Chapter Five

Maeve woke to the sound of voices and the smell of coffee. For a moment, she didn't move. She lay on the narrow cot, staring at the canvas ceiling. When she sat up slowly, her body ached. Still, she felt better than the night before.

On a small table beside the cot sat folded clothes, a bottle of water, and a piece of bread wrapped in cloth. Maeve drank half the water immediately. Then she changed into the clothes. They were simple: jeans, a loose shirt, and boots slightly too big. But they were clean and dry.

She picked up the slice of bread, took a bite, and, bread in hand, stepped outside. As soon as she crossed the threshold, she stopped abruptly.

In daylight, the camp looked completely different. The cave opened onto a wide area ringed by tall rocks, which blocked the wind and hid the camp from the open desert. Vehicles were parked along one side: old trucks and SUVs coated in dust. A group of people worked on one of the engines while another filled water containers from tanks by the rock wall. A woman stirred a pot over a propane burner. At a rough wooden table, two men and a woman cleaned rifles. Maps were spread on another table, marked with lines Maeve couldn't interpret.

It wasn't a random camp. It was a base.

Men and women moved with purpose. Everyone seemed to have a job. As Maeve walked past, she noticed people glancing at her, then quickly looking away, suddenly absorbed in their work. Conversations dropped to a hush as she passed. No one approached her. No one tried to stop her either. But she felt their curiosity follow her throughout the camp.

Everywhere she looked, she saw wolves. Some wolves sprawled in the shadows of the large rocks, chests rising and falling. Others wove effortlessly between people, brushing against a pant leg or pausing to sniff the air, utterly unbothered by the bustle. One large wolf, black with a streak of silver along its muzzle, trotted right past Maeve carrying a length of rubber hose between its jaws, dropped it beside a truck, and slipped away behind the rocks.

What struck Maeve wasn't just that there were wolves in the camp. It was how everyone treated them. No one avoided them. No one tried to control them. No one gave them commands like dogs. The wolves moved through the camp as if they understood everything that was happening, as if they were part of the work, belonging there as much as the people.

At one point, she watched a large gray wolf walk past the table where the maps were spread out. A man sitting there said something without even looking up, and the wolf immediately turned and headed toward the vehicles.

A few wolves watched her, too, their gold and amber eyes following her. That unsettled her more than the people did. Maeve frowned slightly. This wasn't normal. Maeve had never seen wolves this close before, and certainly not this many. They were large, bigger than any dog she had ever seen, with thick fur and sharp eyes that seemed to watch everything.

"What kind of place is this?" she muttered quietly to herself.

"Not the kind most people ever see."

Maeve turned to see a woman approaching. She was short, with quiet confidence, dark hair in a low braid, and dusty, practical clothes like everyone else's. She moved through camp with a clear purpose, her sharp eyes noting vehicles, radios, people, and wolves. Maeve quickly sensed she led the camp in some capacity.

"I'm Sofía Delgado," the woman said, offering her hand.

Maeve shook it. "Maeve."

"Yes," Sofía said with a small smile. "Everyone knows your name already."

Maeve wasn't sure she liked that.

"You're probably wondering where you are and what all of this is," Sofía said.

"That would be a good place to start," Maeve replied.

Sofía gestured toward the camp. "I handle operations here. Routes, supply drops, patrol schedules, radios, vehicles, maps. If something needs to be organized, it usually ends up on my list."

"So you're in charge?" Maeve asked.

Sofía smiled slightly. "Mateo leads the order. He's the one sitting with the maps."
Maeve realized that Mateo, the one Sofía gestured to, had been the man she saw talking to a wolf moments earlier.

"He makes the big decisions," Sofia continued, "and keeps everyone pointed in the same direction. Javier leads most patrol teams. Lucia keeps us alive. Abuela Rosa keeps us human. I make sure everything keeps moving."

"Lucia? Abuela Rosa? Are they the women I met last night?"

Sofia nodded.

"Oh, and I remember Javier," Maeve said. "Abs, tattoos, very intense."

Sofia laughed out loud.

"Yes, that sounds like Javier, but it probably describes a lot of people here," Sofia said, grinning widely.

Maeve looked around again at the vehicles, maps, and people working.

"What order are you talking about? Like some secret society?"

Sofía chuckled. "If we were a secret society, we'd have a lot better funding."

Maeve almost smiled.

"We're called the Guardians. Some were born into it; some joined later. We guide migrants across the desert, hide supplies, watch traffickers, avoid border patrol, and try to keep people alive out here."

She nodded toward the endless sand and rock and looked back at Maeve.

"This place," Sofía continued, "is one of several camps. We move sometimes, but this one is the oldest, the original base camp of La Guardia de la Luna. The caves protect us from the heat, and the rocks hide smoke and vehicles from a distance."

"Back up," said Maeve, furrowing her brow. "The La Guardia de what?"

Sofia laughed. "La Guardia de la Luna. The Guardians of the Moon. That's what we're called."

Maeve raised her eyebrows, and Sofia laughed again. She was beginning to like Maeve. Despite everything that had happened to her, Maeve clearly had a deep inner strength. Sofia admired that.

"I didn't come up with the name," she responded.

They began walking slowly across the camp.

"We help people survive the brutal elements of the desert," Sofía said. "Families, children, anyone who would otherwise die out there. We have strategic points along set routes that we stock daily with food, water, and medical supplies. We don't interfere, we protect."

Maeve glanced again at the wolves resting near the vehicles.

"And the wolves?" she asked.

Sofía looked at one lying nearby in the shade.

"They help us," she said. "They patrol, track, and warn us if something is coming."

Maeve nodded slowly. That made sense. Trained wolves. Guard animals. It was strange, but so was everything else about this place.

The wolf Sofia was looking at suddenly stood, stretched its back legs, and looked directly at Sofia and Maeve. As it began walking toward them, Maeve realized with a jolt that this was the same wolf that had guided her out of the desert last night, its size even more impressive in daylight. It walked toward them. Maeve stiffened, but the wolf simply sniffed her and walked on by, not showing any signs of recognizing her.

"I guess I should have said thank you," said Maeve.

Sofia grinned to herself.

They walked on.

"We plan routes every day," Sofía said. "Traffickers change routes. Patrol patterns change. Weather changes. Water sources dry up. Nothing out here stays the same for long."

Maeve watched the people moving around the camp again.

"So, you help people who are being trafficked. People like me," Maeve said quietly as the reality of how close she had come to disappearing forever settled over her like a shadow.

Sofía nodded slowly.

"Yes. People like you. People who trusted the wrong person, were desperate, were unlucky, were going somewhere else, only to end up here instead. We also aid migrants crossing the border. We don't get into the politics of it all. We believe in humanity and caring for each other."

She looked out at the desert again.

"Some we find in time. Some we don't."

They had stopped at the table where Mateo sat. Maeve noticed the same wolf sitting nearby. Its head cocked to one side as if listening.

"Why do you do this?" she asked.

Sofía looked out toward the open desert for a moment before answering.

"Because the desert kills people who make one wrong decision," she said. "Because there are people who treat other humans like cargo. Because someone has to stand between the two."

"And because protecting people is why this order exists," a deep male voice stated, startling Maeve.

She turned sharply to see Mateo studying her.

"You put on an interesting show last night," Mateo said.

Maeve shuddered.

"I've been trying not to think about it," she said, looking at her hands. She didn't understand how her skin showed no sign of the fire that had erupted there.

"I should thank you for protecting my people," said Mateo.

"And wolves, apparently," said Maeve.

"Yes, and the wolves."

Mateo smiled as he glanced back at the large, black wolf that had moved a little closer to where they were conversing.

"What kind of wolves are these?" asked Maeve. "Why are they so calm? How do you train them to live among you like this?"

"We don't have to train them," was Mateo's response.

"But, how...?" Maeve began, but Mateo held up his hand.

"I know you have a lot of questions. The best people to answer those questions will be Lucia and Abuela Rosa. We have questions, too."

Maeve nodded, "Questions I don't know how to answer."

"Well, let's start with how you ended up in this situation to begin with," suggested Mateo.

"That's easy, I was stupid," Maeve responded. "I work at a bar up in Tacoma, Washington, which I will need to call at some point. There's a guy who's been coming in almost every night, calling himself John, and we've been talking. He seemed like a nice guy. There was nothing romantic going on. He was new to the area and asked a lot of questions about places I could recommend for eating or visiting. He was just really friendly, you know. My grandmother had just died, and it was good to have someone to talk with. I mentioned to him that I was looking for a change. He told me his sister owned a bar down in San Diego, and he could call her to see if she was looking for any help."

"Let me guess," said Sofia. "She needed help."

"Yes," said Maeve. "He offered to drive me down to meet her and see if it was a move I would be interested in. I said okay. I didn't suspect anything until it was too late. Somewhere in Oregon, I was drugged and moved from vehicle to vehicle and house to house. I'm really not even sure how long I've been gone. Everything was taken from me. I have no idea where my phone ended up, or my I.D. Today is the first day my brain feels clear since this happened. I didn't even tell my parents I was leaving town, but they probably haven't noticed my absence anyway."

"Why not?" asked Mateo.

"We're not close. My grandmother was the one who basically raised me," Maeve replied. "How will I get back home? I have no idea where I am right now, except at the base camp of La Guardians de the Moon with a bunch of people who are pretending not to stare and creepy wolves walking around everywhere."

The wolf growled quietly as if he understood what she had said. She looked at him closely. His golden eyes stared at her unblinking. For some unknown reason, his gaze calmed her. She shook her head.

This is crazy, she thought. Am I just living in a nightmare?

Mateo spoke up.

"I know this is all overwhelming, to say the least. We don't usually bring people back to camp. Typically, we would already have transported you to a safe house to get you back home," he paused, choosing his words carefully. "But your situation is...different. Most people we help are migrants or victims who just need a safe passage, and we move them along as fast as possible. None of them have ever done what you did out there. You possess a power we've only heard about in old stories, something we've never seen in person before. That's why we couldn't follow our usual protocol with you."

"You know what this is?"

"We suspect that we do. I am to take you to breakfast, then to meet with Lucia and Abuela Rosa, who can both explain this better than anyone else. Come on, let's get you some food."