Flint gulped the cool water, allowing it to soothe his parched throat. Moments later, sweat beaded on his skin—his dehydrated, overheated body finally finding relief. Clear, clean water trickled from the grey craggy cliff face, starkly contrasting its tan clay surroundings in the early morning light.

  Such a barren, rocky landscape stood in stark contrast to the more common flat-topped pine trees growing out of dry, cracked mud. Flint wanted to avoid the outcrop of slate greystone as it offered less cover to hide from the pursuing tooth, but Nana insisted and skillfully sniffed out a natural freshwater spring. Carrying the girl had taken a toll on the deep-chested man.

  Next to Flint, Nana and the girl slurped the water as it trickled down the stone, their faces pressed directly against the rock.

  "We cannot stay," Nana cautioned, wiping his lips. "The tooth has our scent."

  Flint nodded, groaning at the newly formed blisters on his feet. The boots he’d nicked back in the camp were slightly too large and rubbed his heels raw. He had fished out a clean pair of wool socks from his pack, which helped keep his infected foot clean, but their forced march only aggravated the wound.

  The howl of their pursuer sounded in the distance. It had gotten slightly off course, perhaps distracted by other unfortunate prey. But its uncharacteristic determination gave Flint the sinking feeling it was after him specifically. Was his dad this Wolf of Ash that Nana so greatly feared? Could he be some sort of teeth handler? Manticore Inc. hired Arthur to gather intel on an alien planet; the idea wasn't totally ridiculous.

  Flint glanced at Nana and the girl. Her pale face was sunken, and her brown eyes heavy. Nana, though strong and solidly built, struggled to stand up straight.

  Was it fair of Flint to travel with them if the tooth was hunting him? But what if the beast wasn't trying to kill them after all? What if its true goal was trying to bring him back to his dad? If that were the case, could it even recognize friends from foes? What if it decided to hurt them anyway? Flint looked at the young girl, and memories of teeth flashed through his mind. He didn’t want her to be anywhere near one of those monsters.

  No, he couldn't put them at risk. All the cards showed that they would be safer if they separated. It was the only way to know for sure whether it was actually after him.

  The cry sounded again. Closer. It was back on track.

  "Ahh, what is it doing?" Nana snapped. "We are only three, and the girl is small. Surely, it has passed better meat sources by now. This tooth is different."

  Flint nodded. No tooth would pursue such a tiny group so far into the wilderness—unless it sought more than an easy meal.

  "Let's go," Flint said, throwing his pack on again.

  Nana nodded and gathered his things. Flint glanced back down the stony hill. Somewhere amidst the trees hunted a beast that may be trying to save him—or, just as likely, wanted to shred him to pieces and feed him to Ash.

  Flint looked at Nana; how would he tell him? The large man had become increasingly protective over the past few days. He wouldn't understand. He hadn't listened to Flint's theory about his father. He would only see separation as foolish, but if it gave them a chance—

  They started up the hill briskly, and Flint allowed himself to fall behind Nana as the group entered a vein of trees walled in by a valley. Flint lagged behind a few steps and stepped onto a felled log.

  "Agh!" he cried as he threw himself to the ground next to it.

  Nana turned, looking first at Flint, then beyond the boy into the wilderness that concealed their pursuer. He set the girl down and jogged up to him.

  "Flint, what happened?" Nana asked, his voice low. “Is it the infection?”

  "I stepped wrong, and I think I twisted my ankle," Flint lied.

  "Can you walk?" Nana asked.

  Flint grunted and rolled onto all fours.

  "Of all our luck," Nana muttered.

  Flint started to stand but cried out again and dropped a second time as he put weight on his right foot. "Nana, I can't," he gasped. "It hurts too bad!"

  The girl ran up to Flint with a look of worry straining her face. "Are you okay?" she cried.

  "I don't know," Flint said, surprised by how verbal she had become once they escaped the camp.

  Nana muttered something in a language Flint couldn't understand and ran his hands over the top of his bald head.

  "Flint," Nana said, "I do not know how to tell you this. But this leg, the teeth—"

  "You two go on ahead, "Flint insisted.

  Nana looked at him in sorrow.

  "I mean it," Flint said. "I'll only slow you down."

  "Flint, you know what will happen if you stay, right?"

  Flint nodded. "Take her and get free. Maybe if it finds me, it will stop hunting you."

  Nana looked at Flint, conflicted.

  "You know I can't follow." Flint prompted.

  "Let me look at it." Nana insisted as he started to roll up Flint's pant leg.

  "No!" Flint cried, pushing Nana away. "We don't have time for this. You need to get away!"

  "Flint, we must try!"

  "That's right. Try to run!"

  "I will not leave you," Nana said.

  "Then you'll get the girl killed," Flint snapped, and she stepped back, looking back and forth between the two.

  Nana squinted in suspicion.

  "Nana, freaking go!"

  Nana dropped, grabbed Flint's ankle, and twisted it firmly.

  "Hey," Flint stammered, confused. "I mean, ouch!"

  "What are you really doing, Flint?" Nana snapped.

  Flint jumped to his feet. "I'm trying to give you a chance!"

  "Self-sacrifice is not necessary."

  "I have no intention of sacrificing myself," Flint said.

  "If you run another way, it will follow us," Nana said. "I am bigger. You take the girl, and I'll try to lead it away."

  “Nana, I’m not running!”

  "Then what?"

  "I'm going to kill my second tooth."

  Nana laughed. "What?"

  "You heard me."

  "I still have the bullets. I will not let you try something so foolish,” Nana insisted.

  "I don't even know how to use this," Flint said, throwing the rifle down.

  "Then what's your plan?"

  Flint groaned at the interrogation. "Nana, I can take care of myself. You need to go. I could fail."

  "I'm not leaving."

  Flint picked up the rifle and pressed it into Nana's hands. "Yes. You are. I'll meet up with you when I have its head."

  Nana glared at Flint but, seeing his resolution, finally nodded in resignation. "You take this," Nana said as he slid the rifle's magazine out of his jacket and loaded the weapon. “No one can survive against a tooth without a weapon, Flint Vance. Perhaps you can learn as you go.”

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  "No," Flint said, pushing the rifle away. "But I could use any rope you have and every knife you can spare."

  "Flint. You are a brave man. But you are not strong enough to do this."

  "Exactly," Flint said.

  "What do you mean?" Nana asked.

  "I'm just the cheese, but I know a thing or two about traps. Knives, please."

  "Sometimes I do not get you, Flint Vance," Nana said as he reached into his pack and laid out four knives.

  "You two go," Flint ordered.

  The girl ran up to Flint and threw her arms around him.

  "Woah, hey there," Flint stammered, confused at the gesture. Hugs weren't for prey on a predatory planet or for Vances. Hugs were for other families. Normal families.

  "Come back," she pleaded.

  "You'll see me again, kid," Flint promised as he gently tried to push her away, but she squeezed him tightly. "Take care of yourself, okay?"

  "Ashley," she said.

  "Your name?"

  She nodded.

  "Get going, Ashley," Flint said. "I'm going hunting."

  She released him, then turned and took Nana by the hand. "Run away if you have to, Flint, " she said firmly, a frown of forced control stretching across her lips. "I don't want it to get you."

  "I will," Flint promised.

  Flint watched them jog off with a conflicting sense of relief and anxiety. He could be making a huge mistake. Suppose he was wrong about his dad. What if the tooth was just looking for the next meat to kill? Either way, he wouldn't be taken unprepared.

  Flint dropped his pack and retrieved several spools of cord. He had to work fast. He rushed over to some trees, cut some fresh green saplings, and began notching them with his knife.

  Flint had done this before to catch birds and rabbits; he just needed to replicate the trap on a much larger scale. He was sure he could do it perfectly if given time, but unfortunately, he had minutes at best.

  With anxious but determined fingers, Flint unwound the cord and lashed three of the knives to the joined saplings.

  Flint secretly hoped the tooth would shriek again, giving him at least some verbal cue about how far it was, but it didn't heed his wish.

  He chose an anchor, a tree that grew along the side of a rocky cliff. He lashed his bladed saplings to the tree, and after determining it was sturdy, he grabbed the green pole and started to bend it back.

  To his surprise, it yielded plenty of spring. After he loaded its tension, he made sure to stay out of its path.

  A howl broke his focus from his work. Flint smiled to himself. Though closer than before, it was still further than he thought. He could do this. Flint tied the bent poles back, causing them to bow in the middle. The cord held taught—very tight, in fact, as the curve of the pole resisted its anchor.

  Flint wished he had time to make trip triggers—wooden notches that sprang apart when an animal touched a line—but he had never been able to make a pair in under an hour. Carving trip triggers was delicate work that took patience and testing, precisely what he didn't have, so he had to set off the trap manually.

  Finally, anxious but satisfied, he looked at his hasty trap. It wasn't well concealed, but to the eyes of an animalistic killer, how suspicious could it possibly look?

  Flint's heart rate spiked as he realized he had one shot. If the tooth didn't stand in the right place at the right time or if he tripped the trap just a moment too soon or too late, his whole plan would be foiled, and he would be virtually defenseless.

  Flint's confidence faded as the sound of gunfire rang in his head. He had heard a lot of shooting since coming to Ash, but he didn't see any evidence of dead teeth. Suddenly, his rake bow trap looked like a child's toy. There was no way it would kill a tooth.

  Flint cursed. The beast would be here any second. What was he thinking? Maybe he should just run, maybe climb the cliff wall? How good were teeth at mountain climbing?

  Flint looked up the cliff face and saw a branch jutting out of the side, directly above the point where the trap would place whatever it managed to stick.

  Flint smiled. He didn't need to run; he needed to create redundancy.

  He fished out his final spool of cord and found a log rotting on the ground.

  He tied the line around the log and towed it to the wall. Flint's hair stood on edge as he realized he was standing right in the path of the blades. All it would take is that frail cord to snap, and—Flint swallowed.

  Not wanting to be gutted by his own trap, he hurried along. He tossed the cord spool over the free-hanging branch and hoisted the log, using the limb as a makeshift pulley.

  The cord bit into Flint's hand. Knowing he had little upper body strength, he threw the cord over his shoulder and pulled with his weight. With every labored step he took, the log rose a foot or two into the air, skimming the cliff face.

  Flint gasped as he marched around a freestanding tree, looping the cord around it and taking the weight off his shoulder. He tied the cord and stepped away. The log dangled just under the branch twenty feet in the air. Again, this deadweight trap had no trigger, so he would have to cut the cord himself. Not his best work, but—

  Flint froze. Something was watching him. He felt its eyes before he saw the mud-caked figure studying him out of the corner of his eye.

  He turned to face the tooth. It stood in the shadows of an outgrowth of trees, eyeing him cautiously through black eyes. It looked from him to the log suspended on the cliff wall.

  Flint caught his breath nervously. How long had it been there? It had clearly seen him put the log into position. So it was just watching him, not snapping and snarling, not rushing in for the kill? Was the tooth merely cautious? Or perhaps it actually wasn't here to kill him.

  Flint raised his hands, holding his final hunting knife in his right hand.

  "My name is Flint Vance, " he said slowly, keeping his voice low. “I am the son of Arthur Vance. Did he send you?"

  The tooth glanced up at the log and then back at Flint.

  "Do you understand me?"

  It uttered a low growl, stepping into the light and cutting Flint off from the kill zone. Flint was on the wrong side.

  "No!" Flint snapped. "Get back." He raised his knife and dug into his pocket with his left hand to retrieve his red-capped auto-injector pen. He didn’t doubt he could finish it off with his knife if he could paralyze it.

  The tooth ambled on, glancing around suspiciously. It was just being cautious, then.

  "Back!" Flint barked, "Not another step!"

  The tooth stopped.

  "You will not take another step without my permission," Flint declared.

  The tooth smiled, exposing fangs, and raised its mud-caked foot, taunting, teasing. It could understand him, Flint realized, and now it was just playing with him.

  "I know you're smart," Flint said. "Step forward, and I will kill you. Did my father send you?"

  The tooth growled and set its foot back down.

  "That's better," Flint said. "Where is Dad?"

  The tooth's eyes flashed with yellow light, and it shuddered in excitement.

  "What was that?" Flint cried.

  It shrieked as it stepped forward.

  "Fine then," Flint snapped, his eyes flickering toward his trap's kill zone behind the tooth. "Come and get it!"

  All the bent-up fear and anxiety of being on Ash, scraping and running just to survive, came out all at once in a battle cry, but his voice cracked, shifting it into an adolescent shriek.

  The tooth trotted forward, and Flint charged with his knife in hand. He tried to flick off the red cap of the auto-injector with his thumb, but the lid was sealed tightly and would probably take two hands to get off.

  The tooth stepped back in surprise and uttered a low clicking noise, laughter. Only a mad person as small as Flint would charge a tooth with only a small knife and a piece of plastic. Maybe Flint was mad; unfortunately, for the tooth, if he weren't, perhaps it would survive the day.

  The tooth shrieked and lunged towards the raving youth.

  Flint advanced. The tooth raised a heavy clawed hand, and Flint dove, rolling as it struck down, catching nothing but air. It stumbled, caught off balance, and Flint jabbed at its exposed back with his knife.

  The blade punctured the beast's hide, but the wound was shallow. If only he had landed a hit with the pen. He pushed at its cap in vain.

  The tooth snarled at Flint, and Flint sprinted for the cliff wall, cornering himself in the path of the spiked bow-rake.

  The tooth cried out victoriously as it pounced.

  Flint stepped back, ducking as low as he could. His back hit the wall, and he slashed at the thin cord with his knife.

  The cord split halfway, fraying, but held.

  "Oh crap," Flint muttered as half a ton of muscle, fangs, and hatred slammed down onto the ground. The tooth's wide hand spanned the boy's chest as his weight pressed him down, the tips of its claws digging into his shirt. It growled, bringing its foul-breathed face inches away from his.

  Flint still clutched the knife in his hands but didn't use it; he looked back at the cord, barely within reach.

  The monster's eyes flashed yellow again, and it sat up. Immediately, its movement was much less animalistic and more human; it cocked its head as it looked at him as if possessed by someone else entirely. Flint knew the gesture, the cocked head and sly smile he could recognize anywhere.

  "Dad!" Flint cried, staring up at the now yellow eyes that pulsed with light. "You're hurting me!"

  The tooth smiled, Arthur's smile, and it began to dig its claws deeper into his chest.

  "Dad, wait!" Flint cried.

  The hand stopped.

  "I know you can hear me," Flint pleaded. "I don't know why you're doing this, but I will save you."

  The tooth uttered its low click of laughter.

  "Don't look so amused," Flint gasped. “I take after you, after all." Flint reached back and touched the razor-sharp edge of the taut cord, and it snapped.

  Arthur, through the eyes of the tooth, looked up in surprise as the gleam of knives streaked towards it. The bowed saplings sprang straight, finally losing their tension. Arthur's jaw dropped as all three knives took him right into the chest, throwing it off Flint.

  Flint scrambled to his feet and looked at the tooth. The tooth seized the sampling and easily ripped the blades from its chest.

  Flint cursed, glancing at the second line and holding the log over its head. He lunged, severing the second cord, and the tooth looked up as the log scraped against the wall and spun when it clipped a stone and landed harmlessly next to the tooth.

  The beast skirted away from the log and glared back up at Flint. Flint dropped his knife, used two thumbs to flick the red cap off the pen, and then scrambled for the cliff face. Maybe he could outclimb it.

  The tooth lunged, slashing at Flint; its lengthy arm reached him in half a moment, and he cried out, turning his back to it.

  Jagged claws hooked his backpack, and the bag tore as Flint was whisked off his feet. He lost hold of the pen and the supplies he raided from the camp scattered across the dirt, and the cone-shaped jumpstarter rolled in a wide half circle.

  Flint gasped as he slammed into the ground, two of his ribs flaring painfully. The tooth stalked toward him, snarling victoriously, and it reared its fists up like an ape.

  Thunder ripped through the air and tore through the leaves in the trees. Flint clapped his hands over his ears, and warm black blood splattered on his face as the tooth shook from impact.

  Flint looked up at four armed men, one lying prone with a heavy machine gun mounted on a bipod.

  The tooth spun and roared, and four showered the beast in automatic gunfire. The beast took a loping step and staggered.

  One of the men pulled a trigger on a tube mounted under his rifle.

  Thunk.

  The tooth's chest exploded in a gout of gore, and it collapsed.

  Flint uncurled from a prone position and looked up at his rescuers. Six slightly gaunt men watched him, wearing armored plates, combat helmets, and, surprisingly, casual clothing. Flint knew what he was looking at the moment he saw them. Private military contractors, like his dad. Their only true sense of uniform was matching patches on their coyote tan plate carriers depicting a small dome on a much larger circle.

  Flint knew that logo. Jericho.

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