You’ll never wash the blood off your hands.
I open my eyes. The lot is starting to fill up, and I know I need to get moving, bury the voices, and prepare to face Silvercreek and the life I’ve built here. I’ve made friends and colleagues, and they need to see that I’m steady, not still burdened by Cheslem.
I’ve been cleansed, and I need to act like it.
I pull out my phone and read through the plan for the day: perimeter sweep, then a sitrep at the clinic, maybe a supply run, and done. I know I’ll see Dina again when I get back. I want to ask her if she’s okay, but I know she’ll lie anyway. I consider texting to ask her if last night meant anything, but I’d rather die than hear her say “no.” So I decided to let it sit, at least until the afternoon. Maybe by then I’ll have grown a spine.
I almost miss the rapping on my window. It’s Thomas, tapping the glass with a knuckle and not waiting for me to acknowledge. He just opens the door, cold air billowing in.
“You planning on joining us or running a stakeout on the parking lot?” he asks, voice pitched low so the others now milling around the entrance don’t hear. I flick the ignition off and roll the window, cold air flooding in.
“You look like shit,” he says, but it isn’t an insult. It’s a credential, a greeting. He’s wearing his usual uniform, his Carhartt jacket, flannel, and a ball cap that’s seen better decades, but the concern on his face seems genuine. “You sleep at all?”
“A little,” I lie. “The baby.”
Another lie.
Thomas doesn’t push, just gives me a nod and jerks his chin at the hall. “Nick’s waiting. Connor and Dylan just rolled in from the border. Sounds like we’ve got trouble.”
I follow him in, the rush of warm air hitting me in the face along with the smell of fresh coffee. The room is already busy, voices low and urgent. Nick stands near the far window with Luna, both of them looking like they haven’t slept either. Connor is hunched over a table, sketching something on a pad, and Dylan is just behind him, face bruised, hands raw. I don’t need to ask to know it was a rough night.
Nick sees us and motions us over. “You’re just in time,” he says. “Connor, walk us through it.”
Connor straightens, rolling his shoulders like the report physically weighs him down. “East line, near the old stone bridge. First run through last night, nothing. Second run, we pick up scent; old Cheslem, but layered. Not just the usual rogues. Someone’s organizing the approach, and it’s not subtle.”He slides the pad across the table. There’s a crude map, with three Xs circled in red, and he passes out some copies.
“Here, here, and here. Each marker had a fresh sign, and something else, burn marks.” He looks up, meeting Nick’s eyes. “Not like normal burning. Like someone was burning spell residue. We found two charm tags spiked to a tree. Blood magic, by the look of it.”
The room goes silent. Even Luna’s mouth tightens. There’s a kind of collective exhale, the air thinning.
Nick’s voice is steady. “You sure it’s blood magic?”
Connor nods, eyes hard. “Saw enough in the old days to know it. Not pure, but combined with something else. They’re not just trying to break wards. They’re making weapons.”
Dylan pipes up, hands flexing nervously. “One of the traps was a wire snare, but it had a spell woven in. If a wolf took it in the leg, it would have shredded the tendon; it’s made to destroy. We got it before anyone got hurt, but it’s a warning.”
I look at the map, the old border, and feel the familiar acid burn of shame at the base of my throat. My history, my fucking legacy, is still making life hell for everyone I care about. Even now, after the cleansing, Cheslem is a rot we can’t carve out of the mountains.
Nick’s gaze finds me, and for a second, I brace for the old suspicion: Are you with them? Do you know who’s doing this? Who could blame them? But all he says is, “We double the patrols, reinforce every crossing, and I want the wards checked twice per shift. Dylan, you and Bryan can run the west. Connor, you and Caleb take east, and I want you both to be combat-ready. If they’re using blood tags, they’re not just testing us. They’re probing for a weakness.”
He turns to Luna, who is already cataloging the threat in her head, lips moving silently as she counts off risk factors. “Can you patch the old line before dusk?”
She nods, but I see the anguish in her eyes.
I find it hard to focus for the rest of the briefing. The others volley tactics and schedules, but my mind keeps circling the charred ward tokens, the blood scent, the idea of someone out there in the woods building a Cheslem resurgence from the scraps of our worst memories. By the time we break to gear up, I’m wound so tight my jaw clicks every time I close my mouth.
Connor walks out with me, his stride matching mine even though I’m twice as restless. We don’t speak until we’re clear of the building, the cold wind slapping sense back into us.
“You good?” he says, and I know he means it, but I also know he’ll drop it if I tell him to.
“Yeah,” I lie, and he lets it go. We drive out to the border in silence, the radio playing the faintest thread of country static, both of us pretending not to notice the way our hands flex on the dash every time we see a flash of movement in the woods. At the first checkpoint, we find what we’re looking for. The ward posts are blackened, the runes scored out, but there’s a new marker with a sigil I haven’t seen since the worst days of Cheslem. I want to vomit.
We run the line, fixing what we can, logging the ones that need Luna or Ruby to fix. At the last turn, where the river bends, and the old stone bridge is half-collapsed, I see a patch of bloody fur, tufts still frozen to the snow. Not a kill, just a message. It’s a wolf, but the blood is mixed with human, too, and something else. Magic. I bag it, snap a few photos, and jog back to Connor, who’s already calling it in.
We work until our hands are numb, until the sky has changed color, before we head back. The drive is quiet. I want to ask Connor if he thinks it’ll ever end, if the ghosts of Cheslem will ever stop haunting us, but the words stick in my throat. I already know the answer.
When I get home, it’s almost dark; the house is lit but strangely silent. I move through the kitchen quickly, my heart racing at the thought they’re not here when they should be. Relief hits me hard when I find Dina in the boot room, Alora asleep in her buggy, as they’ve clearly just got in ahead of me.
“Where have you been?” I say the words tumbling out before I even say hello, and I see her raised brow at my tone, but I don’t care.
