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"That's not really the point."

He almost smiles at that, and then his hand comes up, slow and careful, and brushes a strand of hair back from my face where the wind's pulled it loose. His fingers barely touch my skin, gone again almost before I register the warmth of it, but something in my chest goes tight and warm at once, a feeling I haven't let myself have in far too long.

"Goodnight, Zoey," he says, voice lower than before.

"Goodnight."

He turns and heads back down the path toward Yvonne's, and I stand on the porch longer than I need to, watching until his shape disappears into the dark. Even after I go inside, even after I lie down and close my eyes, I can still feel the ghost of his fingers against my cheek, and I fall asleep thinking about it.

6

KELLAN

The new evidence turns up two days after the second camera, tucked into a notebook someone left wedged in a hollow stump a hundred yards off the main trail. Not carelessness. A drop point, deliberately placed for someone to collect later.

Inside, in handwriting too neat to belong to anyone acting on impulse, are notes. Times Zoey leaves the cabin. Times she returns. A rough sketch of the property showing sightlines from the road. A line, underlined twice, that just says confirm identity before contact.

Whoever's doing this isn't some obsessed fan who tracked a rental listing. This is methodical. Patient. The kind of surveillance that takes training, or at least serious practice, and neither possibility sits well with me.

I bring the notebook to Everett that evening, catching him alone near the den before the rest of the pack gathers for the night. He reads through it twice, quiet and thorough the way he approaches everything, before setting it down on the table between us.

"You're sure this is connected to the woman at Yvonne's cabin," he says. Not really a question.

"Sure enough." I keep my voice even, professional, the way I'd report anything else affecting the territory. "Whoever's watching her is disciplined. Military background, maybe, or something close to it. That kind of attention this close to our land is a problem regardless of what happens to her."

Everett studies me a moment longer than the situation strictly requires, the way he does when he suspects there's more to a report than what's being said out loud. "You've been spending a fair amount of time at that cabin."

"Yvonne asked me to watch her."

"Yvonne asks a lot of people to do a lot of things. Doesn't mean they all end up hauling firewood for an entire afternoon." His mouth twitches, not quite a smile. "Word travels."

"It's not like that."

"Didn't say it was." He picks the notebook back up, turning it over once before setting it aside for good. "I'll have a few of us start running wider patrols near the eastern boundary, just in case whoever's watching her decides to wander closer to us than they realize. In the meantime, keep doing what you're doing. Just remember what happens if outsiders get too curious about things that live in these woods."

"I remember."

"I know you do. Doesn't mean I won't say it."

I leave the den with the weight of that conversation sitting heavier than I expect, the old warning worn smooth from years of hearing it in one form or another. Secrecy first. Always. No exceptions, no matter how good the reason feels in the moment.

I tell myself I understand that completely. I've built my entire life around understanding it completely.

The next afternoon I take Zoey out past the ridge to finish the navigation lessons I started days ago, further this time, deeper into terrain that would actually matter if she ever needed to disappear on short notice. She moves through it differently than she did the first day, faster, more certain, reading the landscape instead of just following my directions.

"You're doing better than most people I've taught this to," I tell her, watching her identify the north-facing moss on a trunk without prompting.

"High praise from the guy who takes moss very seriously."

"I stand by that assessment."

She laughs and keeps moving through the underbrush with a confidence that wasn't there before. It's a small thing, maybe, learning to read a forest. But I can see what it's doing to her, how each skill she picks up seems to loosen something that's been wound too tight for too long.

We stop near a stream that cuts down off the ridge, clear water running cold over smooth stone, and she crouches to splash some on her face before straightening again.

"I don't think I've told you this," she says, wiping water from her jaw, "but I actually feel safe out here. More than I have in months. Maybe longer."

"That's good."