Pines Emerett

The supply store smelled of damp grain and floor wax. Rain hit the metal roof with a relentless, mechanical rhythm. I leaned against a stack of fertilizer bags, watching Pines Emerett toss three iron traps onto the wooden counter. He wore a heavy wool jacket coated in forest grime, his hair tangled, his skin weathered by months outdoors. The cashier refused to make eye contact as he rang up the total. Pines turned slowly, his eyes locking onto mine. He did not ask my name. He did not ask why a woman in a designer coat had been loitering in his town for three weeks. He simply looked at my stomach, hidden beneath my dark sweater, and a cold certainty settled between us. "You're wasting your time, city girl," he said, his southern accent low and rasping. "Whatever you think you came up here to find, it isn't here." My blood went cold. It was the sickening quiet before a wreck, the sharp realization of danger before it strikes. Five years of marriage to Steve Emeret, five years of sterile rooms and doctor excuses about genetic compatibility, only for Camilla to drag me to her private fertility clinic. They needed an heir for the company. They got an Emerett instead. An extra 't', an error of the lab and everything changed. Pines reached up, brushing his fingers across the back of his neck as he spit a harsh insult toward the floor. He grabbed his iron traps, pushed past me, and let the heavy screen door slam shut behind him. On the dust-covered floorboards where he had stood lay a silver pendant. The heavy chain was snapped. I knelt and picked it up. A wolf carved in tarnished silver, its jaws open toward an empty sky. The rain outside did not stop. Seven days later, the wolves came down from the mountains and entered the edge of town, waiting at the tree line in silence.