Chapter 008 Protocols
The world didn’t stop when the woman screamed, but my perception of it did. The ambient noise of the crowd—the laughter, the murmur of conversation, the distant piano from the saloon—faded into a dull hum. In its place, a singular, crystalline focus snapped into existence.
Chaos was the enemy. Order was the only weapon that mattered.
"Have you seen my daughter?"
The woman, Lauren Phillips, stood near the luminook enclosure, her hands trembling so violently the popcorn in her grip spilled onto the dust in jerky waves.
I was already moving, my hand sliding into my pocket to retrieve my phone. I didn't need to look at the screen to know where the file was. Protocol 7-B: Missing Child / Vulnerable Person. I had written it myself three years ago, revising it six times since to account for new population densities and construction.
"We'll find her," I said. My voice came out lower than usual, a rumble meant to ground the hysteria radiating off her. "I need you to look at me, Lauren."
She blinked, her eyes wide and glassy, darting past my shoulder toward the dense tree line. "She was just here. She was right here."
"Name?" I asked, though I had already signaled Rokk with a sharp hand gesture. My brother was moving before the mother even answered, his large frame shifting from jovial showman to hunter in a heartbeat. He began a perimeter sweep of the immediate fifty yards.
"Marcy," Lauren choked out. "She's six. She... she likes the lights."
I tapped the screen, broadcasting the alert code to the encrypted channel shared by my family. Code Blue. Sector 4.
Beside me, Cassidy moved. She didn't flinch or freeze. She stepped into the space between Lauren and her rising panic with a fluidity that caught me off guard.
"Lauren, look at me," Cassidy said. Her voice was calm, authoritative, but laced with a specific kind of warmth that invited trust. She placed a hand on the woman’s arm—not restraining, but grounding. "I need you to take a deep breath for me. Right now."
"But the woods," Lauren gasped, pointing toward the shadows lengthening under the trees. "The snakes. The guide said there are silverwhips."
"Silverwhips avoid humans whenever possible, and they’re mostly nocturnal," Cassidy said smoothly. She hadn't even looked at me for confirmation; she just knew the facts, or she knew how to deliver reassurance with enough conviction that it became fact. "Marcy is smart. You said she likes the luminooks?"
"She... yes. She can’t stop talking about their glowing spines. She wanted to see them wake up."
I watched Cassidy work, a strange sensation unfurling in my chest. It wasn't just attraction—though the scent of her, like rain and ozone, was spiking my adrenaline—it was recognition. She was executing task three of my protocol—stabilize the reporting party—without ever having read the file.
Rokk returned to the fence line. He met my gaze and gave a single, grim shake of his head.
She wasn't in the paddock. She wasn't in the immediate crowd.
The temperature was dropping. My internal clock noted the shift in wind; we were looking at a fifteen-degree drop in the next two hours as the sun dipped below the canyon walls. A six-year-old in a cotton dress would risk hypothermia long before the predators woke up.
"Cassidy," I said.
She looked up at me over the growing crowd, her eyes meeting mine in a moment of perfect understanding. There was no fear in them, only calculation. We had known each other for less than forty-eight hours, yet in this moment, the friction of "getting to know you" vanished. We were a unified mechanism.
"I'll move the civilians to the town square," she said, anticipating the need to clear the search zone.
"No," I corrected, handing her my spare radio handset. "You organize the volunteers. I need to mobilize the grid."
"Done."
"Everyone, listen to me!" I projected my voice, the baritone carrying over the murmurs of the tourists. "Please clear the area immediately. Head to the Sheriff's office if you wish to assist. Otherwise, return to your lodgings."
We moved to the office at a brisk jog. The transition from the dusty warmth of the afternoon to the clinical cool of my headquarters felt like stepping into a suit of armor. I went straight to the wall map, grabbing the box of color-coded pins.
The door banged open behind us. My brothers filed in, filling the room with the scent of leather, sage, and grim purpose. They didn't ask questions. They didn't waste breath on pleasantries. They lined up, waiting for orders.
"Marcy Phillips. Six years old. Blue dress, bonnet, brown braids," I said, slapping a magnetic marker onto the map at the paddock location. "Last seen twenty minutes ago."
I turned to the stack of laminated grid maps on my desk. I handed them out with the efficiency of a dealer at a card table.
"Rokk, take the eastern section," I commanded. "Check the drainage pipes and the underside of the boardwalks. She’s small enough to fit in the runoff gaps."
Rokk nodded, taking the map. "On it."
"Bram, Vorn. The northern forest edge," I continued. "Don't go deep yet. Walk the perimeter. Look for broken brush or fabric snags. If she went into the woods, I want to know exactly where she breached."
"Ge-gently," Vorn murmured to Bram, already turning for the door. "We go slow."
"Becken, the western ridge and lookout point," I said, handing him the topography sheet. "You have the best eyes. Scan for color contrast. That blue dress will stand out against the red clay."
"Garn," I finished, locking eyes with my brother. "Coordinate with the stable hands. Check the lofts and the feed bins. Kids hide when they get scared."
"Understood," Garn grunted.
"Radio check on Channel 3. Go."
Within thirty seconds, the room was empty of orcs save for me. The silence should have been heavy, but it was immediately filled by the sound of Cassidy’s voice.
She stood at my secondary desk, a group of five tourists and two shopkeepers gathered around her. She had pulled the oversized tourist map off the wall and laid it flat, using a red marker to draw swift, decisive lines.
"You three," she said, pointing to the shopkeepers. "You know the alleyways behind Main Street better than anyone. I want a grid search of every trash bin and delivery alcove. Go."
She turned to a pair of hikers who looked eager but clueless. "Do you have flashlights?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Team four has experience with wilderness rescue," she said, glancing at me as she marked a sector near the creek bed. "I’ve assigned them to the low ground. It’s safer for civilians but needs thorough sweeping."
I stared at her. The chaos of untrained volunteers usually hindered an investigation, clogging the radio waves and trampling evidence. But she had sorted them by capability, assigned them low-risk, high-probability zones, and kept them out of my brothers' way.
"You're good at this," I said quietly as the volunteers hurried out.
Cassidy capped the marker, her cheeks flushing a faint pink. It wasn't the flush of exertion; it was the color of a secret being touched. "I’ve had... experience with crisis management."
She left it at that, and I didn't push. The file on Cassidy Smith in my head was growing thicker by the hour, filled with contradictions: a woman who flinched at sudden movements yet took command of a crisis room with the ease of a general.
I looked back at the map. The pins for my brothers were moving in my mind, covering the logical hiding spots. But something nagged at me. The logic was sound for a scared child hiding from a threat. But Marcy hadn't been scared. She had been fascinated.
"She likes the luminooks," I murmured, staring at the topography. "She watched the babies wake up."
Cassidy stepped up beside me, her shoulder brushing my arm. The contact sent a jolt of heat through me, grounding and electric all at once. She traced the line of the ridge with her finger.
"The mother said she wanted to see them 'wake up,'" Cassidy said. "Rokk said the ones in the paddock were just stirring. But the wild ones..."
"The south ridge," I finished, the realization clicking into place like a deadbolt. "A small colony of wild luminooks we established when we first arrived. They come down from the higher elevations at dusk to feed on the rock moss."
"If she saw a light in the distance..." Cassidy trailed off.
"She'd follow it."
I grabbed the heavy-duty emergency pack from the hook by the door and tossed it to her. She caught it one-handed, the weight not even making her stumble.
"The temperature is dropping," I said, grabbing my own gear. "If she's on the south ridge, she's exposed to the wind."
"Then we better move," Cassidy said, already heading for the door.
I followed her, a fierce, protective pride swelling in my chest. I had spent years building systems to keep this town safe, creating layers of protocols to insulate us from chaos. But as I watched Cassidy stride into the gathering dark, I realized I had been missing a vital component.
I wasn't just the Sheriff anymore. We were partners. And we were going to bring that little girl home.