Chapter 233
“Morning,” he says when he gets close enough.
“Morning.”
Easy. Familiar. No tension humming under the words. No unspoken expectations crouched between syllables. We learned a long time ago how to exist without posturing, how to trust without needing to prove it every second.
“You sleep?” he asks, glancing at my face instead of pretending not to check.
“Enough.”
He nods, accepting that for what it is. Ben has scars too, most of them internal. We don’t compare. We don’t compete. We just work. That’s what keeps things clean.
He finishes his circuit and comes back toward the cabin, jotting something down on his pad out of habit more than necessity. “Perimeter’s clean. No tracks close in. Wind shifted overnight.”
“I felt it,” I say without thinking.
He gives me a look, one corner of his mouth twitching. “Of course you did.”
We stand there for a moment, watching the trees sway as the wind moves through them. Neutral land always feels like it’s listening. Like it knows it’s important but refuses to take sides. I respect that about it.
Inside, I pull up the next set of reports. That’s when the name catches my eye.
A former Silvermen-aligned pack. Small. Strategically forgettable during the war. Loyal until it stopped being convenient. They’d survived by staying useful, by knowing when to nod and when to disappear. They’ve been quiet for years now, keeping their heads down, following the new rules just well enough to avoid attention.
Now they’re splintering.
Not violent yet. Arguments escalating. Leadership challenged in closed meetings that keep leaking anyway. Old loyalties resurfacing like bones working their way back through the dirt. The kind of instability that looks manageable right up until it isn’t.
Ben leans over my shoulder, reading silently. I feel it then, a low shift in my chest, subtle but unmistakable, like the ground moving under a structure that hasn’t noticed the fault line forming beneath it yet.
“This isn’t just internal politics,” I say.
“No,” he agrees after a moment. “Feels bigger.”
Reform did what it was supposed to do. It dismantled the worst of the old hierarchies. It forced transparency where there’d been secrecy, accountability where there’d been fear. It dragged packs into the light whether they wanted it or not. But reform also stripped away identities some wolves built their entire sense of self around.
You can’t take something like that without consequences.
“This is backlash,” I say quietly, the word settling heavy in the room.
Ben exhales through his nose. “Thought we were past that phase.”
I shake my head. “We were never past it. We were just… early.”
I scroll through the report again, slower this time, reading between the lines instead of just the words The language is careful. Cautious
Everyone involved is try not
say the wrong thing, not to be the first to admit they miss how things used to be. Trying not to sound disloyal while quietly craving the certainty of old chains.
Five years isn’t long enough to unlearn a lifetime of obedience.
Outside, the wind picks up, rattling the cabin just slightly. I set the tablet down and stare at the wall, at the place where a map used to hang beforej took it down. I dont need it anymore. The lines are all in y head now, etched deep enough to guide me in the dark.
“This isn’t fallout,” I say, more to myself than to Ben.
He watches me closely. “No?”
“It’s not debris settling after an explosion,” I continue. “It’s pressure building under
the surface. Packs testing the limits. Seeing how far they can lean before something breaks.”
“And you’re thinking?”
“I’m thinking if one breaks,” I say, voice steady, “others will follow.”
Silence stretches between us. Not uncomfortable. Just heavy with understanding.
“So what’s the move?” Ben asks.
I pick up my mug and take the last swallow of cold coffee. It tastes like resolve like something I’ll stand by even when it costs me sleep, blood, or whatever small peace I’ve managed to carve out.
“We go in early,” I say. “Before they turn on each other. Before someone decides the
old ways felt safer than uncertainty.”
He nods once. No argument. No hesitation.
As the light strengthens outside, spilling fully over the trees and into the clearing, I
feel it settle in my bones. The certainty. The weight. This isn’t the end of a war echoing out of time.
It’s the beginning of something pushing back.
And this time, it knows my name.