"Curtis James," Kane says. "Seventeen at the time of his death. Four years in the foster system across three placements." He opens his folder. "We interviewed eight former residents across those placements. The accounts were consistent."
He looks at Kade.
"Consistent and corroborated," Kade says. "Two of the eight had documented injuries. School nurse records. Filed as accidental."
Kane nods. "Curtis James targeted younger female residents without stable family contact. The pattern across all three placements was identical — he established trust with supervising adults first, then isolated younger residents through escalating threat and pressure over weeks before any physical contact." He turns a page. "He was methodical. He understood which residents were least likely to be believed and least likely to have someone advocate for them."
"He'd been in Alex's placement for three months," Kade says.
"Three months of the same pattern," Kane says. "Before the night in the basement."
The woman's stylus is moving again. Len turns pages in his stack. Gavin is looking at the table.
"The foster system had enough information across those placements to identify the pattern," Kane says. "The placements were never reviewed together. Nobody looked at them as a sequence." He closes the folder. "He was not stopped because nobody connected the shape of it. Alex stopped him."
The room is quiet.
Tomlinson looks at me.
I hold it. I don't drop my eyes.
"A fourteen-year-old girl," Lumi says. "Who happened to have an alpha wolf inside her. Who had no knowledge of what she was. Who was alone in a basement with the predator, Curtis James. He was unaware he was facing a bigger predator. We believe Alex achieved a partially shifted bipedal state." She lets that sit. "Her mind broke under the weight of it and blocked the memory for years. The file has called it a question mark. It isn't a question mark. It never was."
Gavin looks up from the table.
He looks at me the way he looked at me this morning — not soft, not apologetic, Gavin doesn't do either of those things — but the clinical distance he holds in every evaluation has moved.The fraction from this morning, and now another fraction. Not gone. Just less between us than there was.
He looks at Tomlinson.
"The James case," he says. His voice is stripped of everything personal. "Has informed Alex's risk assessment at every review since intake. The forensic inconclusion was the basis for elevated monitoring and contributed to the transfer recommendation." A pause. "In light of this documentation, that assessment requires revision."
The woman looks at him. "Requires."
"Yes," Gavin says.
She looks at him for a moment. Then she writes something on her tablet.
Tomlinson looks at the pages in front of him. At the folder Kane set on the table. At me.
"Is there anything you want to say," he says.
I've been in this chair before. Different room, same question, same table full of people with files deciding what happens to the girl on the other side. Every time before I knew what I was supposed to do — make myself small, give them nothing, survive what they decided.
"No," I say. "You have everything."
Tomlinson nods.
"The Board will deliberate," he says. "You'll be informed of the decision."
I stand. The chair scrapes back. I walk to the door and Sven holds it and I go out into the hallway and the fluorescents and the cold of the administrative wing and I stand there and breathe.
Dalton comes out behind me. He doesn't say anything. He puts his hand on the back of my neck and I close my eyes and feel the bond run warm and steady and real.
Kane and Kade come out a moment later. Kane nods at me. Kade stops.
"He hurt a lot of people," Kade says. Quiet. "Thanks to you, he can't hurt anyone else."
I look at him.
