POV: Beta Jessie Walker
The morning sun broke over the jagged peaks of the Northern range, but for the first time in nearly a century, the light didn't feel like a spotlight on a crime scene. It felt like a benediction.
It had been three weeks since the roof of the Wildfire Pack House had been purged of Joseph Conrad’s shadow. Three weeks of back-breaking labor, of integration, and of watching the thirteen packs transform from a loose collection of survivors into a singular, breathing machine. The valley was no longer a graveyard of skeletal trees; it was a construction site of hope.
I stood in the center of the clearing, my ribs finally knitting back together, watching the final crane lower the solar-glass panels onto the roof of the new medical wing. The progress was staggering. With
