Control isn’t strength. It’s survival.
I close my eyes and count my breaths.
In for four.
Hold.
Out for six.
The hum doesn’t weaken. It waits. And for the first time in my life… it feels like it’s not testing my control.
It’s testing whether I’ll answer.
Chapter
Eight
ASH
The headache starts before sunrise. Low and centered behind my eyes. Not sharp or crippling. Just too damn predictable.
Resistance has a cost.
I sit on the edge of my bed, boots unlaced, elbows braced against my knees, breathing slow. In for four. Hold. Out for six.
The hum doesn’t settle. It oscillates. Like it’s adjusting.
Changing.
But why?
Outside, the air is still. Too still. The kind of stillness that makes birds hesitate before lifting off fence posts.
I step onto the porch and feel it immediately. The range is awake. It doesn’t feel loud or even violent. But I sense something eerie—awareness.
I don’t need to look toward the boundary to know where she is. The hum threads east. Toward the old wash.
“Goddammit,” I mutter.Can’t I get even one day’s rest?
I saddle Winnie faster than usual, fingers less steady than I’d like.
Control isn’t optional. Containment endures. That’s what Mags says.
But containment requires distance. And distance hasn’t been holding.
Josephine stands near the wash, kneeling beside a cluster of sun-blackened stones. Her hair’s pinned back with barrettes this morning.
She looks practical, focused, and entirely uninterested in my approach. Too absorbed to even look up.
I catch a faint hint of a frown when I dismount and step toward her.
“I told you I’d be back out here,” she says calmly.
“You’re closer than yesterday.”
She doesn’t answer.
Instead, she gestures toward the rock face. “The offset increases toward the boundary. That’s not coincidence.”
