Bette moved beside her, hands already flying across the keyboard, toggling the cameras closest to the path, the outer fences, the south treeline. Her breath quickened.

“What kind of something?”

Nyah shook her head, lips tight. “I don’t know. Not a predator, definitely not four-legged. It was slower. Calculating. I’ve felt that kind of stillness before. Human. Hunting. And it knew I’d clocked it.”

They both stared at the screens.

The night vision feed from the southern ridge crackled into view, quiet, empty trees stirring under a shifting wind. Then the outer fence cam, still nothing. Two more rotated through, and Nyah leaned in.

“There. Back it up.”

Bette scrubbed through the last few minutes of footage. On the edge of the frame, just for a second, a figure, low to the ground, moved between trees. Then stillness. Camouflage, maybe. A crouched silhouette.

“Shit,” Bette whispered.

Nyah nodded grimly. “Yeah.”

They watched another few seconds of silence, until a flash, just the gleam of something metallic near the ground, confirmed it.

“That’s a scope,” Bette muttered. “That’s not a poacher. That’s a scout.”

Nyah paced back, one hand to her hip. “He isn’t alone. I can feel it. They’re probing. How many of us stay overnight.”

Bette’s face hardened. She leaned toward the radio on her desk, thumb hovering over the comm. “If Chang’s sending eyes already…”

Nyah grabbed her wrist before she could press the button. “No alarm. Not yet. If we tip them off we know they’re here, they’ll vanish.”

Bette pulled her hand away, reluctantly. “Then what do we do?”

“We catch them,” Nyah said. “Or at least make them think we’re not watching.

Tomorrow, we get Kamau and Elijah. They know these tactics, we reinforce the traps on that south fence. I’ll move the patrol schedule tonight. Randomise it.”

Bette nodded, her jaw clenched, mind already running ahead.

But Nyah paused, eyes searching Bette’s face.

“I know what you thought when I knocked,” she said gently, almost a whisper.

Bette met her gaze, quiet.

“And I meant what I said before,” Nyah added, “but this isn’t that.”

“I know,” Bette said, almost ashamed of her earlier assumption. “It’s just… the timing.”

Nyah offered a small, grim smile. “Yeah. Timing never did us any favours.”