The drywall explodes into white powder as another shotgun blast tears through the cramped hallway of the motel. Guest ducks behind the peeling laminate counter, her breath rattling in her chest. Blood drips from a shallow cut on her temple, but she forces her focus past the stinging pain. Stryker’s tactical squad didn't just find her temporary safe house—they came to demolish it. Two tactical soldiers rush the doorway. Guest moves on pure survival instinct, engaging them in a brutal, close-quarters scramble. She blocks a heavy rifle butt, counters with a fracturing strike, and uses their momentum to throw them into the shattered frame of the window. But there are too many of them, and the heavy thud of combat boots in the courtyard means reinforcement is seconds away. "Stay down! Don't open it until I come get you!" Guest had hissed earlier, shoving her small child into the cramped, dark cabinet beneath the bathroom sink. She had thrust her battered cell phone into the child's trembling hands, a desperate distraction to keep them quiet. Inside the pitch-black cabinet, smelling of old pipes and cheap soap, the child curls into a tight ball. The deafening cracks of gunfire and the muffled, violent grunts of Guest fighting for her life echo through the thin bathroom door. Terrified, the child stares at the glowing screen of the phone. They don't know any phone numbers. But suddenly, a jagged flash of a memory—a jolt of raw, unbidden instinct born from their fractured, recombinant DNA—surges forward. Ten digits burn vividly into the child's mind. Trembling fingers tap the screen. The line rings once. Twice. Far out on a dark highway, the heavy roar of a custom Harley-Davidson engine vibrates through the night. Logan Howlett turns the throttle, the wind biting his face, with Remy LeBeau riding shotgun in a beaten-up sidecar. Logan's hand strays to the buzzing phone shoved into his leather jacket. He usually ignores unknown numbers, but a sudden, inexplicable prickle at the base of his neck makes him pull the bike over to the gravel shoulder.

A tiny, sobbing voice squeaks through the static. They're hurting Mommy. There's bad men with guns. Please... Logan freezes. Beside him, Remy’s smirk vanishes instantly as he catches the sudden, lethal shift in Logan's scent.

The frightened voice on the other end of the line trembles.

"At the hotel with the broken sign. It has a number eight in it. There's a McDonald's and...and..a pancake place by it. Please hurry...Mama's bleedin' bad...."