Chapter 27 – Paper Cuts
1271 Words
Back in Blackpine, the page burned a hole in my pocket.
We made it through the gate without fanfare. The moment the timbers shut behind us, Mara handed off the “we were just hiking, nothing weird” cover story to a guard with a grin and a shrug. Feris peeled off toward the outer wall. Kori headed for Brynn’s room, shoulders tight, needing to scrub the last of Draven’s static off her skin.
I went to the war room.
Kael and Silas were already there, like they'd known exactly how fast we’d be back. Brynn lurked near the door, arms folded, expression hovering between relieved and irritated.
“You’re early,” Silas said. “Either that went well, or it went very badly.”
“Both,” Mara said, dropping into a chair. “Hunters rattled, rogue chased off, no viral footage. And we brought you a present.”
She jerked her chin at me.
I pulled the folded sheet from my pocket and laid it flat on the table.
Kael’s eyes narrowed the second he saw the header.
MOONRIDGE – INCIDENT FILE – CLASSIFIED.
The body text was too dense to read at a glance, but the red underlines jumped out. Words circled like someone had been obsessively tracing a pattern.
BOND FAILURE. UNEXPLAINED AGGRESSION. BORDER ACTIVITY. BLACKPINE (??)
“Where did you get this?” Silas asked, voice gone very calm.
“Trail,” I said. “Hunters dropped it when Mara started throwing rocks at their heads. Mira said one of them had a whole folder. This is what the forest gave us.”
“It smells old,” Brynn murmured, leaning closer. “Not new ink. They’ve had this for a while.”
Kael’s jaw flexed. “Read,” he said.
Silas skimmed, lips moving.
“Council cover story for Moonridge’s ward blast,” he translated. “Human version. ‘Gas line rupture’ my ass. Then notes in another hand—different ink. Someone’s annotations. ‘Second event matching parameters???’ ‘Correlation with Blackpine unrest?’ ‘Crossreference with unconfirmed wolf sightings.’”
He looked up. “They’re tracking your screwups, Frost.”
Helena wasn’t here, but it felt like she should have been. Her absence made the room feel lopsided.
“They’re tracking patterns,” I said. “Our patterns. Every time we let Draven punch a hole in a ward, every time a rogue mauls a camper, every rumor that smells too big to be a dog. And they’ve connected Moonridge to Blackpine, even if they don’t know what we are exactly.”
Kael tapped the BLACKPINE in the margin with one finger. “This symbol doesn’t stay on one page,” he said. “If they wrote it here, they wrote it elsewhere.”
“Agencies,” Silas said grimly. “Groups. Hunters with budgets and acronyms. Great.”
“People like Draven hate the Council,” I said. “People like these men love the idea that monsters are real. Neither of them care who gets ground up in the middle.”
Mara’s eyes were hard. “So we keep playing ghost and hope they get bored?”
“We can’t keep playing anything forever,” I said. “Helena’s right about one thing—humans don’t stay blind. Their cameras get better. Their patterns get sharper. Sooner or later they’ll trip over something we can’t pretty up as a gas leak.”
Silas gave me a sidelong look. “You have a fun hobby of saying exactly what I don’t want to hear.”
“Blame your alpha,” I said. “He asked me to stop being polite.”
Kael didn’t argue.
Brynn straightened. “Hunters are a problem for another meeting,” she said. “Right now I care that you smell like rogue and burned anger. Sit. I want to check you for ward residue.”
Mara groaned. “We didn’t touch the mark.”
“You walked near it and rattled Draven’s toys,” Brynn said. “That’s enough.”
She herded us onto benches like unruly pups. Her hands were cool and firm as she checked pulses, pressed fingers to the back of my neck, the inside of my wrists.
“You’re clean,” she said finally. “All of you. No hitchhikers.”
“Good,” Kael said. “The last thing we need is you dragging his stink back into my house.”
My wolf bristled. “You’re welcome,” I said.
He huffed. “You did well. Try not to look so surprised.”
“I’m not surprised we did well,” I shot back. “I’m surprised you said it without choking.”
A flicker of amusement crossed his face before it smoothed out. “Don’t let it go to your head. You’ll start expecting compliments.”
Silas cleared his throat. “Back to the sheet. We can’t put this back in the folder. They’ll know someone interfered.”
“Let them,” Mara said. “If they’re smart, they assume wind. If they’re paranoid, they assume ghosts. Either way, they don’t get to keep our names on paper without us knowing.”
I smoothed the page, my fingertip hovering over BLACKPINE.
“It’s not just our names,” I said quietly. “It’s our mistakes. Our secrets. Our blind spots. We’ve spent decades betting that our world is separate from theirs. It’s not. Not anymore.”
“Your human friend,” Kael said. “She’s still on our side?”
“For now,” I said. “She wants a story. But she doesn’t want us dead to get it. That’s more than I can say for some of your Council.”
Brynn made a small, sharp sound. “Helena’s trying,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “But Helena isn’t the only one in that room.”
Silas rubbed a hand over his face. “So. Draven below, hunters above, Council sideways. And us, apparently, in the middle with a wolf who likes saying ‘no’ to all three.”
His gaze landed on me.
My shoulders squared on instinct. “I’m done bleeding for other people’s strategies,” I said. “But I’m not done fighting. Not while people like those men keep writing our lives in red ink and question marks.”
Kael folded the page, once, twice, precise.
“We keep this,” he said. “Lock it with our own maps. If humans are going to write our story, we’ll be damned sure we’re reading along.”
He handed it to Brynn. “Firebox. With the ward notes.”
She nodded, already moving.
“Aria,” Kael added, turning back to me. “Next time your journalist calls, you tell her something from me.”
“What?” I asked.
His eyes were flint. “Tell her if these men come back with more gear, more eyes, more questions… Blackpine will consider them as much of a threat as Draven. And I will not let my wolves be hunted so some human agency can feel important.”
“That’s going to make her very nervous,” I said.
“Good,” he said. “Nervous humans are careful humans. With any luck, she’ll scare them off our trail for us.”
“And if she doesn’t?” I asked.
He smiled then, slow and sharp.
“Then we teach them,” he said, “that ghosts bite.”
My wolf showed her teeth in agreement.
Paper cuts hurt. But claws could still tear.
And for the first time, I wasn’t alone holding the pages.
- Writer
