Team meeting

The sun had dipped low by the time they returned to the pack house, dust clinging to their boots, sweat streaking their faces, and adrenaline still simmering under their skin. Aspen trotted ahead, tail rigid, ears perked and alert as they reached the front porch.

Del stood at the threshold, arms crossed, but the worry on her face cracked the mask of calm. “What happened?” she asked immediately.

Rae didn’t respond right away. The moment Aspen’s paws hit the wood floor inside, the multicolored shepherd barked—sharp, alert, and urgent. She turned in a tight circle before nudging Rae hard in the leg with her nose.

“Sit,” Rae murmured, already lowering herself onto the couch as Aspen nosed her thigh again and let out a low, insistent whine. Her hands were trembling now, a delayed crash after too much hacking, fighting, and not nearly enough glucose.

Remi didn’t wait for Rae to admit what was happening—she was already in the kitchen, grabbing a banana, granola bar, and two juice boxes. “You don’t argue,” she said, handing Rae the snacks with a look that brokered no protest. “You’ll scare the hell out of me again.”

Rae cracked open the juice with shaking fingers and nodded once. “Thanks.”

Del crossed the room and sank beside her, brushing Rae’s damp hair off her forehead gently. “What did you find?”

Rae pulled her laptop bag around, not missing a beat despite her sluggish movements. “Wolfvine. In the woods. Planted. Purposefully.”

Will’s jaw tightened as he paced behind the couch. “In territory just outside the border. That’s not coincidence.”

“And it gets worse,” Rae added, breath shallow. “Aspen led us to a wrecked hunting cabin. Whoever was there didn’t just flee—they torched everything they didn’t want us to find. But I grabbed a device. Already started decrypting it.”

Trey leaned against the wall, arms folded. “This is bigger than an old grudge or rogue threat.”

Rae nodded grimly, then looked at Del. “We’re not dealing with amateurs. We’re dealing with people who know how to cover tracks and plant evidence. People who know our patterns—and probably know our faces.”

Remi set the second juice box down within reach and met Rae’s eyes. “We’ll go through everything tonight. But first, you rest.”

Rae didn’t argue this time. Aspen, now curled at her feet, gave a satisfied huff.

But even as she rested, Rae’s mind never stopped moving. The device. The patterns. The planted wolfvine. Someone had orchestrated this with precision.

And Rae intended to dismantle every piece of it.

The soft hum of Rae’s laptop was the only sound in the room for nearly an hour. Everyone else was gathered nearby, trying to stay quiet—but the tension was thick enough to choke on.

Rae sat cross-legged on the couch, her posture still tired but laser-focused. The device from the cabin was open and wired into her system. Lines of code flickered across her screen as she cracked through its encrypted layers. Aspen snored quietly at her feet, her body curled protectively beside her.

Remi leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed but eyes sharp. Will sat beside Trey at the edge of the dining table, both of them staring at Rae like she was defusing a bomb. Del, curled in a blanket on the love seat, hadn’t said a word—but she was fully awake, her attention zeroed in.

Then Rae’s fingers paused. Her head tilted.

“…There it is.”

Remi stepped forward. “What?”

Rae’s voice was tight. “Encrypted message cache. Two signatures. One from a hospital system under Dr. Landon Pierce’s login—this was sent weeks before he transferred to our territory. The other is from an account tied to an old council communications channel… listed under Maren.”

Will sat up straight. “Maren? But she was—”

“Gone,” Remi finished coldly. “Or so we thought.”

Rae kept typing, pulling up the messages and translating on the fly. “They were communicating about test samples. Movement logs. An ‘asset’ they were trying to keep track of. And a coded reference to ‘field experimentation.’ The last message from Maren’s side said, ‘Ensure the vine reacts under shift strain. The next generation has to work.’”

Del’s breath caught. “They were using wolfvine on shifters? Trying to trigger reactions?”

Rae nodded grimly. “Looks like they were testing how it affected shifting physiology. And tracking the outcomes over time.”

Remi’s blood ran cold. “And we were all in their line of sight.”

Will cursed under his breath, slamming a fist down on the table. “This wasn’t just political. They were building something—using us.”

Rae turned her laptop around for them all to see. “This—this is the tip of it. I’ve got a trace running on Maren’s account, and I’m digging into the hospital network logs tied to Pierce. But it’s deep. Covered. We need a full sweep of every secure server they accessed.”

Aspen let out a low growl, sensing the storm brewing in the room.

Remi looked at her people, her family, and the fire in her eyes flared again. “We take this to the rest of the leadership. Quietly. No more assumptions. No more trusting the wrong names.”

“And no more mercy,” Rae added, eyes glinting.

They all nodded.

Because this wasn’t just about the past anymore.

This was a war built in shadows.

And now, they had light.