LOGINALICE’S POVTwo nurses stopped talking when I came around the corner into the break room. Not the wary silence from before — a different one, shaped, like I’d walked into the middle of something.I found the shape of it an hour later. The door between my office and the supply room — the one Morwen kept shut for the stuck hinge — had a rubber wedge under it that hadn’t been there yesterday. A straight line from my desk to the shelf Benjamin restocked every morning.I picked the wedge up, set it back exactly where I’d found it, and went back to my desk. Let them look.Marta brought coffee to the desk without being asked, set it down, and didn’t leave — stood a second longer than a coffee delivery needed, waiting to see if I’d say something. I didn’t. She picked up a folder that wasn’t hers, put it back exactly where it had been, and left.I had patients. I didn’t have time to wonder what either of them wanted.Callum found me in the corridor after that.“Dr. Watson.” He fell into step l
JOHN'S POVMorwen took the box out of my hands before I noticed I still had it."You've restocked that shelf three times," she said. "It doesn't need restocking.""I was counting it.""You weren't counting it."The faucet in the corner was still dripping into the bucket somebody left there three days ago. Nobody had fixed that either."Something happen?" she said."Alice laughed. At Benjamin."Morwen picked up her clipboard and started counting syringe tips instead of answering. Forty seconds went by and she still hadn't looked up."That supposed to mean something?" she said."You tell me."She didn't. Just kept counting.-----Alice came in an hour later for a suture kit. I had it down before she asked."Thanks," she said."You seem different today.""Do I.""Lighter. Less like you're bracing for something."She reached for the kit. Her hand stopped halfway, unsure of itself for a second, then closed around it. "Benjamin brought me coffee this morning," she said. "Black. No sugar.""
BENJAMIN’S POV"You're humming."I stopped."I'm not.""You're humming. Loud enough I heard it from the hallway." Callum set the patrol log down. "You haven't hummed since—"He didn't finish. He didn't need to.I'd slept. All the way through, no dreams I could remember, and that hadn't happened in longer than I wanted to admit out loud."Morwen wants a supply audit before the next screening wave," I said. "I told her I'd come by this morning.""That's not an answer.""It's the only one you're getting."---Alice's office door was open when I got to the clinic. She was already talking before she looked up. "Morwen, do you have the—" She stopped when she saw it was me."I need the growth chart from June," she said. "Caleb's follow-up is at nine.""I have it in my office.""Then go get it."So I went and got it. When I came back I set the chart down on the corner of her desk, and a second cup of coffee with it — poured for no one, if I'm honest about it.She looked at the cup, then at me
ALICE'S POVThe tree was younger than I'd expected. An oak, slim but sturdy, planted on a ridge that caught the wind from every direction.Small wooden wolves hung from the lower branches on bits of twine — a dozen of them, maybe more, each one carved rough, each one different."I make a new one every year," Benjamin said. "On the day.""You carve them yourself.""Badly." He touched one, and the twine swayed. "I still sit here when it rains. I don't know why. I just don't want him to be alone in it."I looked at the wolves turning on their twine and didn't say anything for a while.Then I told him the truth instead."I wasn't at the funeral," I said.Benjamin went still."I was too broken to be there. I let Drake and Damian and David handle everything — the arrangements, the service, all of it. I couldn't make myself go."My voice came out steadier than I'd expected, for what it was carrying."I kept thinking, if I didn't see him like that — still, not moving — then some part of me co
BENJAMIN'S POVAldric was three minutes into a toast about boundary cooperation, and I was using every word of it as cover for not thinking about the hand on my arm."You're tense," Lisa said quietly, leaning in."along been a long day, Lisa""I noticed." Her thumb traced once over my sleeve. "Lily's been asking about the supply route again. The one near the eastern outposts. She wants to walk it with her class next month and I told her I'd ask you directly instead of going through the council.""I'll look into it.""Thank you." She didn't move her hand. Pulling away over a conversation about a school trip would've looked stranger than leaving it there, so I let it stay and called that the reason.Across the hall Alice sat with John, a glass of wine in front of her she hadn't touched once. I noticed the wine before I noticed anything else. Her face didn't change. Then her shoulders dropped half an inch — small, deliberate, gone before John would've caught it.She leaned toward him and
Lisa's POVJohn was alone in the supply room off the clinic — which was the only reason I came at all. He was restocking gauze, working it onto the shelf harder than the shelf had done anything to deserve."Pushing harder isn't going to turn her around," I said.He didn't look up. "If you are here to give unsolicited advice again then please don't.""You don't have to take it. I only watch." I leaned into the doorframe, easy, like I had all afternoon to give him. "You fought for her in front of everyone. Threw a punch, even. And she still tracks him across a courtyard like he's worth keeping an eye on."He set the gauze down — harder than it needed setting — and turned to face me. "That's not your business.""It's the whole pack's business by now. They all watched you hit your rival at the festival." I tilted my head, gentle as anything. "I'd have thought that settled something. It didn't, though. *Did it.*"He didn't answer. He picked up the next roll and went back to stacking, and h
Alice’s POV"What?""Is this your new plan? To trap me again?" Benjamin’s voice dripped with contempt. "Did you run out of tricks, Alice? Is faking our son’s terminal illness really the best you could come up with?"I couldn’t breathe. The hospital hallway seemed to close in around me, the walls pr
ALICE’S POVI hadn't slept. I'd counted his breaths instead.It had been four hours since Lucian collapsed at breakfast. Four hours since I’d screamed loud enough to wake every wolf on our floor of the western wing. Now the monitors did the counting for me — soft, steady, mechanical as my son slept
ALICE'S POVI'd just got my shoes off when the knock came.It was late. The compound had been quiet an hour. I sat on the edge of the bed and listened for it to come again before I went.I opened the door when I heard the knock the second time.Drake hung off John's shoulder in the corridor — loose
Benjamin POVMorning light filled the kitchen, that warm yellow that comes early and doesn't last, and the whole room smelled like pancakes.Lucian sat at the table, swinging his legs under the chair the way he always did — four years old, legs too short to reach the floor, swinging them anyway."D







