Kyle waited near the patrol vehicle, already alert again, as if the report had reset his focus instead of draining it.
Alexander joined me moments later, pulling on his jacket as he walked.
“You didn’t even wait for an argument,” he said quietly.
I glanced at him. “You were going to lose it anyway.”
That earned me the faintest curve of a smile. It didn’t last.
As we drove toward the border, the forest closed in around us, dark and watchful. The silence inside the vehicle was thick, but not uncomfortable.
We arrived at the border not long after. The patrol lights illuminated the ground in harsh white beams, revealing disturbed soil, faint dark stains where blood had soaked into the earth.
I stepped out and immediately felt it—the quiet wrongness of the place. The forest here felt… mu
