Chapter 12
The forest was slowly coming alive again.
Birds had started returning to the trees, their calls soft and cautious, as though even nature was afraid to believe in peace too soon. But peace—real, fragile peace—was here, woven into every breath we took, every step that didn’t end in pain.
More survivors were arriving with each passing day.
Some came in packs, others alone. One limped in on three legs, still in wolf form, and collapsed the moment they crossed the border. I ran to them, wrapped them in a blanket, and watched their shaking body finally shift back into a girl no older than fifteen.
She whispered one word as she clung to me: “Safe?”
I nodded, holding her tightly. “Safe.”
That word became something sacred here. We didn’t say it lightly. We didn’t take it for granted. Every time someone asked and we could answer “yes,” it meant the world was healing, inch by inch.
He built new shelters with the others—cutting wood, setting stone, teaching them how to protect themselves without becoming monsters. They followed him without question. Not because he demanded it—but because they believed in him. Because he was one of them.
Because he came back.
One evening, after another long day of hauling timber and repairing broken walls, he found me by the river just beyond the clearing. I was washing my hands, watching the blood swirl into the current from another stitched wound.
He sat beside me.
“Too much?” he asked, nodding at the half-stitched gash on my arm.
I gave him a tired smile. “I’ve had worse.”
“You shouldn’t have to anymore.”
I dipped my fingers in the cold water again. “It’s not about what I should or shouldn’t have to do. It’s about making sure no one else goes through what we did.”
He was quiet for a moment, then asked, “Do you ever think about the day they caught you?”
I nodded slowly. “All the time. I remember wondering where you were. Wondering if you were even alive. Wondering if I had imagined the part where you said you’d come back.”
He turned to me, pain etched in every line of his face. “I should’ve found you sooner.”
“But you didn’t give up,” I said softly. “That’s what matters.”
I took his hand and placed it over the old scar on my collarbone—one of the first marks they ever gave me. “This hurt more than anything they did to me. Because it reminded me I was alone.”
His fingers tightened around mine. “You’re not alone anymore.”
“No,” I whispered. “I’m not.”
The water rushed by beside us, fast and cold. It carried the blood away, washed the dirt from our hands. It felt symbolic—like all of it was being swept downstream. Our suffering. Our memories. Our past.
I looked at him.
“I want to rebuild everything,” I said. “Not just the shelters. I want to rebuild who we were. Who we could’ve been if the world had been kind.”
He brushed my hair away from my face. “Then let’s do it together.”
The promise wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be. It lived in every touch, every look, every night we didn’t have to sleep with one eye open.
The worst was over.
But the real work—the healing—that had only just begun.