I do not go straight to the shed.
If there is one rule I have learned from watching systems eat themselves quietly, it is that direct movement invites direct traps, and I am not walking into a story someone else wrote for me.
The second bell after dusk comes and goes while I stay inside the packhouse, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea I do not drink, listening to the ordinary sounds of wolves moving through hallways and doors opening and closing, because routine at the surface makes the undercurrent harder to track.
When I leave, it is later.
Not late enough to draw suspicion.
Late enough that most patrols have settled into predictable arcs.
Layla does not come with me this time.
Not because she offered resistance, but because we both know this part requires one scent,
