Questions line up outside my office like weather fronts—different shapes, same pressure. I square my shoulders before opening the door again, reminding myself that this is what accountability actually looks like. Not absolution. Not forgiveness. Just being present when people demand answers you should have given years ago.
Rowan appears in the doorway before I can process my train wreck of a day thus far.
"Town council wants an emergency meeting," he says. "Tonight. Seven o'clock."
"They want answers."
"They want our heads on platters." He steps inside, closing the door behind him. "Half the pack is talking about relocating. Starting fresh somewhere else."
"And the other half?"
"Thinks we should have eaten that journalist the moment she started asking questions."
I stand, moving to the window that overlooks Main Street. Three separate clusters of residents stand in animated discussion, gesturing toward the forest edge. Toward my building.
"Running isn't an option anymore," I say. "Not after last night. Too many witnesses. Too much documentation."
"So what's the play, Alpha?" Rowan's voice carries an edge I haven't heard from him before. "Because the old rules are dead, and nobody knows what comes next."
Through the glass, I watch Pete from the hardware store approach one of the discussion groups. He points at the damaged asphalt, then toward the sheriff's station. The conversation intensifies.
"We adapt." I turn back to Rowan. "We answer questions. We accept oversight. We prove we're not the threat they're afraid we are."
"Some of us are exactly the threat they should fear."
"Then those wolves make a choice—evolve or leave." I give him a look. "But we don't run from accountability. Not anymore."
Rowan nods slowly. "The council meeting's going to be brutal."
The town hallmeeting room hasn't seen this many people since the flood of '98. Every seat is filled, with more residents standingalong the walls. The air thrums with tension that has very little to do with overcrowding.
I stand at the front, hands clasped behind my back, watching familiar faces arrange themselves into camps. The Hendersons sit with arms crossed, anger radiating from their rigid postures. Margaret Hanson clutches her purse like a shield. Old Pete nods at me with something that might be approval, but his wife won't meet my eyes.
"Forty-seven years." Frank Morrison's voice cuts through the murmur of conversation. "Forty-seven years I've lived in this town. I’ve got the only mechanic shop here. I’ve lived and worked with my neighbors my whole life. Now you tell me it's all been a lie?"
"Not a lie." I say this with confidence. "Protection that became a prison."
"Protection?" Sarah Kim stands, her elementary school teacher's authority making the room quiet. "My daughter walks these streets. She plays in those woods. How is keeping us ignorant protection?"
The questions come faster now, overlapping, building into accusations that echo off the walls.
"How many people knew?"
"What else aren't you telling us?"
"Who gave you the right to decide what we could handle?"
I let them vent, absorbing each word without deflecting. This is the cost of truth—not just revealing it, but enduring the aftermath.
"You're right." My admission silences the room. "We made choices for you without asking. We decided fear was worse than ignorance. We were wrong."
"Wrong doesn't bring back the people who died because we couldn't protect ourselves." Frank's face is red with fury. "Wrongdoesn't explain why my tax dollars pay for a sheriff who's been lying to us for decades."
"You want accountability?" Ellie's voice carries from the back of the room. She moves through the crowd, not pushing but simply walking forward with quiet authority. "Ask better questions."
"And who the hell are you to tell us what to ask?" Sarah rounds on her.
"The person who dug up the truth you're all angry about." Ellie reaches the front and positions herself beside me, not behind. "The one who nearly died because your sheriff tried to protect me through secrecy instead of preparation."