Chapter 268: He Had Been Looking for an Excuse

EDRIK’S POV

Edrik had been enjoying his wife’s hand in his until she gripped it like she needed him to stay exactly where he was.

He stayed.

Across the yard, a boar with a chipped tooth stopped pretending he was looking at the food. Edrik watched the man’s gaze crawl over Dove and felt a clean, familiar urge to break something important.

"Who is he?" he asked her.

"Rusk. From the Warren. Come with me before I do something stupid in front of witnesses."

That was a request Edrik could respect. He took her back to the van, keeping himself between her and the cooking barrels. He didn’t chase the boar across a crowded camp and leave his wife standing beside a school door. He could enjoy a killing later. First he needed to know what she knew.

Dove sat in the open side doorway while he crouched in front of her. She told him about Rusk’s warning, the spilled oil, and the altered inspection initials. She was careful with what hadn’t been proved, angry enough that the care cost her something.

"The soap and the strap weren’t proved to be him," she said. "Don’t go adding things because you hate his face. I hate his face too."

Edrik rested his hands on her knees. "I have plenty without adding anything."

She looked at his mouth, then his eyes. "You’re doing the calm thing."

"Would you prefer shouting?"

"I’d prefer we didn’t have to see him at all."

He wanted to give her that. Wanted, with a force that made the rest of the camp feel distant, to remove every man who had taught her to brace herself before speaking. He knew that wasn’t a promise he could make cleanly. There would always be another fool until the world ran out of men or he ran out of patience.

Neither seemed likely today.

"We’ll tell the organizer," he said. "Then we choose where we stay. He doesn’t choose it for us."

Dove nodded, and some of the tightness left her grip. He kissed the back of her hand because he wanted to, because she’d trusted him with the anger instead of swallowing it alone.

They went together. The organizer listened, called a gate guard over, and said he would keep Rusk away from their vehicle while he checked the story. He didn’t declare a man guilty of everything on the strength of a name, but he didn’t require Dove to smile and share a sleeping room with him either.

Edrik approved of the distinction. It made his own restraint less irritating.

Dove wanted coffee after the conversation. Edrik made it the way she had shown him and handed it over without asking her to explain why she had gone quiet. He knew something about carrying anger that was older than the room you stood in. She took the cup, looked at him over the rim, and touched his wrist with two fingers. That was all. It was enough to make him want Rusk farther from her than a fence could manage.

By late afternoon, he had found a better place for the van beside the organizer’s office window. Dove ate, checked their supplies, and used the radio while Edrik watched the yard from the open door. He let his fingers rest against the metal frame, feeling the familiar steadiness of it beneath his touch.

A narrow man in a baseball cap passed twice without collecting anything. The third time, he stopped beside their front tire and looked toward the office, where the crossing lists were being written.

Edrik waited until Dove finished her message.

"Stay in the doorway where I can see you," he said. "I need to speak to the fellow admiring our tires."

Her eyes followed his. "Don’t get distracted."

"Never from you."

He caught the man before he reached the corner of the building. One hand closed around the back of his neck, the other took the wrist reaching beneath his jacket. There was a small knife there. Edrik removed it and folded the man’s hand back until he dropped to one knee.

The sound he made brought the nearest guard over. Edrik kept Dove in sight beyond the guard’s shoulder. She stood in the van doorway, arms folded, watching him with an expression that suggested she wasn’t especially troubled by the interruption to the stranger’s afternoon.

"You have been studying our departure," Edrik said. "Tell me why."

The man tried a lie. Edrik broke his wrist. The scream cut through the yard, and Dove stopped pretending to study the crossing list. She stayed where he could see her, watching the man who had brought a knife to their van decide to answer.

He had been paid to learn when the white-haired woman’s van would leave. Rusk had asked. A second man had waited beyond the fence. The note tucked in his pocket held the morning crossing time and a description that made Edrik’s vision narrow at the edges.

Female. One bear. Panther absent.

He took the paper and handed the knife to the guard.

"Keep him where he can’t send another message."

The guard looked at the bent wrist, then at Edrik. "You could have called me."

"I did. You arrived."

Edrik stood, leaving the man on his knees. He hadn’t killed him, though the idea had been attractive. A living mouth could still identify the man beyond the fence. Dove needed that more than Edrik needed the brief pleasure of silence.

When he reached the van, she took his hand and inspected the knuckles.

"You’ve had a busy five minutes."

"I was being social."

"Terrible at it, aren’t you?"

"Only with people I dislike."

She wiped a smear from his hand with a cloth, frowning as though his skin mattered more than the entire camp’s opinion. It did something unpleasantly soft to his chest. He wanted to pull her inside, close the door, and keep the world on the other side until it learned manners.

Instead he showed her the note.

Dove read it once, then again. Her face changed at the last two words.

"They aren’t just following us," she said. "They’re counting who isn’t here."