**ADAM**
The packhouse settles into a false calm after nightfall, the kind that looks like rest from the outside but feels more like tension folded neatly away, and I remain awake long after most of the lights have dimmed, sitting at my desk with maps spread out in front of me that I am not really seeing. My attention keeps drifting, not outward to the perimeter or the patrol routes or the shifting threat lines that have become routine, but inward, toward the steady hum of the bond that has taken up permanent residence beneath my ribs.
It is quiet right now.
Not absent. Not dulled. Just quiet in a way that feels deliberate, like Sasha is resting or training or simply existing somewhere in the packhouse without needing me in this exact moment, and that awareness settles me more than it s
