Three days later, the metallic smell of blood hung heavy over Bottle Creek.

Panic gripped the town. Several livestock animals had been found torn to shreds near the woods. The local sheriff issued a red alert, warning everyone to stay indoors. A massive, mutant cougar was hunting in the area.

Agents Fletcher and Kowalski were eating eggs at the local diner when the alert came through. They drew their weapons, ready to assist.

The diner windows were fogged up. Suddenly, a massive silhouette emerged from the morning mist on the main street.

Alton walked down the center of the asphalt. He wore a dark tactical jacket smeared with mud and dark, drying blood.

Over his broad shoulder, he carried a heavy military canvas bag. It was completely soaked in crimson. With every step he took, thick drops of blood splattered onto the road, leaving a horrific red trail behind him.

A woman inside the diner screamed. Everyone thought the killer had finally snapped and butchered a human.

Fletcher kicked the diner door open. He aimed his Glock straight at Alton's chest.

"Drop the bag and put your hands in the air!" Fletcher screamed, his finger trembling on the trigger.

Kowalski rushed out right behind him, his hand gripping his holstered weapon. His eagle eyes tracked every micro-movement of Alton's muscles.

Alton stopped. He looked at Fletcher's shaking gun barrel. A microscopic hint of disgust flashed in his gray eyes.

He didn't raise his hands. Instead, he slowly let the canvas bag slide off his shoulder. It hit the asphalt with a sickening, heavy thud.

"What's in the bag, Combs? Who did you kill?" Fletcher yelled.

Alton used the toe of his boot to kick the drawstring loose. A foul, wild stench exploded into the air.

The canvas flaps fell open. A massive, golden-eyed cougar head rolled out onto the street. Its jaws were locked in a permanent snarl.

The entire street went dead silent. The cops and agents gasped, their lungs freezing. The beast was monstrous, a true apex predator.

Kowalski stepped forward. He crouched next to the carcass. His shock rapidly morphed into pure, unadulterated horror.

He ran his fingers over the fur. There were no bullet holes. The only injury was a single, devastatingly precise blade slice across the jugular vein. It was a kill strike that cut deep into the bone.

Kowalski snapped his head up, staring at Alton. His mind couldn't comprehend how a human being could engage a beast of this size in close-quarters combat and win with a blade.

"How... how did you do this?" Fletcher stammered, lowering his gun.

Alton reached into his pocket. He pulled out a standard, cheap folding knife. The short blade was coated in dried blood.

"It was in my way," Alton said. His voice was a flat, gravelly hum.

The sheer arrogance of the statement hung in the air, but no one dared to challenge him. The physical proof of his lethal capability was bleeding on the street.

Kowalski stood up. He grabbed Fletcher's arm, forcing the younger agent to back down. Kowalski knew a killing machine when he saw one. Interrogating him was suicide.

Alton bent down. His massive bicep flexed as he grabbed the bag with one hand. He hoisted the two-hundred-pound carcass off the ground as if it weighed nothing.

He walked right through the police perimeter, heading straight for the hardware store. The armed deputies instinctively scrambled out of his way, their eyes wide with fear.

Fletcher swallowed hard, watching Alton's broad back. "What the hell is he, Kowalski?"

Kowalski pulled out a cigarette. His hands were shaking so badly he could barely light it.

"Jesus Christ. The guy fights like a cornered animal," Kowalski whispered, his eyes narrowing at the blood trail. "Must've learned how to butcher in the prison yard. Still, something's not right. I'm putting a flag on his parole file. We need to keep a much closer eye on him."

Alton walked away, his jaw clenched tight. He knew the kill was necessary to establish dominance in the town, but he also knew Kowalski wasn't stupid. The real trouble was coming.

The bell above the hardware store door chimed.

Alton walked in and threw the bloody canvas bag onto the front counter. The glass display case rattled.

Delmar Boggs, the store owner, nearly fell off his stool. He stared at the blood pooling on his clean counter. "I... I don't buy illegal pelts, Combs. Take it away!"

Alton didn't speak. He pulled out a skinning knife. His hands moved in a terrifying, fluid blur. In less than two minutes, he stripped a flawless, intact pelt from the massive carcass right in front of Boggs's horrified eyes.

The sheer violence and precision of the act broke Boggs's nerve. He scrambled to his safe, counted out five thousand dollars in cash, and shoved it across the counter.

Alton took the money. He bought heavy iron nails, a high-voltage electric fence kit, and a dozen cans of baked beans. He walked out.

The moment the heavy glass door closed behind him, the midday sun hit his face.

It was blindingly bright. A truck honked its horn down the street. Two women laughed loudly on the sidewalk.

The sudden barrage of noise and light slammed into Alton's brain. The adrenaline from the cougar kill rapidly faded, leaving a gaping hole in his nervous system.

Sensory overload hit him. The street spun. His lungs forgot how to work.

He stumbled away from the main street, his vision tunneling. He crashed into the dark, damp alleyway behind the town's private medical clinic.

Alton slammed his back against the mossy brick wall. He grabbed his own head, sliding down until he hit the wet pavement. Cold sweat poured down his face. The walls of the alley seemed to close in, crushing him, dragging him back to the suffocating water cell in the Middle East.

He was losing his mind. He was going to tear his own skin off.

Then, a sound pierced through the roaring in his ears.

It was a tiny, pathetic whimper. Like a dying kitten.

Alton's bloodshot eyes snapped open. His survival instinct overrode the panic. He pulled his knife and crawled toward the sound, moving like a wounded predator among the trash cans.

Next to a biohazard dumpster, he found a cardboard box. Inside was a filthy, torn blanket.

Alton used the tip of his knife to pull the blanket back.

A baby girl lay inside. Her skin was turning blue from the cold. Her breathing was terribly shallow.

Alton froze. He leaned his scarred, blood-streaked face closer to the box.

The baby stopped crying. She opened her eyes. She reached up with a tiny, freezing hand and wrapped her fingers tightly around Alton's thick, blood-stained index finger.

The physical touch sent a violent shockwave through Alton's chest. The roaring in his head vanished instantly. His heart skipped a beat. The demons in his brain went completely silent.

He carefully scooped her up. As the blanket fell away, his eyes locked onto her tiny arm.

There were three distinct, faded needle scars near her vein. Someone had injected her.

Pure, unadulterated rage ignited in Alton's chest. He ripped off his tactical jacket and wrapped the baby tightly against his bare, scarred chest, using his body heat to warm her.

He scanned the mud near the clinic's back door. He spotted a partial footprint. It was a custom Italian leather sole. No one in this trash town wore shoes like that.

He wasn't going to call the cops. Child Protective Services would let her die in the system.

Alton carried her back to the cabin. He mashed the canned beans into a soft paste and fed it to her with his finger.

When she was full, she fell asleep against his chest. Her tiny fist still gripped his shirt.

Alton stared at the fire. The void in his soul that had been empty for eleven years was suddenly filled with a heavy, undeniable anchor.

He named her Eden.

He pulled out his satellite phone and dialed a heavily encrypted number belonging to a dark web broker he had established ties with from the inside.

"I have the offshore account routing numbers of the corrupt warden at Blackgate," Alton said coldly. "I want a clean Social Security Number and a birth certificate for a baby girl. I need it in twenty-four hours."

The broker on the other end whistled low through the static. Trading high-level blackmail material for a simple fake SSN was a massive overpayment. But he greedily agreed without hesitation.

The next morning, the encrypted fax arrived at the post office. Eden was legally his daughter—there it was, in black and white, beyond dispute.

Alton locked the paper in a metal box. He looked at Eden blowing bubbles on the bed. He made a silent vow. If anyone ever tried to take her, he would slaughter them all.

Alton's entire existence shifted. The cabin was no longer a place to die; it was a place to protect.

He stripped off his shirt and went to work. He hauled massive, raw tree trunks from the woods, driving them deep into the dirt around the cabin. His muscles bulged and strained, working with the relentless efficiency of a machine.

He built a six-foot-tall, anti-peeping wooden fence. Then, he wired the high-voltage electric grid along the top. He carefully calibrated the voltage dial, setting it to a non-lethal shock level. He couldn't risk Eden accidentally touching it when she learned to walk.

Just as he was welding the final steel gate, Cletus's truck pulled up to the dirt road.

Cletus stepped out, followed by his sister-in-law, Tammy-Lynn. She wore skin-tight jeans and a low-cut top that barely contained her chest. She held a freshly baked apple pie. Her eyes hungrily devoured Alton's sweating, scarred torso.

"Brought you the final deed copies, Combs," Cletus coughed. He nudged Tammy-Lynn. "Tammy here wanted to welcome you properly."

Tammy-Lynn swayed her hips as she walked up to the fence. She pressed her chest against the wood.

"You got a body on you, mister," she purred, her voice dripping with cheap perfume and desperation.

Alton didn't look at her. He grabbed his power drill and drove a screw into the steel plate. The deafening screech of metal on metal completely drowned out her flirting.

Tammy-Lynn's smile faltered, but she didn't give up. She tried to slide the pie through a gap in the gate.

"Don't you get lonely out here all by yourself?" she cooed, lowering her neckline. "I could come in and help you... relax."

Alton stopped drilling. He slowly turned his head. His cold, dead eyes locked onto her heavily made-up face.

He walked toward the gate. He didn't reach for the pie. He reached for the red button on the wall box.

He pressed it.

Blue electricity crackled violently across the wire. A spark jumped and zapped Tammy-Lynn's fingers.

She shrieked in pain, leaping backward. The apple pie hit the mud and shattered.

Alton stared at the ruined food with disgust. "Get out."

Tammy-Lynn's face flushed dark red. "You ungrateful psycho!" she screamed, clutching her hand.

Cletus puffed his chest out. "You don't disrespect my family in this town, Combs! You're gonna regret that!"

Alton's hand dropped to his belt. In a fraction of a second, he drew his hunting knife and hurled it.

The heavy blade flew past Cletus's ear, slicing a few hairs off his head. It buried itself to the hilt in the front tire of the pickup truck.

The tire exploded with a deafening BANG.

Cletus and Tammy-Lynn screamed, dropping to the mud and covering their heads.

Alton walked to the gate and looked down at them. "Next time anyone comes within thirty feet of this fence, the knife goes through a throat, not rubber."

Cletus swallowed his own spit. He finally realized he wasn't dealing with a broken man. He was dealing with a monster. He grabbed Tammy-Lynn and scrambled into the crippled truck, driving away on the rim.

Alton yanked his knife out of the tire track and walked back inside.

A soft, distressed cry came from the bedroom. Eden was hungry.

Instantly, the terrifying killer aura vanished from Alton's body. He rushed to the kitchen, his rough hands moving with extreme care as he mixed warm water and formula.

He walked to the bed and gently pressed the bottle to Eden's lips. His eyes softened into warm pools of devotion.

Eden drank greedily. Her tiny hand reached up and wrapped tightly around his index finger.

"No one will ever hurt you," Alton whispered to her. "I'll build you a fortress—the strongest protection I can offer."

Miles away, Tammy-Lynn rubbed her burnt finger. Her eyes burned with venom. She picked up her phone and started calling the town gossips. She was going to find out what that psycho was hiding in that cabin.