Dajinn didn’t even notice the silence until it hit him: the humans were on the hunt.

  Thermal scans lit up the walls in faint red grids. Footsteps echoed in tight formation. The drone of radios and controlled bursts of mechanical movement made his stomach twist. They weren’t scavengers. They were trained. They were hunting Mediators. And now he was caught in the middle.

  His mind raced. His vents, his caches, his sleeping spots—they were all vulnerable. Exposure meant capture. Exposure meant death.

  There was only one decision that made sense.

  Run.Stay with the infected. Use them as cover. Use them as leverage. Outnumbered? Absolutely. Underequipped? Maybe. But the knowledge he had, the caches he’d built, the weapons he carried—these were his advantage.

  He bolted from the corridor, rifle tucked close. A soldier rounded the corner. Dajinn pivoted instinctively, ducked low, and the gunshot tore past where his head had been a heartbeat ago. The air screamed with the sound of ricochets and tactical commands.

  He fired blindly back, taking careful shots to slow their advance. The humans returned fire. He felt heat across his arm—a graze. Nothing deadly yet. But it hurt. He gritted his teeth, ducked behind a metal support beam, and threw the first punch of his life at a soldier who’d gotten too close.

  Impact. The soldier crumpled. Dajinn didn’t stop. He kicked, blocked, rolled, barely avoiding a stun device. His heart hammered, blood pumping like a furnace. The world narrowed to instinct and motion. Every shot, every dodge, every step counted.

  And then he smelled it.

  Blood. Human blood.

  The moment hit him like lightning. Adrenaline, rage, survival—all converged. He lunged, striking another soldier with a single, brutal punch. The body went limp. His own chest heaved. He looked down to see the first kill he had ever made.

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  It didn’t register yet. The infected around him paused. Observed. Calculated.

  Relo’s voice cut through the haze: “Dajinn—now!”

  Vira moved fast, guiding him away from the line of sight. His body temperature spiked. Hot flash. Heat rolled through him. Mediators and witches nearby flinched but didn’t attack—they watched. Their evaluation of him changed instantly. He had responded to blood instinctively. He had killed. And even they hadn’t predicted it.

  He stumbled into a side vent. Pain radiated from his grazed arm, but the real shock came when he noticed the bodies around him—the soldiers he hadn’t been aware of. Limbs, blood, chaos.

  Vira crouched beside him, signing quickly to Relo, who translated:“She’s stabilizing him. Adrenaline spike. Coma-like. Needs to feed him.”

  Dajinn didn’t question it. The moment he inhaled, he felt warmth, strength returning. His body, burned from exertion and near-death adrenaline, was fed. Not violently—almost nurturing. He blinked, disoriented, remembering hunger, remembering exhaustion, remembering the fight.

  Dajinn sat up slowly, surveying himself.

  He wasn’t 12 or 13 anymore. His body was taller, older—about 17 by appearance. Muscles heavier. Veins prominent. Male and female features mixed. He blinked into a cracked vent mirror.

  Every part of him—the traits he had inherited, the bodies he’d been attached to, the killer he had become in seconds—hit him at once. The gravity of what he actually was shattered him.

  He vomited.

  He looked at the blood on his hands. The first human life he had ended. Then, instinctively, at his back—his body, still partly human. It was his. But not just his.

  Overwhelm. Panic. Horror.

  And finally—

  Blackout.

  Relo reached him immediately. Dajinn was gone, collapsed in a heap.

  Vira’s hands hovered near his chest. She signed rapidly to Relo.

  “He’s alive. Coma from adrenaline and trauma. Let him rest. His body will recover. Mind… needs time.”

  Relo nodded, scanning the vents. They were hidden. Protected. But now marked. Human thermal scans had almost caught him.

  For the first time, Dajinn wasn’t just surviving. He was integrated.

  And he realized it: the infected weren’t just allies. They were his society now. They would protect him, evaluate him, teach him, shape him.

  Humans could wait. For now, he belonged here.