**DEREK POV**
I return to the packhouse alone.
The doors recognize me instantly. Iron releases. Wood swings inward. The mechanism responds the way it always has, smooth and unquestioning, as if nothing in the world has changed. The sound echoes too loudly in the entry hall, sharp against the stone, and for a split second my instincts insist that something is missing from the rhythm.
There should be another set of footsteps.
There is not.
The space beside me feels wrong. Not empty exactly, but misaligned, like a limb that should be there and is not. My body keeps expecting resistance, a presence brushing my awareness, a subtle pull at the edge of my senses that I have grown used to without realizing when it began.
Now it is gone, and the absence follows me through the doors like a sha
