The walk had settled into an uncomfortable rhythm—not quite tense, but not relaxed either. It was the kind of silence that felt temporary, like the world was waiting for something to happen.

  Dawnmere wasn’t far now, according to Dan. That should have been comforting. Their route had rendered some familiarity to the members of Team Hazard, who were confident they knew their way home from here. There was an ease in their movement, even if their energy was flagging. They’d been here before. They had landmarks in their heads, pathways etched into memory.

  Theo? Not so much.

  He was relying on them entirely. He could fight, sure. But navigating without landmarks? That wasn’t exactly his strong suit. He didn’t have many, realistically. The streets he’d grown up in hadn’t exactly required a compass—just an ability to know when to run or swing. Here? He might as well have been walking blindfolded.

  Dan led the way, moving with the confidence of someone who knew exactly where he was going. That was something Theo could respect about him—he wasn’t just loud, he was sure. That kind of thing made people follow without question, despite the lingering unease from the strange silence earlier.

  Only Ash still looked unsettled.

  Theo noticed the way his eyes flicked between the trees, his fingers fidgeting with his belt knife like a man expecting trouble but hoping it wouldn’t make eye contact.

  More concerning, though? He hadn’t said a word in a while.

  No insults. No passive-aggressive jabs.

  Not even a well-timed "Jake, shut the hell up"—which was practically his breathing pattern at this point.

  Yeah. Something was definitely wrong.

  Theo shifted his gaze back to the path ahead, the trees thinning slightly as the undergrowth became patchy. The terrain here was less dense, more structured. He hadn’t really questioned it before, but now that he was paying attention, it was clear—this was once a travelled route.

  Then, the group came to an abrupt stop.

  Theo frowned, stepping up beside them. His eyes traced the massive gap in the path ahead—a bridge, or at least, what was left of one.

  The wooden planks dangled uselessly over the edge of a steep ravine, snapped clean in places, jagged in others. Something about it felt wrong, even to him.

  The others felt it too.

  Dan let out a low whistle. “Well… that’s inconvenient.”

  Ash, standing stiffly at the edge, muttered, “That wasn’t like this before.”

  Theo raised an eyebrow.

  Jake, ever the optimist, peered down at the drop, then back at Dan. “Sooo… anyone got a jetpack? I could probably jump that, but that leaves you guys screwed.”

  Theo scoffed. “You couldn’t jump that.”

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  Jake grinned. “Not with that attitude.”

  Ash, arms crossed, stared at the ruined bridge like it had personally offended him.

  “No way this was an accident,” he muttered.

  Ben scratched the back of his head. “Could’ve collapsed on its own?”

  "No," Ash said immediately. He pointed to the edges where the planks had snapped.

  "This wasn’t rot. These were cut."

  The group fell into silence.

  Theo exhaled slowly, his eyes flicking across the broken beams. He didn’t know this place, didn’t know what the bridge had looked like before—but he didn’t need to.

  Because Ash was right.

  And that meant someone wanted them to take a different path.

  Theo stepped forward, inspecting the jagged remains of the wooden beams. Ash wasn’t wrong. The damage was too precise. Some of the cuts were uneven, but they weren’t natural.

  "Maybe a beast did it?" Jake offered, though he didn’t sound convinced.

  Ash let out a humourless chuckle. "Yeah, because wild animals are known for dismantling bridges with a saw. Even if it was a beast, that’s really not good."

  Dan sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Whatever happened, it’s done. We’re obviously not climbing down and back up again, we’ll have to take the long way around whilst we still have daylight." he said, pointing to an open stretch of grasslands that opened up to the right of their party.

  Ash turned sharply, arms crossed like a man who had just been told to jump into a meat grinder. “You want to take the open route?”

  Dan gave him a look, the kind of look that said Yes, obviously, because I have a functioning brain. “I want to take the fastest route.”

  Ash scoffed. “Right. Through a nice, open area where we’ll be seen from miles away?”

  Dan shrugged, completely unfazed. “And? If something was waiting for us, wouldn’t they have attacked already? That would also let us see anything else coming from miles away.”

  Theo shifted his weight, feeling the tension solidify around him.

  This wasn’t just a disagreement over a path anymore.

  It was a fundamental difference in how they saw the world.

  Dan saw a delay. Ash saw a trap.

  Jake and Ben stood awkwardly to the side, exchanging looks like two people who had zero interest in being part of this argument. That left Theo—stuck between two walls of stubbornness pressing in on him.

  He trusted Dan.

  But his gut told him Ash wasn’t wrong.

  Still, no one was attacking. No signs of an ambush. No noise beyond the usual rustling of the forest.

  Maybe Dan was right. Maybe they were just wasting time.

  Theo exhaled through his nose, making his choice. “I say we keep moving. Dan’s right. The open space is probably better for us to see anything following us.”

  Ash’s head snapped toward him. His expression wasn’t anger—it was disappointment.

  Theo hated that more.

  Ash ran a hand through his hair, let out a sharp breath, then shook his head. “Fine. Whatever. Hope you enjoy being bait.”

  Jake, desperate to break the tension, let out a deep, exaggerated sigh. “Oh good, a democracy! I was getting worried we’d have to vote with knives.”

  Ben, ever the philosopher, shrugged. “Gotta get home somehow.”

  Ash’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t argue.

  Instead, he muttered something unintelligible under his breath, probably something that would have gotten him banned from polite society.

  Dan, ignoring the storm cloud that was Ash entirely, clapped his hands together. “Alright then, chaps. Let’s get moving on.”

  They started walking again, following the new path.

  Theo forced himself to believe he made the right choice.

  But as they disappeared deeper into the trees, the weight of unseen eyes never left his back.