Chapter 2: A Signal in the Static

The front door of St. Jude's clinic burst open with a violence that sent the rusted hinges screaming. Three men entered, their uniforms identifying them as local police, but everything about their demeanor screamed corruption. The leader was a heavy-set man with gold teeth and eyes that missed nothing of value. His companions flanked him with the casual arrogance of predators who'd never encountered real prey.

David stepped forward, his missionary instincts overriding his fear. "Officers, how can I help—"

"Shut up, gringo." Gold Teeth's Spanish was rapid and dismissive. His eyes swept the clinic's meager contents before settling on David with calculating interest. "We're looking for a woman. Tall, scarred. She was seen entering this place."

"I haven't seen anyone," David lied, his voice steady despite the hammering of his heart. "I've been alone all afternoon."

The officer's smile revealed more gold than enamel. "Alone? In this shithole?" He gestured to his companions, who began methodically searching the clinic. "You know what I think, padre? I think you're protecting someone. And protection... that costs money."

One of the other officers called out from the examination room. "Blood here. And glass. Recent."

Gold Teeth's smile widened. "Ah, so you are a liar and a bad one. Where is she?"

The back door exploded outward.

Cassara moved through the splintered wood like a force of nature, her paranoid tension replaced by something far more dangerous—cold, calculating fury. The officer nearest to her barely had time to reach for his weapon before she was on him.

David watched in horrified fascination as she grabbed the man by his uniform shirt and lifted him off his feet with one hand. The officer was not small, but Cassara held him like he was made of paper.

"You scanned my ID," she said, her voice low and deadly. "What did it tell you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about!" the suspended officer gasped, his feet kicking uselessly in the air.

Gold Teeth had his pistol out now, trained on Cassara's back. "Let him go, puta. You're coming with us either way."

Cassara's laugh was empty of humor. "Coming with you. Right." She turned to face the leader, still holding his companion aloft. "Tell me, did they explain what would happen when you found me? Did they mention the radius?"

"What radius?" Gold Teeth demanded, but David could see uncertainty creeping into his eyes.

"The kill radius," Cassara said. "The distance their weapons are effective from. Because if you were outside that radius, you'd be calling for backup instead of trying to shake me down for pocket change."

She released the officer she'd been holding. He crumpled to the floor, gasping. But instead of stepping back, Cassara moved forward, toward the drawn gun.

"You want to know what happened to your scanner?" she asked, her scarred hands beginning to glow with that same inner light David had witnessed before. "It didn't just read my identification. It broadcasted it. To things that have been hunting me across three continents."

Gold Teeth's finger tightened on the trigger, but Cassara was already moving. Not toward him—toward the reinforced glass partition that separated the clinic's waiting area from the reception desk. A partition that, according to the faded placard beside it, was rated to stop small arms fire.

She hit it with her bare fist.

The bulletproof glass didn't crack. It didn't spider. It exploded inward like it had been struck by a sledgehammer swung by a giant. The sound was tremendous, a crystalline detonation that left David's ears ringing and his understanding of physics in ruins.

The three officers stared at the demolished partition in stunned silence. Cassara stood among the glittering fragments, her scarred knuckles already healing from cuts that should have required stitches.

"Impossible," Gold Teeth whispered.

"Everything's impossible until it happens," Cassara replied. "Now, about that scanner. How long ago did you use it?"

The officer's weapon was shaking now. "Twenty minutes. Maybe thirty."

Cassara closed her eyes, and David saw her shoulders sag with something that looked like defeat. "Then they already know exactly where I am."

The clinic's remaining windows exploded inward simultaneously.

David threw himself to the floor as glass showered down around him, his mind struggling to process what was happening. These weren't random shots—they were precise, coordinated, coming from impossible angles. He crawled toward the overturned examination table, using it as cover while his world dissolved into chaos.

Gold Teeth was screaming orders at his men, but his voice was cut short by a sound David would never forget—a wet, tearing noise followed by an impact that shook the entire building. When David risked a look around the table's edge, the corrupt officer was gone. In his place was a crater in the floor, surrounded by what looked like liquefied flesh and metal fragments.

The bullet that had killed him hadn't just penetrated—it had somehow turned the man's head into a pressurized vessel that had exploded from within. Blood and brain matter decorated the walls in patterns that defied ballistics, as if the projectile had continued to expand and fragment inside the skull long after impact.

The remaining officers were running now, abandoning any pretense of law enforcement in favor of simple survival. One of them made it to the door before another impossible shot found him, turning his chest cavity into a steaming crater.

Cassara grabbed David by the shoulder, hauling him to his feet with that inhuman strength. "Move. Now. They're zeroing in."

"Who's zeroing in?" David shouted over the sound of more windows shattering. "Who's shooting at us?"

"My former colleagues," Cassara replied grimly, pushing him toward the back exit. "And their weapons don't follow your physics."

They burst through the rear door into the humid embrace of the jungle. Behind them, St. Jude's clinic continued to disintegrate under the assault of projectiles that behaved like living things, seeking out targets with predatory intelligence.

David's medical training had prepared him for trauma, for violence, for the sight of blood and death. But nothing had prepared him for ammunition that liquefied human beings from the inside out, or for the woman beside him who could shatter bulletproof glass with her bare hands.

"The boat," Cassara said, scanning the tree line with those paranoid eyes. "You said you were leaving for Haiti. How?"

"I... there's a fishing boat. At the dock in Colon. But—"

"No buts." Her grip on his arm was becoming painful. "That scanner tagged me with a bio-tracker. Living tissue, integrated into the ID itself. Every second we stay here, more of them are converging on this location."

Another explosion rocked the clinic behind them. Through the trees, David could see flames beginning to consume the building where he'd spent two weeks questioning his faith. Now he was questioning reality itself.

"What are you?" he asked again, desperately seeking some framework to understand what was happening.

Cassara stopped running and turned to face him. In the dappled jungle light, her scars seemed to pulse with their own rhythm, like a second heartbeat made visible beneath her skin.

"I'm someone who used to serve something that shouldn't exist," she said. "And now I'm someone they're going to kill to keep their secrets safe."

Another inhuman shriek echoed through the jungle—not human, not animal, but something that made David's spine crawl with primal terror.

"Move," Cassara ordered, and this time David didn't argue.

As they crashed through the underbrush toward the distant road, David clutched his crucifix and tried to pray. But the words wouldn't come. How could they, when the woman running beside him had just demonstrated that the universe operated by rules he'd never imagined?

Behind them, something howled in the distance—a sound like tearing metal mixed with organic fury. The hunt had begun in earnest, and David was no longer a missionary seeking redemption.

He was prey.