I didn't know the name of the village when I got there. Just that it was small, and it smelled like wet soil and chimney smoke. The streets were mostly gravel and packed dirt, broken up by old wooden fences and sagging porches. It looked like it had been forgotten by time.
I kept my hood up.
Humans weren't like wolves. They didn't just sense an outsider—they stared. Judged. Whispered. The stares followed me like shadows as I walked past their windows and rusty mailboxes. Some even pulled their kids closer. I wasn't sure what they saw in me. Maybe just a girl who looked too tired, too alert. Maybe something more.
Mason had told me to go east. That's where the gossip ran louder. The village markets. The church. The old bar by the highway that opened too early and closed too late. I was hoping for a name. A face. Anything.
I didn't get lucky at first.
