TAKEN
They took me on a Wednesday.
I want to be precise about this because I have replayed it many times and precision is how I manage the parts of memory that are not comfortable to sit with. It was a Wednesday. The morning was ordinary. I went to the eastern trail alone, within boundaries, well within boundaries — because I needed air and the archive room still held the memory of Roger 's forehead against mine and I was not quite ready to be in confined spaces.
Two Ashvale wolves. I smelled them a fraction of a second too late.
The first one I threw off, my newly woken wolf surging up fast, the anchoring power spiking through my hands where I grabbed his arm and he stumbled back with a look of genuine surprise. The second was bigger and faster and had something in his hand that went
