Allison
I put the badge on the table and stare at the word printed under my na.
Visitor/Ops.
The letters are tidy, the rules are tidy but the rest of it isn’t.
I open my notebook to a clean page and draw a line down the middle.
Stay | Leave
Under Stay, I write:
Policy protects on paper.
I teach better in the room than outside it.
Ward sweeps, escorts, Daniel, Fallon.
Tea with Luna Ella after the trip — real room, not rumor.
Mixed-unit work happens at the Crown’s table; I belong in that work.
Under Leave, I write:
Jack won’t have the satisfaction of pushing .
The cream-sigil people can’t reach as easily if I’m not here.
No photos soone can weaponize.
’Add the real one,’ Ruby says, steady. ’You don’t want to be cast out again.’
I write it down. Leave before I’m thrown out. The words sit on the page with the weight of old habits in this pack, and a weight of sorrow on my heart.
The kettle clicks off. I pour water over tea and push the mug away so I won’t sit and think myself into the wrong answer. The go-bag Daniel built sits under the counter where my hand finds it without looking at the ID copy, cash, charger, scrub top and joggers, hoodie, spare keys and first-aid kit. Locker 3A in Admin has the twin. I pick up the badge again and feel the corners.
’You made rules and you made exits,’ Ruby says. ’That’s not running. That’s being ready.’
There’s a knock I know. Two short, one long. I open the door to Daniel’s smiling face.
"Inventory check," Daniel says, deadpan, then lifts the takeout carrier. "Also soup. I brought the good kind, not your freezer’s idea of a joke." I step back and he sets the soup on the counter and eyes the page before I can move the notebook.
"Quiet arithtic," he says, like he’s nad this for before. "Let guess where the numbers lie."
"You don’t have to," I say. "I’ll say it. I’m thinking about leaving before soone makes a show of it."
He doesn’t flinch. "Good. Say it out loud so we can wrestle the parts that are lies."
I gesture at the columns. "It isn’t all lies."
"No," he says. He scans Stay, reads the tea line, taps Mixed-unit work and Policy. He moves to Leave and taps No photos. "This one is not a reason, it’s a symptom."
I fold my arms. "Alpha Jack won’t stop pushing."
"He won’t stop if you move your address," he says. "He’ll just stop having to watch your work keep his pack alive. He’d like that, I would not." He pours soup into two bowls. I take a spoon, more to give my hands sothing to do than because I’m hungry.
"Safety," he says. "If you go, where? You have cash and you know how to take care of yourself, you also have people aiming cream paper at you, and a ward pattern we don’t like. Out there alone is worse than in here with a plan."
"I won’t go to another pack," I say. "I’d go past them all."
"Past them all still runs through roads we don’t control," he says. "And maybe past soone else’s cara."
I stare at Leave before I’m thrown out. The words don’t change.
"Say the old story out loud," he tells .
"I don’t like waiting for soone with power over a roof to decide I don’t get the roof anymore," I say. "I leave before the conversation and I make it clean."
"Clean for who?" he asks.
"," I say, quietly. "At least it used to be." He nods like I answered the right test.
"Here’s my vote," he says. "Stay through the trip. Do the job that is yours, let the Crown’s room see what you actually do, not what a forum thread says."
"And after?"
"After, you drink tea with the Luna," he says. "If she says no, you and I will write the petition anyway. And if we lose the vote, then we talk about leaving. Not before."
I tip my head. "You’re asking to trust a process that wasn’t built for ."
"I’m asking you to use the parts of it we already bent," he says, and points at the policy line in my head instead of the page; Species is not a qualification, skill is. "And I’m asking you not to hand Alpha Jack the narrative that you were never stable enough to handle the work."
We eat without talking for a minute. The soup is warm and tastes amazing, but Daniel has given a lot to think about as we eat in the quiet kitchen while the clock on the wall ticks on. I take a breath that doesn’t hurt. "Okay," I say. "Argue selfishly. Tell why you want to stay if I take the pack out of it."
He watches my face like he’s checking whether there’s room for the truth. "Because soone once looked at and saw ," he says, simply. "Not Beta, not my father’s son, not the boy who hid behind shelves in the library so his father wouldn’t tell him who he was. He saw and didn’t tell to be less of it."
My spoon pauses. "A witch," I say. Not a question.
His mouth quirks. "He would argue he’s a person first. Witch second. But yes."
"When?" I ask.
"Last year, at a ward conference," he says. "We were both pretending we didn’t see each other and then we got tired of pretending. He works with sigils the way you work with fras, clean, respectful and no flourish." He looks at the table, then up. "He told I wasn’t broken for wanting what I want. He gave a na for that wanting that didn’t co with a slur attached."
"Do I get his na?" I ask.
"When I’ve earned the right to say it out loud without making it a weapon," he says. "Soon."
’Stormborn,’ Ruby says, amused. ’You already know the shape of the word.’
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