Lula Mae Baptiste had learned to listen to the dark.

It was not a skill she had sought. It was a skill the Caddo Basin had forced upon her, like calluses forming on hands that had once held nothing heavier than a grocery list and a Bible.

Eight months. That was how long she had been inside the reserve's perimeter, surviving on canned beans she dug from abandoned supply cabinets, rainwater she collected in dented metal trays, and whatever edible roots she could identify in the humid understory.

She knew the rules. Rule one: never stay in one place more than three nights. Rule two: never make a fire after sunset. Rule three: listen to the jungle before you move through it.

The jungle spoke. Not in words. Lula Mae had learned the difference between words and the jungle's language. The language was pressure changes, temperature shifts, the sound of something moving where nothing should move. The jungle told her when it was safe, when it was not, and when something was watching her from behind the cypress knees that broke through the concrete like bony fingers.

She was sitting in the shade of a fiberglass palm tree—artificial, its green needles brittle and yellowing at the tips—when she heard it.

The sound was low, a vibration in the earth rather than a noise in the air. It came from beneath her, from the ground itself, and it lasted exactly four seconds. Then it stopped.

Lula Mae did not move. She had learned that lesson early. Movement drew attention. The jungle preferred its prey to be still while it decided what to do with them.

After a minute, she exhaled. The pressure in the air had normalized. Whatever had moved beneath the ground was gone. Or waiting.

She stood, brushed dirt from her trousers, and continued her patrol.

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