**LILA POV**
I don’t come into the packhouse.
I stop at the edge of it instead, where the gravel thins into packed dirt and the lights from the main building spill out in tired yellow stripes. They stretch across the ground like lines I’m meant to step over, like a quiet invitation pretending it isn’t a command. The place hums the way it always does. Generators buried somewhere behind the walls. Voices layered over one another. Laughter, arguments, the scrape of chairs, the low restless awareness of too many wolves sharing one roof and never fully resting because of it.
It would be easy to step forward.
Familiar, even.
Muscle memory nudges my feet like it’s sure I’ll obey. Like my body hasn’t yet caught up with what I’ve already decided. I can almost feel the way the door would open,
