Kael had served as an agent of the government, an untraceable entity from the bowels of power, to which almost nothing was unknown. He had been tasked with keeping our nation safe, but his work plunged him into a secret underground of shadows and secrets. What he saw behind the walls of secret government facilities were beings from other worlds being imprisoned, experimented on, and tortured. He saw cruelty and the perverse science that tried to dominate the unknown. And as time marched on, the guilt began to gnaw at him, until he could bear not?the burden of what he had become a part of.

  The system that had once promised security and justice?had only provided suffering. Kael struggled with the tension?between duty and conscience. Years after the silence, he made the most?difficult choice of his life: to break free. He had given up everything—the government, the?lies, the mission. It?was the only way he could maintain a shred of humanity. He disappeared into the wild,?and the noise of the world could not touch him. Alone. Except the whisper of his past still haunts?him.

  The pain of what he?had witnessed never really left him. But within that camp out in the silence of the forest, Kael found peace as?fragile as a gossamer thread. It was the only life he could live now on his own, in the wild, far from the?past that would never stop pursuing him.

  It was the silence of the night, with no sounds except for the rustling of leaves and the hoot of an?owl. Kael had been used to the isotion, time melting?into time until the sudden crash interrupted the quiet. The earth shook?below him, a power so violent it shook the trees and spun birds into the air.

  Kael froze. He realized the noise?wasn’t the wind or an animal; it was not one of those other things. Something unnatural. His?heart began pounding, and he reflexively grabbed the rifle slung over his shoulder. He had stayed in the?woods for years, out of reach of the world’s chaos, but this was different.

  The bst had emanated from deep in the woods, and the magnitude of it seemed far?too intentional to be an accident. Kael’s instincts kicked in. There was no question: someone or something had?been here — into his isoted world. His?mind raced with possibilities: a pne, a bomb, or, worse, a human being. But why? And who?

  Kael’s pulse raced?as he snatched his gear and headed toward the sound of the commotion. Somewhere nearby, smoke climbed skyward like an approaching storm system, an acknowledgment that his life?of quiet was about to end. What awaited would make him?confront the ghosts of his past — and possibly something much darker than he dared conceive.