The pre-dawn air bit into my skin like a hungry ghost, each gust carrying the salt-stink of the harbor and something else underneath—something metallic and wrong that I couldn't quite name.
It was 5:00 AM, and the world was still wrapped in darkness so thick you could almost touch it, the kind of darkness that made you feel like the sun had simply given up on this corner of existence.
The ferry idled at the dock, its engines growling low in my chest, the vibration traveling up through the concrete and into my boots until I could feel it in my teeth. Sodium lights cast everything in sickly orange, turning our faces into death masks and making the water look like liquid tar.
Our ragtag group of Onyx Hounds huddled together in their new tactical gear, a mix of sleep-deprived zombies and wide-eyed rookies who looked like they might puke from nerves.
