23. Wren
WREN
SOMEONE WANTS TO BUY THE JOKE
The blue light of my laptop is the only thing keeping the office from dissolving into the shadows.
It’s three in the morning, and the steady hum of the processor is a poor substitute for the silence I should be sleeping in.
I’m down here because I can’t sleep, and I’ve been staring at the same forum thread for twenty minutes, watching the ‘users browsing’ counter climb into the triple digits.
People don’t sleep when there’s a mystery to dissect, and apparently, neither do I.
I rub my eyes, the skin feeling like parchment.
I shouldn’t have let Rowan go back out there, but stopping him is like trying to fence in the wind.
He belongs to the timber, and I belong to this desk, drowning in the aftermath of a miracle.
My father’s old boots are tucked under the desk, still damp from the trailhead, a reminder that I’m playing a game where the stakes have stopped being financial and started being existential.
A new notification pings—a direct message on the hotline’s administrative portal.
Usually, these are just weirdos asking for GPS coordinates or offering to sell me hair samples they found on their golden retriever.
This one has a corporate header: Aethelgard Media Group.
The subject line reads: Urgent: Option Inquiry - The Bigfoot Hotline.
I click it, expecting the usual predatory nonsense, but the numbers in the first paragraph make my breath hitch.
They aren’t offering a few hundred dollars for a licensing fee.
They’re talking about a multi-stage development deal.
My fingers tremble as I scroll past the legalese, looking for the catch.
I’ve spent months spinning lies to keep the lights on, and now, someone wants to buy the copyright to the joke.
The office door creaks, and I nearly jump out of my skin.
It’s just the wind catching the loose latch I’ve been meaning to fix since July, but my heart is suddenly doing a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
I look at the framed photo of my father, the one I usually avoid.
He’d have told me to be careful. He’d have said that when the money looks that good, someone is usually hiding the bill under the table.
I open a fresh tab and search for Aethelgard.
They’re legitimate—a massive umbrella company that produces those high-end nature documentaries that look like cinema.
They aren’t the guys with the shaky cameras and the EMF meters.
They’re the guys with the thermal drones and the four-million-dollar budgets.
They want to turn the hotline into a flagship series about the intersection of digital folklore and wilderness preservation.
The terms are laid out in a PDF attachment.
Step one is a production and access fee—fifty thousand dollars just for the right to film at Cassidy Lodge for three weeks.
It’s enough to clear the back taxes, fix the roof, and give Marge and Walt a decent bonus for a change.
It’s a lifeline thrown to a drowning woman, and I’m already reaching for it before I’ve even read the second page.
Step two is the real punch. A five-hundred-thousand-dollar development option, contingent on the delivery of verifiable evidence of unique biological or paranormal phenomena.
It’s the kind of money that will save the lodge and build a legacy.
It’s the kind of money that means I never have to worry about an electric bill again.
And the best part? The contract explicitly states that I retain control over the hotline’s narrative.
I lean back, the swivel chair groaning. If I sign this, I’m not selling Rowan.
I’m selling the phenomenon. I’ve spent months manufacturing fake footprints and blurry photos; I can keep doing that.
This is different from the documentary Barnaby Jones wanted to bring here.
This gives me some semblance of control.
I’m a professional misdirector now. I can feed a film crew a diet of shadows and curated encounters that lead exactly nowhere.
It’s just higher-stakes marketing. It’s what I’m good at.
My phone buzzes on the desk. A text from Rowan. The ridge is quiet. The hiker’s scent is fading. Go to sleep, Wren.
I stare at the words, a pang of something that isn’t quite guilt but feels just as heavy settling in my chest. He trusts me to manage the border. He thinks I’m the one keeping the world out. I pick up a pen, the cold plastic familiar in my hand. I’m doing this for him, I tell myself.
We talk first.
Those words echo through my mind, but I ignore them. If I have the lodge’s finances under control, I don’t have to keep the hotline viral. I can let it die down once the show is over. I can buy us the silence he craves.
I scan the signature line. The cursor on the screen is blinking, a steady, demanding pulse.
I think about the way Rowan looked in the lobby earlier—the exhaustion in his eyes, the way he carried that man like he was made of nothing but duty.
He shouldn’t have to do it alone. And I shouldn’t have to keep the lodge together with spit and marketing prayers.
We talk first.
Tamping down the guilt, I sign the digital document.
My name looks small and thin in the official font.
Wren Cassidy, Owner/Operator. I hit send, and for a second, the weight lifts.
The success notification pops up, green and bright.
I’ve done it. I’ve saved the house. I’ve saved the history. I’ve saved us.
I close the laptop, ready to finally crawl into bed, when my email pings again.
A follow-up from the lead producer, a woman named Sarah Vance.
Wonderful news, Wren. We’re thrilled to work with you.
Our lead scout actually spent some time in your local forums tonight following the Eagle Crest rescue.
My hand stops halfway to the lamp switch.
A cold prickle starts at the base of my neck and crawls upward.
I open the email. There’s an attachment—a high-resolution enhancement of the forum video.
They’ve run it through a stabilization filter I didn’t even know existed.
The silhouette isn’t a silhouette anymore.
We aren’t interested in the hotline callers or the gift shop stories anymore.
We’ve identified the subject in the rescue footage.
Tall, distinct facial structure, consistent with the man seen at the Jones lecture.
We’re calling him ‘Subject Prime.’ Our crew is already en route.
Our primary objective is a sustained tracking operation of this specific individual.
All the air seems to have been sucked out of the room. The green success notification is still visible on the edge of the screen, but it looks like a neon warning sign now. They don’t want the lodge. They don’t want the mystery. They want the man who just texted me to tell me the ridge was quiet.
I didn’t sell the joke. I sold the person who isn’t supposed to exist. I signed a contract that gives a professional tracking team the right to be on my property, using my lodge as a base, to hunt the man I just spent the night holding in the dark.
And I can’t take it back. The production fee is already being wired. The access is granted.
I stand up, my legs feeling like they belong to someone else.
I need to find Rowan. I need to tell him.
But I stop. If I tell him now, he’ll run.
He’ll vanish into the deep timber and he won’t come back, and the media crew will spend three weeks tearing this mountain apart looking for him.
If he leaves, the contract is breached, the money is clawed back, and I lose everything.
I sink back into the chair, the leather cold against my skin.
I’m a manager. I’m an art history major who learned how to curate a reality.
I can fix this. I can redirect them. I just need a few hours to figure out how to point them toward a different ridge.
I can’t tell Rowan yet. Not until I have a plan to keep the camera lenses away from his face.
I look out the window at the dark tree line.
Somewhere out there, he’s watching the mountain, thinking the threat is gone.
He’s a Guardian, and he thinks I’m his partner.
But as the sun starts to gray the edge of the horizon, I realize I’ve just become the very thing he’s been guarding the forest against. I’m the plague.
And I’m the only one who can stop it before the drones start to fly.
I don’t go to bed. I pull up a map of the North Ridge and start looking for places where a man could disappear, even from a thermal camera.
I have three days before the crew arrives.
I have seventy-two hours to figure out how to lie better than I’ve ever lied in my life.
The dread is a physical weight in my stomach, a cold, hard stone that no amount of marketing spin can dissolve.
The lodge is silent, but the silence feels different now.
It isn’t the peaceful quiet of the cascades; it’s the breath before a storm hits.
I’ve traded my soul for a roof that doesn’t leak, and as the first light hits the sign, I realize I might have just burned down the only thing worth protecting.
I pick up my phone to reply to his text, but my thumbs hover over the screen. I’m going to sleep now, I type. See you tomorrow. I hit send, and the lie feels like ash in my mouth. I’m not going to sleep. I’m going to war, and the man I love is the target.