By morning the rain has thinned to a mist. The smokehouse walls damp. I fold the blanket, sweep the grit to one corner with my shoe, and step out before the place can feel smaller.
Hall duty starts with chairs and ends with paper. Sue hands me a list, her handwriting blocky and neat. "Paper towels, bleach, staples, coffee. The good kind if they have it on sale."
"I can go," I say.
"You can ride," Rina says, jingling keys. "Sam said you don't run alone yet."
"Fair," I say. I don't mind not being trusted. It's honest.
Rina's truck smells like wet dog and pine cleaner. She drives like the road owes her money, steady, a little mean. We pass the turnoff to First Beach, then the line of tall trees that cut the world in half, then the sign that says Welcome to Forks in paint that tried to be cheerful and gave up.
Forks looks like a place that does its best and minds its business. The grocery lot is half full. A girl in a hoodie wheels a cart with a wobbly wheel. A man with a stained cap ties a tarp over lumber in the rain. A silver car idles at the far edge.
Rina parks crooked and kills the engine. "Stick close," she says. "If someone asks who you are, say you're with me."
"Okay."
The automatic doors push us into light that's too bright for a rainy day. It smells like coffee, old mop water, and oranges that tried to be sweeter. I grab a cart. One wheel wobbles, like they always do.
We move down the aisles on the list's order. Paper towels, bleach, coffee. The good kind is not on sale; Sue will forgive us. Rina tosses in a box of tea like she's daring someone to comment. No one does.
At the end of the aisle two cashiers talk low, like they don't mean to gossip and can't help it.
"Did you hear?" one says, scanning canned soup. "Chief Swan's girl is really gettin' married. Like, soon."
"To who?" the other asks, bored on purpose.
"Cullen boy."
"Which one?" Now she's not bored.
"The one with the hair."
They both laugh, then hush at the same time because a woman in scrubs sets down milk and bread and pretends she didn't hear.
I keep my face still. Something inside slots into place with an ugly click. This is really that story. Even before had some doubts, because of burly former memories, but never thought it would more real than already it is.
Stay quiet.
Rina flicks a look at me like she can hear my head. "You okay?"
"Yeah." My voice comes out clean. "Coffee's heavy."
"Mm."
On the way to the front, we pass a rack of cheap magazines with glossy brides on the cover. A handwritten sign says CONGRATS BELLA & EDWARD in marker, taped crooked. It should be funny and isn't. It's a normal thing in a small town, to know everyone's business and print it like it's kindness.
At the end of the checkout, the glass doors show a slice of the lot. The silver car is closer now. Not just clean. A coincidence? A Volvo that looks like a mirror when it rains. A man stands by the driver's door, tall, too still for weather. His profile catches sharp. I don't need a straight look to know what color his eyes aren't.
My body wants to lock. Don't stare. I turn my head to the conveyor belt and watch the little black divider act like it's important.
"Card?" the cashier asks.
"Tribal," Rina says, already sliding it over. "Put the coffee under supplies."
"You got it."
We bag things fast. Rina takes two, I take two, and we push back into the gray, like it might push back. The silver car starts. It doesn't roar, it just glides forward. The driver doesn't look at us. Doesn't have to.
Rina tosses bags in the bed and shuts the tailgate with her hip. "You don't look at them," she says, like another rule.
"I didn't," I say.
"Good."
We pull out. The Volvo turns the other way and disappears in three breaths. I let air go I didn't know I was holding.
On the drive back, Rina drums her fingers on the wheel. "You know the stories," she says without looking.
"Some," I say. "Enough to stay out of their yard."
"Good," she says again, then adds, "They keep to themselves. We keep to ours."
"I can do that."
She doesn't smile, but her shoulders drop half an inch. It's the closest thing.
Back at the hall, Embry helps us haul the boxes in. He looks at the coffee and grins. "The good stuff. Sue must like you."
"Nonsense," Rina says. "Don't get ideas."
Embry rolls a dolly down the hall and calls over his shoulder, "We got a meeting at six. Don't be late unless you want Paul to volunteer you for kitchen duty."
"Wouldn't dream of it," I murmur, and hear the way dream can turn to threat in the wrong throat. I keep my face straight.
The day settles into simple work. Shelves, mops, small talk that isn't really talk. I catch bits of the town's life by accident.
"-Charlie's out at the rez-""-Ben's truck won't start-""-dress fittings-""-weather moving in-"
Every slice has the same flavor: people trying to keep their lives upright with both hands. I know that taste.
In the afternoon, Sam stands in the door like the door got taller to fit him. "Perimeter pass," he says. "Low and slow."
I wash my hands, dry them, and follow. We take the south line again, me two steps behind, Leah on point. She doesn't talk. I don't need her to.
We move as humans, which is slower, but blends. The forest smells damp and heavy. A deer bursts from the brush, and my heart jumps in its wake. We pause at the crest where the trees thin, and the world opens up. Across the river, on a hill, the Cullens' roofline slices the sky. I can't see the house itself, just the shape, like a thought I'm not ready to voice.
Don't steer people.
Back at the hall, Sue has a stack of flyers. "Post these at the lot and the clinic board," she tells me. "Community dinner. Wednesday."
"I can."
"Rina will drive," Sam says.
"Right," I say. "Thanks."
Forks again. We hit the grocery lot first. I tape one flyer to the corkboard next to a lost dog notice and a kid's drawing of a fish with mean eyebrows. Then we cross to the clinic. We don't go in. We use the glass case by the door.
Rina stares at the clinic doorway for a second too long, like she's remembering something she learned the hard way. Then she shakes herself and nods at me. "Go on."
I tape the flyer in the bottom right corner and step back. In the glass, my reflection is thin and tired. There's a streak of white at my hairline that wasn't there last week. A hint of what the wolf did to me. I tuck it behind my ear like that will make it less obvious.
The clinic doors part for a woman with a toddler on her hip. Behind them, a familiar face passes down the hall, gold hair, too smooth, too still. He's not looking our way. He doesn't need to. He moves like a person who never stumbles. The glass shows him a half-second delayed and then he's gone.
Be kind, I remind myself, and mean it. It is easier to be angry at strangers. It is harder and better not to be.
On the way back, Rina's quiet turns into words. "When my cousin phased, I thought the whole world was a problem I could punch," she says. "Didn't help."
"What did?"
"Time," she says. "And work. And the fact that nobody gives you a parade for not making a mess."
I huff a breath that might be a laugh. "Good to know."
We stop at the turn by a low garage, the door half-open. A bike leans on its stand, its innards exposed, the chain draped. I can make out the shape of someone bent over it, but not the face. Oil, rain, and faint music hang in the air, quiet enough not to bother the street.
Rina taps the wheel with one finger. "Don't stop."
"I wasn't."
"Good."
We don't speak again until we park behind the hall. I help unload and stack. Embry waves me over to show me where to put the staples so Jared doesn't "organize" them by building a fort. I nod and do the thing with my hands and let my mind walk in a different place.
It walks back through book pages and scenes I half-remember from a hospital room. A girl with dark hair and stubborn love. A family who moved like a rumor. A boy who laughed too loud and then not at all. A fight that almost happened. A snowfield.
It would be easy to start drawing lines with a finger in the air. Easy to say who should be where and when. Easy to tell myself that if I can just push the right piece, everyone bleeds less.
Don't steer people.
I hold the thought until the itch under my skin quiets. I am not a writer at a desk. I am a person who got up from a bed she wasn't supposed to leave and turned into a wolf in the rain. I owe this town my best hands, not my worst guesses.
By six, the hall fills. The room smells like wet coats. Sam stands at the front and reads off work. There is nothing in his voice that asks for applause. He hands out jobs. People take them.
Paul leans on the back wall and doesn't look at me at all. Leah slices through three side conversations with two words each. Jared makes a joke that isn't good and Embry laughs anyway. It is a normal bad meeting. That is a comfort I didn't know I wanted.
After, I wipe tables until the cloth runs gray. Sue watches me like she's checking a box she didn't want to create. When I take the trash out, the sky has turned that long blue that happens right before dark decides.
I carry the bag to the bin and stop for a breath by the edge of the lot. Across the road, the trees are black cutouts. Somewhere down the street, a bike starts and idles. The sound is steady, not loud. Someone laughs, then doesn't.
Stay quiet.
I walk back to the smokehouse with tired legs and clean hands. The cot takes my weight. I stare at the ceiling until the boards turn blur.
No plans. Just a line I can stand on when the next thing pushes.
Resolve, not plans.