He closes the door behind him, though privacy feels like a courtesy we’ve already outgrown. “It’s not as dramatic as it sounds.”
“Isn’t it?” My voice is steadier than I expect. Sharper, too. “Because from where I’m sitting, it sounds like you’ve been running a shadow government for decades.”
He moves to the window instead of answering. Distance. A tactic. I clock it instantly.
“Moonhaven existed before I was born,” he says. “The pack structure, the territorial boundaries, the agreements withsurrounding counties—all inherited. I didn’t choose this system. I just maintain it.”
“That’s the part you keep saying,” I reply. “Like maintenance is morally neutral.”
“It’s not neutral,” he says. “It’s necessary.”
“According to who?”
He opens his mouth. Closes it again.
“Exactly,” I say. “You inherited a system that protects itself first and calls that stability.”
“It protects the town.”
“At what cost?”
The question lands. I can feel it by the way his shoulders tighten.
“People disappear,” I continue. “Families lose answers. Truth gets buried because it’s inconvenient. And you call that prevention.”
“You think exposure would be better?”
“I think informed choice is better,” I snap. “I think people deserve to know what they’re living next to.”
“They’d panic.”
“So would I,” I say. “And yet here I am. Still standing.”
Silence stretches between us, thick and electric.
“You don’t trust humans with the truth,” I say more quietly. “You trust control.”
Something tightens in the air—not anger. Recognition.
“Maybe I used to,” he admits.
“And now?” I ask.
He turns back to me. Meets my eyes. “Now I’m not sure control is worth what it costs.”
I lean forward. “Then tell me something. How do you even manage something like this?”
“By keeping the two worlds separate,” he says. “By making sure pack business stays pack business. By ensuring that whenhumans go missing, it’s because they wandered too far into territory they shouldn’t have entered—not because we failed to contain what lives there.”
“What lives there?” I ask.
“Things that predate human settlement,” he says evenly. “Things that see this land as theirs by right of first claim. The pack acts as a buffer. We negotiate. We contain. We clean up when containment fails.”
“Clean up.” The word tastes bitter. “Is that what you call covering up deaths?”
“I call it preventing war,” he says, harder now. “Do you know what happens when humans learn their fairy tales are real? When they find out something with claws and teeth lives in their backyard? They don’t coexist. They exterminate.”
I watch him carefully. Then I laugh—a short, sharp sound with no humor in it.