Chapter Twenty

Over the next several days, Maeve began to learn the rhythm of the Guardian camp. It was not a rhythm she would have recognized when she first arrived. Then, everything had seemed disordered, tents and trucks pressed against sandstone, campfires burning at odd hours, people appearing and disappearing into the desert without explanation. She had mistaken movement for chaos because she did not yet understand what she was seeing. Now she knew there was purpose beneath it.
Patrols left before sunrise and returned after dark. Supplies were counted twice, sometimes three times, before they were loaded. Water containers were cleaned and refilled. Radios were charged. Medical kits were opened, inspected, and resealed. Every person seemed to know where they were needed, even when no one gave an order.
The camp did not wake all at once. It unfolded. The first sounds came from the cooking area, where Abuela Rosa began each morning long before anyone else appeared. Then came the low rumble of truck engines and the clatter of metal crates. Voices rose gradually from tents and shelters. Someone would laugh. Someone else would complain about coffee. Diego would inevitably claim he had completed a task no one had yet asked him to do.
By the time the sun cleared the cliffs, the camp was alive. Maeve had expected to remain an outsider within it. Instead, the days began drawing her in. Her second patrol with Javier was easier than the first. Not easy, exactly. Javier still watched her with enough vigilance to make her feel as though she might wander into traffic if left unattended. He checked the strap of her helmet even after she assured him she had fastened it correctly. He reminded her to drink water before she was thirsty, then watched until she did it. He placed himself between her and every ledge, thorn, unfamiliar footprint, and shadowed crevice they passed. But he had stopped taking everything out of her hands. Mostly.
At the first cache, he let her carry a crate of food without comment. At the second, he handed her the supply list and asked her to determine what needed replacing. By the third, he trusted her to restock the medical supplies while he and Tomas checked the wash for recent tracks. Maeve noticed every small concession. She suspected Javier noticed that she noticed. Neither of them said anything.
Their conversations came more easily now. At first, they had spoken only about the patrol, the terrain, the caches, the signs left behind by people moving through the desert. Gradually, the spaces between those instructions began filling with other things. Maeve told him about Tacoma rain, which Javier seemed to consider an unnatural amount of water falling from the sky. She described the way fog rolled across the Narrows in the early morning and how Mount Rainier sometimes appeared without warning after weeks hidden behind clouds.
Javier told her which desert flowers appeared after a wet winter and how the hills could turn gold or purple for only a few days before the heat took them. She learned that he preferred coffee so dark it tasted burned. He learned she hated silence in moving vehicles but enjoyed it outdoors. She discovered that Javier knew almost nothing about television made after he turned eighteen. He discovered she could name every player on the Seattle Seahawks’ active roster from the previous season but had no idea how to change a tire.
“That seems like a serious failure in your education,” he said as they stood beside the motorcycle after returning from patrol.
Maeve removed her helmet and handed it to him. “Knowing how to change a tire has never helped anyone survive an overtime loss.”
“Football won’t help you if you’re stranded.”
“It helps emotionally.”
“It doesn’t fix the tire.”
“Neither does judging me.”
Javier’s mouth shifted, the almost-smile she had begun to recognize.
“I’ll teach you.”
She looked at him. There was nothing remarkable in the offer. It was practical, casually given, and entirely Javier. Still, something warmed inside her.
“Fine,” she said. “And I’ll explain football to you.”
“I understand football.”
“You asked why they kept stopping after every play.”
“It wastes time.”
Maeve stared at him. “We have a lot of work to do.”
By the fourth patrol, she no longer hesitated before climbing onto the motorcycle behind him. She still insisted on fastening her own helmet. Javier still checked it with one discreet tug after she was seated. Maeve had stopped objecting. Not because she approved of the hovering. She simply understood that some instincts were more difficult to argue with than others.
The strange warmth between them had not disappeared. If anything, it had become easier to summon. Their fingers brushed when he handed her a flashlight, and the heat would move through her palm. His hand would settle at her waist as she climbed over rough stone, and a pulse of awareness would tighten low in her stomach. Neither of them mentioned it anymore.
Maeve was not sure whether that made it better or worse.
It had become another part of the patrols. Water. Medical supplies. Javier’s hand at the small of her back. An unexplained current beneath her skin. She could almost convince herself it meant nothing. Almost.
The hours outside patrol filled more quickly than she expected. One afternoon, Abuela Rosa found Maeve sitting near the edge of camp with nothing to do and declared that idle hands attracted trouble. Maeve had attempted to point out that trouble had found her easily enough while her hands were occupied. Abuela Rosa had ignored her. That was how Maeve found herself standing over a wide bowl of masa while Abuela Rosa corrected everything she did.
“Too much water,” the older woman said.
“You told me to add water.”
“I did not tell you to drown it.”
“It isn’t drowned.”
Abuela Rosa pushed two fingers into the mixture and looked at Maeve with deep disappointment.
“It is grieving.”
Maeve stared at the dough. “I didn’t know masa had emotions.”
“Food knows when it is being mistreated.”
Across the cooking area, Diego laughed into his coffee. Abuela Rosa turned on him so quickly that he nearly choked.
“You have something to say?”
“No, Abuela.”
“Then find work.”
Diego disappeared.
Maeve watched him go. “Does everyone call you Abuela?”
“Anyone with sense.”
Maeve smiled and returned to the bowl. Abuela Rosa reminded her so much of her own grandmother with her sharp tongue and quick wit. Abuela Rosa’s hands were smaller than Maeve’s, her fingers twisted slightly with age, but she worked with effortless certainty. She added flour without measuring, correcting the texture through touch alone.
Maeve tried to follow. The first tortillas she shaped were uneven. One tore when she lifted it. Another emerged from the pan bearing a vague resemblance to the state of Florida.
Abuela Rosa held it up.
“What is this?”
“Art.”
“It is an insult.”
Maeve laughed. The sound surprised her. It came without effort, without the small hesitation that had followed most of her laughter since the kidnapping. She looked around as though someone else might have heard the difference. Abuela Rosa had. The older woman’s expression softened, though only briefly.
“Again,” she said, handing Maeve another piece of dough.
By the time the evening meal was served, Maeve’s tortillas were nearly round. Abuela Rosa did not praise her, but she placed Maeve’s basket in the center of the table. Maeve understood.
Lucia took her beyond the camp on the following morning to strengthen the runes. They left shortly after dawn, while the desert remained cool enough that Maeve could breathe without feeling the air scorch her lungs. Lucia carried a leather satchel filled with chalk, dried herbs, small glass bottles, and pieces of stone etched with symbols.
The runes were almost invisible unless Maeve knew where to look. Some had been carved into boulders. Others had been painted on flat pieces of rock and partially buried beneath the sand. Thin lengths of red cord connected certain markers, though the thread vanished when viewed from more than a few feet away. Lucia knelt beside a rune at the base of a cliff.
“This one has weakened.”
Maeve crouched beside her. “How can you tell?”
Lucia touched the carved lines with two fingers. “Feel it.”
Maeve hesitated before pressing her fingertips to the stone. At first, she felt nothing but its cool, rough surface. Then something stirred beneath her hand. The sensation was faint, like a heartbeat heard through a wall.
“It’s pulsing.”
“Barely.”
Lucia removed a small bottle from her satchel and tipped a few drops of dark liquid into the carved lines.
“What is that?”
“Oil. Creosote resin. A little ash.”
“Human ash?”
Lucia looked up.
Maeve swallowed. “I had to ask.”
“No.”
“Good.”
“Usually.”
Maeve’s head snapped toward her. Lucia smiled and returned to the rune. Maeve was beginning to understand that Lucia’s quiet nature concealed a deeply unsettling sense of humor. Like everyone Maeve had met in the camp, she seemed happy and content with her way of life.
Together, they cleared sand from the stone and traced the faded lines. Lucia spoke words in Spanish Maeve did not recognize, her voice low enough to blend with the wind.
The rune brightened. Not visibly. Not exactly. Maeve felt it awaken through the tips of her fingers. A vibration traveled up her arm and settled behind her ribs, where the flame answered with a soft surge of heat. Lucia noticed.
“The wards recognize you.”
Maeve pulled her hand back. “Is that good?”
“It is useful.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
Lucia packed away the bottle and stood. They moved from one marker to the next, circling the eastern edge of the camp. Some needed only to be uncovered. Others required new lines or fresh bindings.
Maeve began to recognize the differences among them. One turned attention away. Another disguised scent. Another made distance feel uncertain to anyone approaching with harmful intent.
“You make people lost,” she said.
“We confuse those who mean harm.”
“What about everyone else?”
“They find the path.”
Maeve looked back toward the camp, though from where she stood she could see only rock and brush. She had crossed the runes by accident. Or perhaps she had not. The thought followed her for the rest of the morning.
In the afternoons, she often found herself near the shade structure where the men repaired equipment, cleaned weapons, or argued about sports with the seriousness of diplomats negotiating a treaty.
She had initially gone there because Javier was helping Diego replace a damaged truck belt. That was the explanation she gave herself. She stayed because Tomas made the mistake of claiming the San Francisco 49ers had the best fan base in football.
“They are arrogant and overly fixated on the past,” Maeve said.
Tomas looked personally offended. “That is not true.”
“It is absolutely true.”
“You’re from Washington. Your opinion is compromised.”
“My opinion is informed. You all just have a superiority complex and can’t handle that we dominated you in the playoffs.”
Diego leaned against the truck. “She’s right about the playoffs.”
Tomas turned on him. “No one asked you.”
“You brought it up in front of witnesses.”
The argument continued for nearly an hour.
Javier worked beside them, quieter than the others but listening. Maeve caught him watching her whenever she became animated, his expression softened by something she could not name. He did not know enough about football to contribute, but the next afternoon he asked her why the Seahawks had changed coaches.
Maeve stared at him.
“What?”
“You remembered.”
“You talked about it for twenty minutes.”
“You were listening?”
“I usually do.”
The answer followed her longer than it should have.
Sofía became someone Maeve sought out when she needed a different kind of company. Where Javier focused on immediate problems, and Lucia considered questions in terms of history and balance, Sofía liked ideas. She spread maps across tables, sketched improvements to storage systems, and kept lists of problems that had not yet occurred. Maeve found her one evening reorganizing the patrol records.
“You write everything by hand?” Maeve asked.
“Most of it.”
“What happens if there’s a fire?”
Sofía glanced toward the flames burning in several places around camp. “We cry.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
Maeve pulled out the chair across from her. “You need copies.”
“We keep some in the cavern.”
“Not enough.”
Sofía studied her. “What would you do?”
The question opened something in Maeve. For the next two hours, they talked about creating duplicate records, organizing supply usage by season, tracking which caches were emptied most often, and marking locations where patrols repeatedly found injured people. Maeve suggested a simple system for comparing how much water disappeared from each cache against temperature changes and migration routes.
Sofía leaned back. “You’re good at this.”
“At making spreadsheets?”
“At seeing how pieces connect.”
Maeve looked down at the map. She had not thought of herself that way. At the bar, she remembered who preferred which beer, which regular needed to be cut off before he became belligerent, and which coworker always forgot to order limes. She had been good at keeping chaos moving smoothly, though no one had ever described it as a skill. Here, people seemed to notice what she could do. The realization unsettled her almost as much as it pleased her.
Within a matter of days, the camp had begun to feel familiar. She knew which fire burned latest at night and which section of shade remained coolest in the afternoon. She knew Tomas snored loudly enough to be heard from the next shelter and that Diego always stole the first tortilla from Abuela Rosa’s basket. She knew Lucia took her coffee with cinnamon, and Sofía forgot to eat while working.
She knew Javier woke before sunrise even when he was not scheduled for patrol. She knew the exact sound of his motorcycle starting. She knew his footsteps. That knowledge frightened her.
Maeve sat alone one evening on a low outcropping near the edge of camp, watching the last of the sunlight recede from the desert. Behind her, voices drifted from the cooking area. Someone had started music from a portable speaker. Diego was telling a story that had already been interrupted twice by accusations that he was exaggerating. The sounds settled around Maeve with an ease she had not felt in years. Home. The word appeared before she could stop it. Her chest tightened. She had not felt at home anywhere since her grandmother died.
Her apartment in Tacoma was hers, but it had never felt rooted. It was a place where she slept, stored clothes, and watched rain bead against the windows. Her parents’ homes had stopped belonging to her long before she was old enough to name the feeling. Even the bar, as familiar as it was, had been a place she occupied because routine was easier than choosing something else.
Her grandmother’s cabin had been different. There, Maeve had known where every floorboard creaked. She had known the smell of cedar after rain and the sound of wind moving through the trees at night. She had known which mug Brigid would choose in the morning and where she hid the good chocolate.
Since losing her, Maeve had been drifting. She had told herself she was independent. Perhaps she had only been unanchored. The thought made her look toward the camp with new unease. This was not her home. It could not become her home simply because people had offered her food, taught her their routines, and made space for her beside their fires.
She had a life in Tacoma. A job she had not actually quit. Coworkers who had no idea whether she was alive. A landlord who would eventually notice if rent was not paid. Parents who might not call often but would surely care that their daughter had disappeared. Wouldn’t they?
Maeve pushed the question away. She had not planned to move. That was the truth she had allowed everyone to misunderstand. The man at the bar had offered her an opportunity, and she had been curious enough to consider it. That was all. She had not packed her apartment or resigned from work. She had not chosen a new life. She had only agreed to see what the offer might become.
Then she had awakened in the desert.
Now an ancient flame lived inside her, werewolves knew her name, and Javier watched her as if her continued existence had become the central responsibility of his life. Maeve closed her eyes. She needed to go home. Not permanently. She did not know what permanently meant anymore. But she needed to check in. She needed to see what remained of her old life and decide whether she still wanted it.
She needed to visit her grandmother’s cabin, where the world had always made more sense. Maybe somewhere among Brigid’s belongings there were answers. A journal. A letter.
Anything that explained why her grandmother had spoken of flame as though it were more than a metaphor.
The cabin sat on Lake Sutherland, surrounded by forest and distance. Maeve could almost smell the wet earth beneath the trees. She imagined sitting on the porch wrapped in one of Brigid’s old blankets, listening to rain touch the roof while she tried to think. She needed that silence. She needed to remember who she had been before Javier, before the desert, before fire poured from her hands.
But getting there would mean leaving the camp. Leaving Javier. Maeve opened her eyes. He stood near one of the trucks with Mateo, his face turned in her direction. He had been listening to the older man, but his attention had drifted toward her as though he had felt the moment she thought of leaving.
Maeve looked away. That was another reason she needed distance. Whatever was growing between them was moving too quickly and not quickly enough. It existed in touches neither of them understood, in the weight of her arms around his waist on the motorcycle, in the quiet way his face softened when he looked at her.
Maeve wanted him. She could admit that much to herself. Wanting was not the same as trusting. It was not the same as building a life. It certainly was not the same as surrendering the one she already had.
The following evening, Maeve left on patrol with the group. She hadn’t had an opportunity to bring up Tacoma. The route ran farther south than the ones she had learned, through long, open stretches where the desert flattened beneath a bruised purple sky. The air carried the dry metallic scent of an approaching change in weather. Wind moved restlessly across the ground, lifting small spirals of dust behind the trucks. Javier noticed her silence before they reached the first cache.
He turned his head slightly as the motorcycle idled at the edge of a wash. “You alright?”
Maeve adjusted her grip around his waist. “I’m fine.”
He did not respond. She knew he didn’t believe her.
The patrol included Diego, Tomas, Sofía, and two younger Guardians named Luis and Andrés. One truck carried the regular supplies. The other had been loaded with additional water after a cache farther south was reported empty. The first two stops were uneventful. At the third, they found footprints. Several sets crossed the wash before disappearing over hard ground. Javier crouched beside them, one hand resting on the sand.
“How old?” Maeve asked.
“Less than a day.”
He looked toward the south.
“Four adults. Maybe five.”
Tomas moved closer. “One child.”
Maeve followed his gaze. A smaller set of prints traveled unevenly beside the others.
“They’re dragging one foot,” she said.
Javier looked at her, then back at the tracks.
“Yes.”
“Injured?”
“Or exhausted.”
The patrol changed course. The trucks continued along the wash while Javier and Tomas rode ahead on motorcycles. Maeve remained behind Javier, holding tightly as the terrain grew rougher.
The sun disappeared completely. Headlights swept across scrub and stone. Every shadow seemed to move at the edge of Maeve’s vision.
They found an abandoned backpack near a cluster of rocks. Then a torn shirt. Javier dismounted and crouched beside it. The fabric was small, printed with faded yellow flowers.
Maeve’s stomach tightened.
“Does that belong to the child?”
Javier did not answer. He lifted the shirt carefully, bringing it near his face. The wolf’s senses sharpened his expression in a way Maeve had learned to recognize. He looked toward a narrow ravine.
“Stay with the truck.”
Maeve stepped off the motorcycle. “I’m coming.”
“Maeve.”
“I’m not waiting here.”
His eyes met hers. For a moment she expected the old argument, the command, her refusal, his frustration. Instead, he glanced at the uneven ground ahead.
“Stay close.”
She nodded.
The Guardians moved into the ravine with flashlights raised. Wind hissed through the narrow channel, scraping sand across the stone. The air felt colder there, cut off from the warmth held by the open ground.
Maeve kept Javier’s back in sight. The ravine twisted twice before opening into a shallow hollow. Tomas stopped first. His flashlight lowered. Javier’s hand came back without looking, finding Maeve and blocking her path. She stepped around him. The girl lay beneath the overhang of a rock.
For one impossible second, Maeve’s mind refused to understand what she was seeing. She looked young. Fourteen, perhaps. Maybe fifteen. Her dark hair had fallen across her face, tangled with dust. She wore jeans and only one shoe. The flowered shirt Javier had found must have belonged to her, leaving her in a thin undershirt that offered no protection against the cold.
Her body was curled on its side as though she had tried to make herself smaller. As though she had gone to sleep. Sofía moved forward, dropping to her knees beside the girl. Javier caught Maeve’s arm.
“She’s dead,” he said quietly.
Maeve stared at him. The words did not fit inside her.
“No.”
His grip tightened gently. Sofía touched two fingers to the girl’s neck, though the care in her movement made it clear she already knew. Maeve looked at the bare foot. The skin was blistered and split. Dried blood marked one ankle.
“She was a child.”
No one answered.
“She was a child,” Maeve said again, louder this time.
The flame stirred beneath her ribs. Heat rushed through her too quickly, driven by grief and anger she could not contain. A nearby patch of dry grass curled inward, its tips blackening.
Javier stepped in front of her.
“Maeve.”
She could not look away from the girl.
“Where are the others?”
“We’ll find them.”
“They left her.”
“We don’t know that.”
“They left her here.”
Her voice broke. Javier placed both hands against her face, forcing her gaze toward him.
“Breathe.”
Maeve shook her head.
“Maeve. Look at me.”
She did. His eyes were dark in the thin light, his expression steady despite the grief she could feel beneath it.
“Breathe,” he repeated.
She dragged air into her lungs. The heat inside her pulsed once, then receded. A sob escaped her before she could stop it. Javier drew her against him. Maeve pressed both hands to his chest, not to push him away but because she needed something solid beneath them. His arms closed around her, one hand cradling the back of her head as the first tears came.
She cried for the girl. For the people who had walked beside her and could not save her. For every mile she must have crossed in pain and terror. For the way her body had been tucked beneath the rock as though death were another thing she had been forced to hide from. No one spoke.
The Guardians gave her grief room. When Maeve finally pulled away, Javier did not release her completely. His hand remained at her shoulder, holding her close enough that she could lean into him if she needed to. Sofía covered the girl with a blanket. The bright silver emergency fabric caught the flashlight beams, too clean and reflective against the dirt.
Maeve turned her face away.
“What happens now?”
“We take her with us,” Javier said.
“To the camp?”
“For tonight.”
“And then?”
“We try to find her family. Her name.”
Maeve looked back at the covered form.
“What if you can’t?”
Javier was silent. That was answer enough.
The others prepared to carry the girl out of the ravine. Maeve stood several feet away, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. The air felt hollow around her. Even the flame had gone quiet.
Javier remained beside her. She could feel him watching, waiting for the moment she might break again. Normally, his hovering would have irritated her. Tonight, she was grateful for it.
On the ride back, Maeve held him without embarrassment. She pressed close, resting her face between his shoulders while the wind moved around them. Javier covered her hand with his once and left it there longer than usual.
She did not speak. Neither did he.
The campfires were still burning when they returned, but the usual voices faded as soon as the Guardians saw the blanket-covered shape in the truck bed. Abuela Rosa crossed herself. Lucia lowered her head. Mateo stood motionless near the fire while the patrol carried the girl toward the cavern. Maeve remained beside the motorcycle. She could not make herself follow.
Javier removed her helmet and set it aside. When he turned back, she saw the question in his face.
“I want to be alone,” she said.
His expression closed slightly. Maeve almost took the words back. Not because they were untrue, but because she understood they had hurt him.
“I’m not leaving the camp,” she added. “I just need a minute.”
Javier looked toward the darkness beyond the fires, then toward the nearest rune marker.
“Stay inside the boundary.”
“I will.”
He hesitated. Maeve touched his wrist. The warmth that passed between them was faint this time, subdued by everything they had seen.
“I promise.”
Javier nodded and stepped away.
Maeve walked to the edge of camp and sat beneath the outcropping where she had watched the sunset the night before. Yesterday, she had looked across the desert and thought about home. Tonight, the word meant something different.
Home was not only the place a person longed to return to. It was also the place where someone should have noticed you were missing. Maeve covered her face with both hands and began to cry again, more quietly this time. She needed to go back to Tacoma. She needed to call her family, see her coworkers, and find out what remained of the life she had left behind.
She needed her grandmother’s cabin.
But for the first time, leaving the camp no longer felt like returning to her life. It felt like walking away from one.
She would talk to Mateo. Or Sofía. Perhaps Lucia. Not Javier. Not yet. She needed to decide what she was asking before she faced the certainty of his refusal.