Mrs. Greene from the diner, who’s fed Jamie more pancakes than his foster file could ever show, stands. “That boy helps me clear plates,” she says. “He waves every day. He wears the samejacket my husband mended last winter. You folks are looking at a kid someone knows how to love.”
Others stand—Ms. Patel, a neighbor, a woman from the church volunteer program. Their faces soften the room.
Then the men in leather jackets shift. One rises like a challenge. Up close his knuckles are raw. He leans forward as if he expects space to part.
The sheriff’s hand flattens on the table between us. “Sit down,” he says, quiet as a gunshot.
They sit.
But paper and polite testimony won’t keep us safe when the men the developer pays want results outside any court.
The developer’s lawyer makes his move. He produces a booklet of photos. “We have documentation that the property requires sale. This is about the bottom line.”
He flips through images: split fence posts, thin livestock, the burned notice. The gallery shifts. An old man in a suit murmurs about acts of God.
I lay out the sequence as slow facts: the burned notice on our land; the slashed blanket; the attempted abduction; the busted phone with voicemail instructions. Each item clicks into a chain. Faces change. The lawyer’s color drains. The men behind him look like predators at a table that forgot its manners.
It should be enough. Logic and paper should be enough. But intimidation speaks louder than facts.
One of the leather-jacket men stands and, close now, looks at me like he wants to make a point. “You don’t belong here,” he hisses. “This kind of charity brings trouble.”
Ethan’s fingers press harder into my back. The hitch through the bond tightens—an old cadence of wolves that makes breath shorter. I’ve seen men like him before; they use fear because they have no better language.
Miguel, calm as river stone, steps forward. “You think you can push a kid and a woman around in my town?” he asks, voice flat.
The man laughs. “We’re not from your town. We don’t answer to you.”
Then the suit at the developer’s side does the thing we feared: he opens his palm and displays a small, ugly metal device—the sort used to break a car window or cut a latch. The room inhales.
Ethan doesn’t look at the device. He looks at me.
“Get behind me,” he says. It isn’t the kind of command the judge needs to hear. It’s a promise I’ve learned to take literally.
Dozen of hands unlatch the way of courage. Men in jeans, women with church purses, even deputies move without bluster to create distance between us and the leather-jacket men. I don’t know most of the people stepping forward, only that they’ve seen Jamie’s small face at the diner and it’s enough to make them act.
A scuffle sparks. One of the leather-jacket men lunges. Someone—one of the pack—catches the man’s arm with a grip like a clamp. It’s fast, precise. No teeth. No blood. Just control.
The sound of it is louder than I expect. It’s fear meeting certainty.
The lawyer shouts. The judge slams the gavel and barks for order. But the people have already chosen.
When order returns, my palms are slick. The judge calls for sworn testimony. He wants facts. He wants legal basis. He wants to know who will ensure the child’s safety if he allows time.
I stand, heart battering my ribs, and point to the folder. “I will continue to care for Jamie. I will sign any documents that protect his school placement and therapy. Mr. Cole is offering the ranch as a temporary physical residence and testimony of day-to-day stability. Mr. Calder has recommended continued placement pending full review. We have witnesses.”
He nods as if the weight of the town has landed on his bench. He taps his pen. “Given the evidence, the court is inclined to grant continued placement pending full review?—”
A wet, held breath pools in the room.
Then a voice I didn’t expect rises from the pack’s ranks: Rowan, the lieutenant who warned us months ago that a stranger didn’t belong on pack land. He stands now, lines of old grief carved across his face, and walks to the front.
My mouth goes dry.
He climbs the steps, takes the oath, and looks at me—not with the contempt he wore before, but with something that trembles. “I opposed this,” he says slowly. “I still don’t trust outsiders. But I watched this woman handle a storm and protect a child I know. I can speak to character. Jamie is safer here. He is safer with her.”
The courtroom inhales again. The judge’s pen hovers. Heads turn. Ethan’s hand on my back is steady; the bond hums. Rowan speaks with the authority of someone who understands pack politics—he knows what it means to vouch for someone on land that has been family for generations. If he puts his name to this, he risks more than pride. He risks a fracture in what’s left.
The judge leans forward. “Mr. Rowan, do you understand what speaking in favor of Ms. Hayes implies for the pack?”
