Chapter 15 #2
“A network that places magic-blooded wolves in appropriate communities. Safe places.”
It’s the answer I’ve always given. The answer Garrett gave me. The answer that sits in a box labeled PROTOCOL in my head, sealed and unexamined.
The father looks at me. Studies me. “You’ve done this before.”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve checked? That the places are safe? That the families you’ve sent south are—”
“The network handles placement. That’s not our operation.”
“But you’ve checked.”
The question hangs. I feel Tate’s attention on me. Feel the boy’s stare. Feel my wolf twisting inside my chest with a discomfort that’s getting harder to override.
“Pack up,” I say. “I’ll give you the hour.”
I walk back to the truck. Tate follows. We stand on the ridge above the ravine and wait while below us, a family of four folds their tent, packs their bags, loads their cooler into a car that’s held together by rust and prayer.
The boy carries firewood to the fire pit and douses it with creek water. Methodical. Practiced. He’s done this before, too. How many camps has this kid broken down? How many mornings has he packed everything he owns into a car because a wolf like me told his father to move?
Tate shifts his weight beside me. “The transfer point. Is that the junction on the county road?”
“Yeah.”
“And then what happens?”
“A vehicle picks them up. Takes them to a placement facility.”
“Where?”
“South.”
“You ever been there? The facility?”
“No.”
Tate is quiet for a moment. Then: “There was a girl I knew growing up. Kira, from the Hartley pack, two counties over. Our families used to see them at the fall gatherings. She had magic—” He stops when he catches my expression.
“Barely anything,” he adds quickly. “You’d never know unless someone told you.
They relocated her when she was sixteen.
” He pauses. “Her family tried to find out where she went. Couldn’t. We never saw her again.”
“Different pack,” I say. “Different operation.”
“Yeah. Probably.” Tate doesn’t sound convinced.
The family finishes packing in forty minutes. They drive their car up the ravine road to where we’re parked. I lead them to the county road—a fifteen-minute drive, the family’s sedan following my truck, Tate in the passenger seat, the whole thing orderly and quiet and professional.
The handoff point is a pullout where the ranch road meets the county highway. A flat space, gravel, room for two vehicles. I’ve been here before. Done this before. Called the contact, waited for the truck, made the transfer.
I call the number. It rings twice.
“Forrester. What do you have?”
“Family of four. Two adults, clean. Two minors, magic-blood. Low-level.”
“Location?”
“Junction seven. County road pullout. Usual place.”
“Twenty minutes.” The call ends.
I stand by my truck and wait. The family sits in their car. The mother has both kids in the backseat. Through the rear window, I can see the boy pressed against the glass, looking at me.
He’s not crying. He’s not scared anymore.
He’s looking at me with something that’s worse than fear.
Comprehension. He understands what’s happening.
He’s eight years old, and he understands that the man who told his family to pack up is now handing them to strangers, and nobody is going to explain where they’re going.
My wolf is fighting me. Not pushing gently. Fighting with a fury I’ve never felt from him, and the effort of keeping the shift contained makes my hands shake. My vision keeps going wolf-bright, the details of the kid’s face burning into my memory with a clarity that feels permanent.
I grip the truck’s tailgate. Breathe.
This is the protocol. This is what keeps our territory safe. This is what we do.
The contact’s truck arrives. Dark blue. No markings. Two men in the cab: one driving, one passenger. I don’t know their names. I’ve never asked. They’re part of the network. They handle placement. That’s all I need to know.
The driver gets out. Nods to me. “The family?”
“Behind me. Sedan.”
He walks to the car. Talks to the father through the window. I don’t listen to the conversation. I don’t need to hear the details of where they’re being taken, what the next step is, how the placement works. That’s not my operation.
The family gets out of their car. They leave the sedan; they always leave the vehicles. Someone will come back to collect it, and by morning, it will be gone. Just like always.
The father carries two bags. The mother carries the toddler. The boy walks between them, carrying a backpack that’s too big for him.
They walk to the dark blue truck. The mother climbs in the back with both kids. The father hesitates. Looks back at me.
I don’t know what he’s looking for. Permission. Reassurance. An answer to the question he asked in the ravine that I didn’t give him.
Have you checked?
He gets in. The door closes. The truck pulls away. Heads south on the county highway. The dust settles.
I stand in the pullout. Tate is behind me, quiet. The morning sun is bright. A mockingbird sings from a fence post.
The eight-year-old’s face is still there. Behind my eyes. The comprehension in his expression. The backpack that was too big. The way he walked between his parents with the measured steps of a child who’s learned that moving carefully draws less attention.
My wolf has gone silent. Not the satisfied silence he falls into when we’re near Willow. A different silence. Heavy. The quiet of an animal that’s watching its handler do something it doesn’t agree with and has run out of ways to protest.
“Conner?” Tate’s voice. Careful.
“Yeah.”
“You good?”
I turn the truck on. Pull out. Head back toward the compound. The county road stretches north, straight and empty.
“I’m good,” I say.
Tate doesn’t ask again. We drive in silence. The morning gets brighter. The hills get sharper. Everything looks the same as it did two hours ago: the trees, the rock formations, the fence lines, the road. My territory. My home. The land I’ve protected my whole life.
It all looks the same.
It just doesn’t feel like it.
The bracelet on my wrist is warm from my skin. I wore it today the same way I wear it every day—without thinking, without ceremony, the symbol of a grief that shaped everything I am.
I think about Maren. Fourteen. The ward that killed her. The magic that no one could control. The reason we do what we do.
Then I think about the boy. The backpack. The look on his face.
Maren didn’t choose to be in the path of that ward. That kid didn’t choose to carry magic in his blood.
Neither of them had a choice.
I drive through the compound gate. Park. Tate gets out, glances at me, decides not to say anything, and walks toward the bunkhouse. I don’t follow immediately.
The birds are still singing. The morning is still bright. My wolf is still silent.
And for the first time in ten years, the words I’ve said to myself after every relocation—this keeps people safe, this is what we do, this is right—don’t come when I reach for them.
They’re there. I can feel them. Sitting where they’ve always sat, in the place I built for them after Maren died.
They just won’t come out of my mouth.