Here's something nobody tells you about living in a pack house.
The silence has a pulse.
Back in the rogue settlements, silence meant danger. It meant someone was holding their breath and waiting for a reason to stop. Here it was different — fuller somehow, like the quiet itself had weight and belonged to something. I'd been awake an hour before sunrise trying to figure out why it felt so different and that was the best I could come up with.
The house was inhabited in a way the settlements never were. Those were just collections of people trying not to die in the same location. This was something that had been lived in for generations and knew it.
I didn't like how much I noticed that.
Three days in and I had a system.
