He is on my trail at 6:45 on a Monday morning.
I see him from the top of the forest path behind the eastern park — the park is pack-adjacent territory, technically neutral, where I’ve been running my longer routes since Mira told me it’s on no pack’s claimed boundary. I see him because I can see further than I used to and because the weight of his footfall is already a sound I know, the way all five of their rhythms have become sounds I know.
I don’t stop.
Or acknowledge him.
He falls in behind me at the same distance he always keeps — three feet back, constant, the distance of someone who is present without imposing. We run.
It’s November now and the forest is filled with bare branches against a white sky, the ground is frozen in shallow places and soft underneath where the roots ke
