Vivienne’s retaliation came faster than any of us expected, and considerably closer to home — not an attack on June directly, but on the shelter’s remaining animals, a fire set at the converted barn’s storage shed just past midnight, small and contained but clearly, deliberately, a message rather than an actual attempt at harm.
“She’s not trying to hurt me,” June said, standing in the smoking wreckage of a shed that had held nothing but feed and supplies, her voice steady despite the visible tremor in her hands. “She’s showing me she can reach anything I care about, whenever she wants, and that whatever protection this pack’s offering me isn’t actually as complete as I thought it was.”
“It’s not going to happen again,” Garrick said, and something in his voice carried a raw, furious prote
