Not because I'd lost it. Because some things deserved space before they were spoken and this was one of them. I'd thought about this moment for a long time without knowing I was thinking about it. Every version of myself that had survived this pack had been moving toward this room and this morning and these words without knowing where they were going.
Now I was here.
"You'll be watched," I said. "Not as punishment. As accountability. There's a difference and I need you to understand it." I looked across the room. "Punishment is what happened to me. Accountability is what prevents it from happening to anyone else on this land again."
A woman near the center of the room pressed her lips together.
I held her gaze until she looked down.
"The wolves appointed to lead this pack going forwar
