Chapter 1 - Caleb
Some mornings, when the world is still dim, and the birds haven’t yet started their full-blown chorus, I pretend I’m the kind of man who wakes up full of purpose. This is a lie, but it usually gets me vertical.
Today I manage to conjure a mug of coffee and a handful of toast, then stand at the window above the kitchen sink, chewing mechanically and watching mist rise off the roof of my truck. The cabin is freezing. I haven’t fixed the insulation yet, just patched the worst gaps, but it’s better than when I moved in.
Back then, you could hear the wind cross through the living room. Now the cabin at least feels more like mine. The old man who owns the place practically pays me to live here and fix things up. Says it’s a fair trade. He’s not wrong. The rent is pocket change, and when he offered the deed for next to nothing, I almost said yes right there. But I didn’t. Not because I don’t want it, but because part of me still feels like I’m camping out in someone else’s story and I need a bit more time to think it through.
I finish the toast and rinse the crumbs down the drain, standing there a few seconds longer, letting my hands thaw under the warm faucet until I’m slightly less numb.
If I could, I’d spend the rest of the morning just standing here, leaning into the steam, letting my thoughts drift. The only downside to fixing up a place is that eventually you run out of shit to fix. I’ve replaced every pane of glass, patched the roof, and swapped out the busted pipes. Even the porch, once a hazard, looks practically respectable. I keep telling myself the next project is insulation, but I suspect the real project is figuring out what the hell to do when there’s nothing left to distract me.I hate sitting still by myself. Inactivity feels useless, dangerous, and loud.
I take my second cup of coffee out onto the porch. The air is so cold it bites, but I like it. More to the point, I probably need it to fully wake me up.
I’m just starting to enjoy the silence when I catch the low grumble of a truck engine. My wolf’s ears prick up, and I clock the vehicle before I see it, the crunch of tires on frost. It isn’t Nick or Thomas, and it’s too old and rusted to be one of the pack security rigs.
I set my mug on the rail and brace for company. The truck that pulls in is a battered Dodge, paint faded to the color of old mustard, the passenger-side mirror barely holding on with duct tape. I watch the driver kill the ignition and sit there a few seconds, head turned away as if doubting herself, hands clenching the wheel like maybe she’s thinking about bailing.
I know it’s a woman before she steps out, partly from the silhouette and partly because my wolf’s hackles twitch in a different, more complicated way. She’s got long red hair, not the natural soft kind, but a bottle-red that glints even in the weak morning sun.
I don’t recognize her right off. She’s definitely not from Silvercreek, and I can’t think of any reason a stranger would be up this far unless it was to dump a body, or maybe pick a fight. Then she looks up, and her eyes lock on me, and it hits. The memory comes in sideways, blurring at the edges: a bar off Route 23, months back. I was in the middle of my worst behavior then, making the rounds of every mountain dive that would serve the wolves who didn’t mind a little trouble. She was a waitress, or at least I think that’s what she said, with a laugh like broken glass and a way of making you feel like she’d alreadysized you up and found you lacking even while she laughed at your jokes. The night is a blur of whiskey and cheap perfume, a dark parking lot, and my own self-loathing.
She shouldn’t know where I live. I doubt I even gave her my real name. I feel my face go blank, the way it does when I’m scrambling not to show anything. I force myself to lean casually against the porch railing. Whatever she wants, I’m sure I can smooth it over, like I always do.
The wolf in me wants to pace. Instead, I give her my best “welcome to nowhere” smile and call out, “You lost?” She doesn’t answer, just slams the door and walks toward me, her expression unreadable.
She stops at the bottom step and looks up at me, chin tilted. “Caleb.”
I wonder what she wants me to say. I think through a few options, but none fit, so I just nod. “That’s me.”
She doesn’t blink. “I need to talk to you.”
She says it in a way that doesn’t invite a response, so I just stand there and wait. She glances past my shoulder, at the patched roof, the piles of half-finished lumber, and the sweep of empty land behind me. It’s not judgment, exactly, but it feels like she’s running through a checklist. Thinking something through. She’s wearing a jacket that isn’t designed for this cold weather, and her jeans are ripped in a way that suggests the look isn’t necessarily about fashion. She looks tired. The kind of tired I recognize from the mirror.
“Okay,” I say, running a mental inventory of every possible scenario but coming up blank. She’s not crying, which is a relief. “Come up.”
She hesitates, then takes the steps two at a time. She smells like she hasn’t shifted recently, or maybe not at all. Could she be human? The wolf in me notes the tightness around her mouth, the way her hands are balled in her pockets.
She stands in the cold, breathing through her nose, eyes not quite meeting mine. She’s trying to figure out if I even remember her. I do, unfortunately. Not her name, but the shape of her, the taste of her after a night of heavy drinking, and the headache aftermath.
“You want coffee?” I ask, just to break the tension.
She shakes her head. “No, thanks. I’m not staying.” I wait, and eventually, she spits it out. “I need you to take something.”
“What kind of thing?” I ask, instantly suspicious. There are a lot of things a person like me could be asked to take off someone’s hands, like a debt, a grudge, or a gun. I hope to hell it’s not a dog.
She glances at the battered truck, then back at me. “Not a thing. A kid. Yours.”
I laugh because it’s so unlikely that it quickly circles back around to sounding more plausible. “Very funny.”
She doesn’t laugh. She just stares, like she’s daring me to call her a liar. “She’s eight weeks old. I… I can’t keep her.”
I shut up, because now my heart is pounding in my ears. “Hold on,” I say, too loud, too sharp. “Back up.”
“I don’t want money,” she says. “I just want her safe. But I also need her gone.” She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter. Will you take her or not?”
I search my memory for the possibility. I remember that night; the whiskey, the parking lot, and hands in my hair. Iremember her nails down my back. I remember being reckless, but not stupid. I never am.
“Listen,” I say, “I don’t even know your name.”
