Carolina Moon

The Shark’s Report: Tess

I held K.C.’s face in my hands, feeling the grit of the road and the heat still radiating from his skin. “It’s part of their pattern,” I whispered. My thumbs brushed over his cheekbones. “They’re isolating us, K.C. They’re cutting off your resources so that they can force you into the funnel.”

I pulled him into the kitchen, barely giving him a chance to drop the bags on the counter. I spread my hand-drawn map on the table, the coffee mug I’d forgotten about was sitting cold beside it. “Look at this,” I said, pointing to the circular overlays I’d sketched. “They’re turning the old signal towers into pulse points. The Lowcountry Development Group is trying to install a silver nitrate mesh through the water lines and the cell grid.”

I pulled my notebook across the table where I’d written notes from my two phone calls with Julian Vane. “Grandpa gave me contact for a lawyer he knows,” I continued, my voice dropping an octave. “He filed an injunction to stop them from taking the bungalow, and he did a deep dive into their board of directors. The man running this is a private military contractor turned ‘innovator’ — Gideon Stroud.”

I tapped the name on the paper. “Stroud doesn’t care about real estate. He cares about containment. He bought the patent for the S-Grate sensors after Darian’s company started to fold. He’s not building condos; he’s building a private, supernatural ‘Special Economic Zone’ where the wolves are the property.”

The house felt even smaller now as I explained everything that had been found out while K.C. and Marcus were in town. I pointed to a specific spot on the map — the town’s water treatment facility. “I believe this is the primary relay for the local grid. If we don’t take it out, they’ll trigger the census pulse soon. It’ll force a shift in every wolf within a twenty mile radius. It’ll be a bloodbath, and they’ll have the ‘public safety’ excuse they need to authorize a full-scale purge. It’ll also force the reality of werewolves into the world. None will be safe.”

K.C. was tired, wounded, and out of his depth. He was an Alpha though. He knew how to protect his territory.

I handed him a specialized USB drive I’d spent the last hour configuring. “If we can get this into their main terminal at the plant, I can piggyback off their own signal to fry the mesh from the inside out. I have to be within fifty feet of the server for it to work though.”

I looked at the man who had been just a carpenter a few days ago. Now, he was a target. I had become a retail manager, but the corporate world wouldn’t let me leave my auditor brain behind, and I needed it now so I could build a new kill switch.