**DEREK POV**
I hear that you found Caleb anyway three hours after it happens.
Not from you.
Not from confrontation or accusation or the kind of charged silence that usually announces defiance.
I hear it because the information moves differently through the pack now. Slower. More carefully. Like water testing the ground before it settles.
Maeve mentions it in passing while updating me on patrol coverage. She’s standing across from my desk, tablet tucked under her arm, posture relaxed in a way that would have been unthinkable a month ago.
“North ridge patrol completed early,” she says. “No anomalies. We rotated Keller back to midline after sunset.”
I nod. “Good.”
She hesitates, just long enough that I register it.
“And,” she adds, eyes flicking briefly to her screen, “she stopped b
