Caleb opened the passenger door.
Iris stayed behind the wheel with both hands locked low on the rim. Her face had gone to the place Caleb had only seen twice before in nineteen years, the place where fear, training, and old grief stopped fighting and became one clean surface.
"I'll be here," she said.
He shut the door on the answer before he could make it heavier, then walked into the intersection.
The Hollow did not move.
It stood as tall as a small house, dark slate plating catching the first blue of dawn. The three visible marks pulsed slowly. Sternum. Shoulder. Left flank.
The other nine were hidden beneath a cured layer Caleb could not name on first read. It had the stretched shine of treated skin and the dull resistance of old armor, something made from one thing and forced to pass as another.
At the ends of the long jointed arms hung a man's hands, scaled up to the size of the thing wearing him.
