We buried them before nightfall.
No markers. No names carved into stone. Just earth, ash, and silence heavy enough to choke on.
The boy's blood was still under my nails when I finished digging.
No one told me to stop.
No one looked at me like this was my fault but no one had to. Leadership meant carrying what others didn't survive.
The camp that had saved me was gone.
Not destroyed by chance.
Not claimed by fate.
Targeted.
I crouched near the edge of the ridge, staring down at the blackened stretch of forest where smoke still clung like a ghost that refused to move on. My blade lay across my knees, nicked and dark.
"They tracked us faster than expected," the rogue leader said behind me. "Someone pushed them."
I nodded once.
Not a question.
Not denial.
If the Alpha was searching, then others would try to impress him. Anticipate him. Act without orders.
That made me dangerous to everyone around me.
"You should leave us," one of the wounded said quietly.
I turned.
He didn't look afraid. Just honest.
"If you stay," he continued, "they'll keep coming."
The truth settled in my chest like a second heart heavy, undeniable.
Staying meant death.
Leaving meant the hunt followed me alone.
I stood.
"We split at dawn," I said. "No trails. No groups larger than two."
Murmurs rippled through what remained of us.
"And you?" the leader asked.
I looked back toward the ruins of the camp toward the place where I had almost been found.
"I don't run anymore," I said. "I draw lines."
That night, as the others slept, I walked alone to the edge of the trees and pressed my palm to the scar beneath my ribs.
He was close.
Closer than he knew.
The fire had taken shelter.
It had taken lives.
But it had also taken my last reason to hide.
If he crossed the line again
I wouldn't disappear.
I would make him see me.