Chapter 25
Garrett
I wake before dawn to the sound of a vehicle leaving the compound. Dawes collecting the family from the bunkhouse and driving them to the rendezvous point.
I stand at the window of my room and watch the headlights move down the road. The family is inside that vehicle. Somewhere in there, the children. The parents holding them. Heading north, carrying the word of what happened here.
When the taillights disappear, I turn from the window and dress in working clothes. Boots. The wallet with the Forrester identification I’ll need to present. Nothing else. I leave the phone on the dresser.
Downstairs, Ellis is in the kitchen. Coffee in a chipped mug. He nods when I come in and pours a second cup without asking. I take it.
“You’re moving today.”
“Yes.”
“You serious about making Jessie alpha?”
I nod. “She’ll do fine. Whether I come back or not.”
He doesn’t respond to that. Drinks his coffee. I drink mine. For a minute, we stand in the kitchen like it’s just a regular morning.
“Where,” he says finally.
“I’m calling the contact this morning. Setting up a meeting. Wherever they want it.”
“And you walk in.”
“I walk in.”
“You want a crew nearby. Backup in case it goes bad.”
“No.”
“Garrett—”
“No, Ellis. No crew. No backup. Not a single Forrester wolf within fifty miles of wherever they tell me to go. If the Syndicate thinks we’re playing them, they’ll hit the compound anyway. The whole point is that I go alone and they see I’m alone and the deal holds.”
He doesn’t like it. He doesn’t argue. He knows when I’ve made a decision that I’m not unmaking.
“What do you need me to do?”
“Help Dawes. Keep Jessie supported. Don’t come after me.”
He nods once. Slow.
I finish my coffee, rinse the cup in the sink, and set it on the drying rack. Ellis watches me do it, the domestic habits of a morning that should be ordinary. He doesn’t say anything about the ordinary.
“Ellis.”
“Yes.”
“If I don’t come back, get word to Brenna Corvus. She’ll handle what needs handling from there.”
“Specific message?”
“No message. Just tell her what happened. She’ll know.”
He nods. I turn to go, then stop. The thought has been forming since last night, since I stood in the meeting hall and watched the wolves leave and the wolves stay, and understood for the first time what the corridor had actually built.
Not just a supply line. A network. And networks leave traces on both ends.
“One more thing.”
“Name it.”
“Whatever happens in there, anything I’ve gathered goes to Brenna.”
Ellis goes still. “Gathered?”
“They’re going to interrogate me. They’re going to ask questions.
And questions go both ways, Ellis. Everything they ask me tells me something about what they know and what they don’t.
Every facility they move me through has a layout, a staffing pattern, a security protocol.
Every operative I meet has a rank and a function.
” I hold his eyes. “I ran a logistics operation for years. I know how to read a system from the inside. I’ve just been reading the wrong one. ”
He stares at me. Then something shifts in his expression, the loyalty that’s always been there rearranging itself around a new understanding of what his alpha is actually doing.
“You’re not just handing yourself over.”
“I’m handing myself over. That part’s real. The compound stays safe, and I take what comes. But I’m not going in blind, and I’m not coming out empty-handed. I’m not going to sit in their chair and not pay attention.”
“Garrett—”
“If I send back something useful, Brenna gets it. If I don’t come back, tell her I tried.”
He’s quiet. Then he nods. Not the slow, reluctant nod from earlier. Something sharper.
“I’ll tell her.”
I leave the kitchen and walk out to the patio. Pa’s out there already. I almost wonder if he never made it inside. The book in his lap today is one he’s been holding for weeks. I don’t think he reads it anymore.
“I’m leaving,” I say.
He looks up. His eyes find mine. Whatever’s behind them is the thing I saw last night. The ghost of a man, the grief that never resolved.
“Where?”
“Somewhere the Syndicate can find me. The compound stays out of it.”
His hand finds the arm of the chair and grips it.
“I handed you the corridor,” he says. His voice is thin. Unused. “When Maren died. I couldn’t keep running the pack. I handed it to you like it was a gift. And it was a weight I should have broken, not given.”
“I know.”
“I’m sorry.”
The apology has been ten years in coming. I don’t have time to absorb it properly. I don’t know if I ever will.
“Take care of Ma.”
“I will.”
I turn to go.
“Garrett.”
I stop.
“If you can come back, come back.”
“Sure, Pa.”
I go back inside and close the door behind me. The sound of it seems too loud in the quiet hallway. I stand there for a moment, then I walk to the landline.
I dial.
A voice answers. Male. The regional operative I’ve dealt with for half a decade, the one who takes the handoff calls and coordinates the transfers. I don’t know his real name. I know the voice.
“Forrester.”
“I want a meeting.”
A pause. Longer than it should be. They weren’t expecting this call. They were expecting me to wait for them to come to me. A week, maybe, before they escalated past the cage.
“Terms.”
“I come in alone. I surrender. The compound is untouched. My pack is untouched. Permanently. In exchange, you take me, and whatever happens next is between your people and me.”
“What are you offering?”
“Myself. The information I carry about the corridor network, if you can extract it. An alpha who refused you, alive, for whatever use you can make of that.”
“You know we’ll take you apart.”
“I know.”
“And still.”
“Yes.”
“Stand by.”
I stand by. Three minutes. The phone buzzing faintly against my ear. The study is dim and cool, and the light outside is turning the ridge gold. Above me, my mother’s footsteps cross the bedroom floor — the slow, deliberate movements of a woman who hasn’t slept and isn’t pretending otherwise.
The voice comes back.
“Accepted. Your compound and your pack are off the table, contingent on your full cooperation. You will present yourself today. Alone. Unarmed.”
“Where.”
“The old grain depot on County Road Eleven. Two o’clock. You know the location.”
I know it. Abandoned freight facility, sixty miles west of my territory. Off any watched route. Large enough for a vehicle extraction, remote enough that nothing happens there gets noticed.
“I’ll be there.”
“Forrester.”
“Yes.”
“People higher up want to see you personally. Your cooperation isn’t just procedural. You’ll be evaluated by leadership.”
“Understood.”
“One more thing. If you bring anyone — if a single wolf from your compound is within twenty miles of the depot — the deal terminates. We hit your compound tonight.”
“I’ll come alone.”
The line goes dead. I stand with the phone in my hand. Ellis is at the door — he came through from the kitchen, heard enough.
“Two o’clock,” he says.
“Yes.”
“Sixty miles. You’ll need to leave by noon.”
“Eleven thirty. I want time to see the approach.”
He nods. “I’ll tell Jessie. Quietly.”
He goes. I stay in the study for a moment, my hand on the phone, and then I go outside.
The sun is up now. The compound is working.
The barn doors are open, and someone is leading a horse out to the pasture.
The training yard is active, Jessie’s younger wolves running drills in the cool air before the day heats up.
The sound of everything is the sound I’ve heard every morning for most of my life, and in a few hours, it will continue without me, and the knowledge of that is easier than I expected it to be.
I walk to the training yard. Jessie sees me coming and breaks off from the group. Meets me at the fence.
“You’re going today.”
“Two o’clock.”
“Ellis told you how he’s handling Brenna.”
“He told me.”
She studies me. “You look like a man who’s already left.”
“I’ve been leaving for weeks. Today is just the formality.”
She doesn’t smile. Neither do I. The younger wolves are watching us from the yard, pretending not to, the way junior wolves always watch an alpha conversation.
“Whatever happens,” she says, “the pack knows the truth now. They know what you did and what you didn’t do and why you chose this. If you come back, you’ll come back to wolves who see you clearly for the first time. If you don’t come back, the story holds. I’ll make sure it does.”
“Thank you, Jessie.”
She steps forward. Puts her hand on my shoulder. Not a dominance gesture. Just contact. The kind of touch that says I see you.
“Don’t die out there, Garrett.”
“I’ll try.”
She turns and walks back to her trainees. I watch her for another minute. She’s already running the pack. She was ready before I knew she was.
I head to the barn. No point in going back to the house to pack anything. Whatever the Syndicate will do, it doesn’t require the things I own.
Ridley’s in her stall when I get inside, head down in a mound of grass. At the sound of my footsteps, she looks up, mouth working.
“I’ll be heading out today, girl.” I run a hand down her sleek neck. “Remember what I taught you. Keep clear of the northern pasture; the stones there bruise your feet. And be sure to drink your water when the fall comes, or you’ll be colicking again.”
Ridley turns her head and lips the sleeve of my shirt. Her breath gusts out in warm bursts that I can feel through the fabric.
I inhale deeply, taking in her scent, horse and fresh grass and a hint of leather. I pat her shoulder, and she huffs out a soft snort.
“You be good now.” I turn away and leave the barn. And if my throat’s a little tight, it’s probably just the dust.
Eleven-thirty. I drive the truck out through the main gate. The compound is behind me in the rearview. Ellis is at the gate, not raising a hand, just watching. My mother is at an upstairs window. I see her face for a second before the road bends and the compound disappears behind the ridge.
I drive west.