The night passed in peaceful shifts, the cool air settling over the bushland like a comforting blanket. For once, everything felt calm. No alarms. No rustling in the shadows. No distant shrieks from the dark.

Tarni slept straight through as he had got the lucky straw when they were deciding on who got the night to sleep. When Lily quietly made her way through the lounge room, he mumbled something about "bunyips with machetes" and rolled over again. She just chuckled and left him be—Zane and Bell had taken the last shift together.

The two of them sat on the elevated deck outside the house, wrapped in thick jumpers, sipping on lukewarm instant coffee from enamel mugs. The moon was low in the sky, casting long silver shadows across the yard where their makeshift traps and punji stakes now lay in jagged rows just inside the fence.

Bell sat cross-legged, her trusty spear gun resting across her lap.

"Pretty out here," she murmured, watching the stars fade into the slow blue of dawn. "I didn't think I'd see a sunrise like this again."

Zane looked over at her, his lightly weathered face softening. "Glad you're still here to see it."

They shared a quiet moment, the kind that didn't need words to be understood. Just the warmth of shared presence and the peace of a fight—temporarily—put on pause. After a while, Zane started to stretch with his hands in the middle of his back.

Then the sensor light flared.

The floodlight above the fence snapped on, casting a bright beam of artificial daylight across the trench, highlighting movement on the far side of the boundary.

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Zane stood in a flash, hand on his machete, eyes scanning. Bell was already up beside him, spear gun shouldered, her fingers tightening around the trigger.

"Over there!" she whispered sharply.

A small, wiry goblin had emerged from the tree line. It froze in the light, eyes wide. It was barely waist-high, with mottled green skin and ragged cloth tied around its waist. Its yellow eyes locked onto theirs for half a second—and then it bolted.

Bell fired.

Thwump!

The spear sang through the air—but dropped with a heavy thunk halfway across the yard, kicking up dirt as it bounced and rolled to a stop.

"Damn it," Bell muttered, lowering the weapon.

The goblin was already gone, melting into the scrub like a shadow before either of them could make a second move.

Zane peered over the railing, frowning as he tracked where the spear had landed. "That was a good shot, love. Just too far."

Bell nodded, frustrated. "I thought I had the distance. It's not like I get much practice shooting at running targets across open paddocks."

Zane stepped down the ladder and retrieved the spear before returning, passing it back to her.

"We might need to rethink your loadout," he said thoughtfully. "Up close, that thing hits like a bloody shotgun. Deadly. But at range? Not so much."

Bell tilted her head, considering. "Yeah, I've got to practice more with my bow."

"Could be a good idea. Something with lighter ammo and better range. Let the spear gun be your backup. Save the heavy punch for close-range or when they come at the house."

She sighed, rolling her shoulders. "I like the feel of it. I just feel safer when I have the spear gun in my hands. But yeah... I see your point. The spear dropped fast."

Zane smiled. "You can keep both."

Bell leaned her weight on the railing, staring out at the fence line, now bathed in soft pink dawn light.

"You think that goblin was scouting us?" she asked.

"Maybe," Zane replied. "Maybe just curious. But one thing's for sure—it knew we saw it. And it ran."

Bell exhaled slowly. "So they're still out there. Watching."

Zane's eyes stayed on the horizon. "Yeah. But so are we."

They stood together in silence as the sun crept above the hills, casting gold across the land. The moment of peace had ended, but the resolve between them had only deepened.

Tomorrow, they would train harder. Build smarter. Prepare better.

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