It did not move.
The jaguar lowered its head a fraction and showed just enough teeth for the darkness to sharpen around them.
The flashlight vanished again.
No one stepped into the clearing.
No one fired.
Ricardo had dealt with illegal hunters long enough to know what fear sounded like when men tried to hide it inside anger. They were armed, yes. But even armed men understood certain things in the jungle. A jaguar in its own territory at close range was not a story they wanted to become.
One of them spat.
“Leave him,” he said. “Rangers may be near.”
Their footsteps retreated faster this time, branches snapping as they backed away through the wet undergrowth.
The jaguar remained where it was for several more seconds, listening.
Only when the jungle swallowed the last trace of them did it turn back toward Ricardo.
His chest was heaving now. The brief return of the men had broken something open inside him. Fear was no longer a sharp spike. It had become a wave—exhausting, heavy, almost impossible to carry.
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