The silence stretched for exactly three seconds.
Three seconds where nobody breathed and the jungle held its weird pressurized quiet and the vibration under our feet hummed at frequencies that made my molars ache.
Then something came out of the canopy like a missile fired from God's personal arsenal.
I didn't see it clearly. Nobody did. The thing moved too fast for human eyes to track, a dark smear against the green twilight that resolved into motion without ever becoming shape. It came from above and to the left, angled directly at Belle's exposed flank where she stood with her hand still pressed against my arm and her Treasure Sense pointed in entirely the wrong direction.
Hikaru moved.
