Farther ahead, near a thick bush, he used thicker branches and more rope to build a structure capable of holding something the size of a boar.
As soon as he finished covering the trigger mechanism with dry leaves, he asked mentally:
"If I activate the skill on the trap after it's already built, will some flashing light appear on the ground like a video game checkpoint?"
[Negative. The skill's integration is imperceptible to the naked eye. No lights, no fireworks. Only pure silent lethality.]
"Perfect."
Daniel looked at the two creations on the forest floor. With a quick mental command, he activated the skill on both.
No glow appeared, no sound played. But between the lines of reality, the capture chances of those traps had just increased by forty percent.
A loud sound broke the silence of the forest.
It wasn't a monster or an animal.
It was Daniel's stomach growling loudly.
"Lunch time." He turned his back to the forest and walked back toward Colony House, leaving the traps waiting for their first victim.
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