CANDICE.
"You look terrible."
The old woman behind the counter said it without judgment, just a simple observation as she poured coffee into a chipped mug and slid it across the counter toward me.
I sat in the small roadside diner forty minutes outside Crescent Moon territory, the kind of place truckers and lost souls stopped at 3 AM. No phone. No bag. Just the clothes on my back and the small carved wolf tucked deep in my pocket like a secret I couldn’t let go of.
I wrapped my cold hands around the warm mug and stared at the dark liquid.
“Thank you,” I whispered. My voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. “For the coffee.”
The old woman — grey hair pulled back in a loose bun, kind eyes that had seen too many broken people — didn’t ask questions. She just nodded and kept the
