The mark is small enough that no one else would notice it.
Not carved.
Not obvious.
A piece of white chalk dragged once across the underside of the old bridge beam near the creek bend, just above the waterline where we used to sit as teenagers and talk about everything we were not allowed to say inside pack walls.
One line.
Then a break.
Then two short dashes.
Our code.
Before strategy.
Before politics.
Before fracture.
Layla stirs faintly.
She is here.
“Yes,” I murmur under my breath.
I do not call a patrol.
I do not alert Landon.
Not because I am hiding.
Because this is not a threat mark.
It is a summoning.
I leave through the side path, not the main trail.
No visible shift in patrol pattern.
No deviation obvious enough to signal attention.
The forest feels heavier
