Patrol Stories Novels & Stories

"Careful, Dominique might hear you and decide to make you the ‘reminder.’" Ezra grinned, sliding the dagger back into its sheath. "I’ll take my chances. What about you, Astrid? Got any good stories about your first patrols? Or were you always stuck doing this kind of grunt work?" The question made me pause. Memories of my first patrol flickered in my mind—Kael’s commanding presence, the tension in the air, the constant feeling of being watched. "My first patrol wasn’t exactly fun, it wasn’t even a patrol I’d say" I admitted, my tone more serious. "We ran into a group of rogues. It was... messy."

Patterns emerged quickly once we stopped pretending neutrality existed. “They’re preparing a narrative,” Tomas said one morning, watching a patrol linger near the water line. “Not an action. A justification.” “Yes,” I replied. “And narratives need contrast.” By midday, that contrast appeared. A disagreement broke out between two unrelated groups near the supply tents. It was minor at first. A misunderstanding over allocation. Raised voices. A crowd forming. The patrol arrived almost instantly. Too fast. They separated the groups, calm and firm, documenting statements with practiced efficiency. No violence. No threats. Just control.

"a lot of people come here for war. Some come here just to steal and some are just troubles. "Good thing. It's also nice to see your support. It feels great to see you happy and yes, of course, feeling good for us." I said to them. "Okay so let's do this. How about you tell me who is the reason for this patrol. I could ensure I and my men keep an eye on things related to that so shit won't get out of proportion." "you don't have to worry as I have everything under control. You are good. Keep it up."

The second sign was later that afternoon. A patrol team came back from the northern ridge. Typically they would report and get back to their day. Rather, each member of the team made a special effort to come up and ask me how I was. One after another. Not obviously. Not enough to be suspicious as a whole. It was a silly combination, all together. I listened to three different discussions of the weather before I finally turned to Calla. She was going through the schedule of patrollers in the area. "You see this too, right?"

The night patrols are serious business, demanding our full attention and teamwork. As the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky with streaks of orange and pink, the reality of our first patrol hit me. Time to step up and prove ourselves under Marcel and Dakota's watchful eyes. It's gonna be a test of our grit and guts, no doubt about it. As we geared up for our first patrol, I ended up paired with Dakota, one of the seasoned pros. Scarlet was rolling with Marcel, and off we went to patrol the border. At first, I wasn't sure about starting a conversation with Dakota. I didn't want to mess with her focus or make things awkward. But then, out of the blue, Dakota shot me a friendly smil

--- Day 372, the first joint patrol without any Red Fang or River Claw designation happened. The patrol was called “Valley Watch.” No pack symbols. No pack colors. Just the circle with the river and the fang. They walked the southern grounds for eight hours and returned without incident. No one commented on it. No one needed to. --- Day 376, the first real crisis of year two hit. A dispute over water rights in the northern dens. Not between packs. Between families. One family had been using the spring for three generations. Another family needed it for their pups.

The way conversations don't stop when I walk into a room. But smooth transitions create their own problems. When everything looks fine on the surface, the things that aren't fine go underground. I pull up the patrol report again and make myself read it this time. Three incidents in the outer territory over the past two weeks. Nothing major individually — a boundary marker displaced, a scent trail that crossed our line without explanation, a patrol member who reported feeling watched from the eastern ridge and couldn't identify the source. Individually: minor. Easily explained. Probably nothing.

"Double the patrol rotation and document any new carvings. I need photographs of each symbol from multiple angles." "You think they'll come back?" "I think they never left." The patrol reports had been piling up for weeks now. I'd dismissed the first few as coincidence—isolated incidents that didn't quite fit together. A captured rogue with unusual scarring. Another with marks that looked almost decorative. A third whose wounds seemed deliberately placed rather than earned in combat. Then I'd started paying attention.

“Be calm, I will answer you. I don't know all the details. As I told you, I'm the lowest rank, a guard. But I overheard someone discussing it. They sent some members to die willingly and Diego to act like the boss. They gave their families a million dollars each. Red Scorpions' members are everywhere, you can walk past them without even knowing they are one. They are even in the police system. If you think killing hundreds of people has destroyed the mafia, you're wrong. You need to kill millions of people.” Patricia breathed out heavily, processing all the information she had just received. Damn, there were so many of them. Even the agency did not have millions of workers, not even a thousa

Strategic means you’re still here, waiting for the right time to put the knife in. By midday, I’ve pulled every southern patrol leader into my office. The table’s smaller than Ronan’s council beast, but it’s still heavy enough to feel like a barrier between us. “All right,” I start, and every head lifts. “We’ve got a pattern I don’t like. Small gaps in patrol coverage. Names keep repeating. I don’t care if you think it’s a fluke or some romantic midnight stroll, from now on, no scout goes unaccounted for. You log your route, you log your time, you keep your partner in sight. If they piss in the bushes, you’re counting the seconds.”