“I know who Martin is.”
“He stands at the far end of the yard when I come through. Every morning. Same spot. Doesn’t speak. Doesn’t approach. Just watches.”
“What do you expect him to do?”
“Nothing. I expect nothing from anyone here. But I see him, and he sees me, and neither of us says anything. And I think that might be worse for both of us than getting everything off his chest.”
I lean against the stall door. The halter is in my hands. The mare can wait.
“What would you say to him?”
He stops working and rests his arms on the pitchfork handle. Thinks about it.
“I’d say I don’t know how many wolves went through my corridor. I kept numbers, not names. Thirty-seven transfers in the ledger, but some of those were families, so the actual count is higher. I’d say that I never watched one of those trucks leave the junction, so I never saw the faces of his wife and children. And that’s not a defense, it’s the crime.”
His voice is steady. The same tone from the hearing. Accountable.
“I’d say I’m sorry. And I’d mean it. It wouldn’t be enough, but I’d say it anyway.”
“You should tell him that.”
“Would he hear it?”
“I don’t know. But you should say it whether he hears it or not.”
He looks at me. The barn is dim aside from a soft, golden morning light. His face in this light is the face from the forest: unguarded, stripped, the man underneath the alpha. The one who traced circles on my stomach while I pretended to sleep.
“You’re different here,” I say. I don’t mean to say it.
“Different how?”
“Smaller. Not… not physically. You’re…” I search for it. “You’re not taking up all the space in the room. You used to fill a room when you walked into it. The alpha thing. The presence. You’d walk into a space, and every wolf in it would adjust.”
“I’m not the alpha here.”
“No.”
“Is that what’s different?”
“I don’t know what’s different.” I push off the stall door. “I need to catch the mare.”
“Briar.”
I stop.
“The ball,” he says. “The rubber ball Mia gave me. I’ve been keeping it on the nightstand in the cabin. Is that—?” He pauses. “Is that all right? I don’t want to take something from her that she needs.”
“She gave it to you. She doesn’t give things to people. If she gave it to you, she meant it.”
“Why would she give it to me?”
“Because Mia sees things the rest of us don’t.”
He absorbs this. The pitchfork rests against his hip. His hands are dirty from the straw, and there’s a smudge on his jaw. He looks nothing like the man I locked in that cabin, and everything like someone I am in deep, relentless trouble over.
I turn and walk out of the barn. The halter in my hand. My wolf humming.
I catch the mare. She’s grazing in the south pasture, unconcerned about her escape, and I slip the halter on and lead her back to where she belongs. The compound is waking up around me. Greta in the kitchen. Merric on the porch with coffee. The rescued family’s children are playing near the bunkhouse with a dog who’s adopted them.