The strategy room is quieter than it should be, and that kind of quiet sits wrong in my chest because it feels controlled instead of calm, and every wolf in the room moves like they are aware that every word matters more than usual.
The map is already spread out across the table, and the patrol lines are marked in sharper detail than they were yesterday, and the shifts we made are still visible in clean lines that now feel like targets instead of solutions.
Ezra stands at the head of the table with his hands braced against the wood, and Declan is to his right while two patrol leaders stand across from them, and no one speaks for a second because they are waiting for the reports to finish stacking.
“They held better on the west line.” One of the patrol leaders says, and his tone is stead
