"Which means it's always one step ahead." I circle three locations where the sightings cluster. "Unless we change the game."
"How?"
"Stop reacting. Start acting." I pull out a fresh sheet of paper. "What does it want most?"
"To hunt without interference."
"Wrong." I writeCONTROLat the top. "It wants control. It's been controlling this narrative for decades—when to strike, who to take, how much attention to draw. My investigation threatens that control."
Caleb leans back in his chair, studying my notes. "So we give it a choice it can't resist."
"We give it me." The words settle between us like a challenge. "But on our terms, not its."
"Absolutely not."
"Think it through." I start sketching a rough map of the forest perimeter. "It's been stalking me for from the beginning, but it hasn't struck. Why?"
"Because you've been unpredictable. Moving around town, changing your patterns."
"Exactly. But what if I became predictable? What if I went exactly where it expects me to go, when it expects me to be there?"
His jaw tightens. "That's called bait."
"That's called strategy." I mark an X deep in the forest. "The old logging road. Every disappearance traces back to that area eventually. It's comfortable there, confident."
"It's also isolated. No backup, no witnesses."
"No backup that it can see." I look up at him. "How many pack members can move through those woods undetected?"
"All of them, but…"
"Then we use that. I go in alone, visibly alone. Draw it out into the open where your people can contain it."
"You're talking about using yourself as live bait for something that's been killing people for generations."
"I'm talking about refusing to hide while it hunts." I set down my pen. "This isn't recklessness, Caleb. This is mathematics. We know its patterns, its preferences, its territory. We have advantages it doesn't know about. The only variable we can't control is timing, so we control that too."
He stares at the map for a long moment. "The pack won't agree to this."
"The pack doesn't get to decide what I do with my life."
"I might not agree to this."
"You don't get to decide either." I lean forward. "But you do get to help me do it right, or watch me do it wrong."
24
CALEB
Before I even speak, Ellie’s resolve is like a wall. I tell her she doesn’t have to do this alone, that we can find another way, prepare together, make her a smaller target.
She listens, really listens, without interrupting or dismissing. But when I finish, my words hang in the still air between us, she simply shakes her head with a quiet certainty. Her refusal isn’t defiant; there’s no edge to it. It’s calm, grounded; it’s about taking charge of her own story, not standing in opposition to mine.
Of course it isn’t defiant. That would be easier. Calm certainty is much harder to argue with.
“I want you protected, Ellie. Not erased. That’s not what I mean.” The words fray around edges of confusion and care I can't untangle with logic alone. “But if something went wrong…” I grapple with the thought, the sickening possibility. “I can’t stomach losing you.”
The admission hangs between us longer than I intend. I’m already bracing for deflection, for her to joke it away or step back from it. I’ve made statements like this before, but I’d assumed to this point they’d gone over her head.