She pressed play.
“A tripod?” Siena’s pulse quickened. “Someone was filming.”
She lunged forward, but Venandi caught her, pinned her against the tree. “That is not your sister anymore.” Venandi by KC Luck EPUB PDF
“I’ve photographed lions in the Serengeti from twenty meters. Does that count?”
In the distance, a dozen more wet, dragging steps began. And a chorus of voices—Mira’s voice, multiplied—called out Siena’s name in a sweet, syrupy singsong. She pressed play
“Someone was documenting the hunt.”
A ghost of a smile. “I’m a tracker, Dr. Vargas. There are always more hunters in the woods.” “That is not your sister anymore
“Hunter’s blue fungus. Named for its method. It doesn’t poison. It lures. Produces a sweet smell, draws in insects, then paralyzes them. Slow digestion.” Venandi’s jaw tightened. “Someone weaponized it. Three weeks ago, a biotech team from São Paulo came looking for a natural sample. They stopped transmitting five days in.”
It smiled. Its teeth were stained blue. Venandi didn’t hesitate. She shoved Siena behind her, drew a suppressed pistol, and fired twice. The figure crumpled—but not before Siena saw the name stitched on its hazmat suit: M. Vargas .
Siena’s stomach dropped. Her sister—the golden child, the MacArthur grant winner, the one who sent cheerful postcards from field sites—had never mentioned weaponization. Never mentioned danger.
Not the infected’s camp—the handlers’. A clean, white tent pitched on a rise above the flood line. Satellite dishes. Solar panels. And inside, a bank of monitors showing drone feeds of the jungle below. On each screen, figures in blue-stained hazmat suits wandered in slow, purposeful circles.