Add to Cart

"Turns out you can't buy closure online, but you can get next-day delivery on chain-link fencing. Close enough."

The dining room felt different at night. During the day, it was just a room—functional, familiar, unremarkable. But in the darkness, with only the glow of the laptop screen illuminating our faces, it took on a different quality. The black shiny surface of the table reflected the screen's light in rippling patterns, and the shadows pooled in corners I'd never really noticed before. The house was too quiet. No click of claws on the floor. No hopeful whine from a dog who thought every trip to the kitchen might result in treats.

Duke was in the ground now, buried beneath the apricot tree. And I was sitting at my dining table with dirt still under my fingernails, trying to solve problems that felt insurmountable.

I settled into the chair beside Beatrix, the creak of worn wood breaking the heavy silence. My body ached—shoulders burning from the digging, eyes swollen from the crying, a bone-deep exhaustion that went beyond physical fatigue. But Beatrix had said she had an idea, and I was desperate enough to grasp at anything that might feel like forward motion.

Her fingers moved across the keyboard with focused efficiency, navigating websites I'd never heard of. The soft glow of the screen played across her features, highlighting the concentration in her expression, the way her brow furrowed slightly as she evaluated options and discarded them.

"Temporary fencing," she murmured, more to herself than to me. "Construction sites use it. Event management. It's not permanent, but it's fast."

I watched her work, feeling oddly detached from the process. Part of me was still outside, kneeling at Duke's grave. Part of me was in Clivilius, watching shadow panthers circle the settlement. Part of me was by the river, seeing the hatred in Jamie's eyes. I was scattered across too many moments, and none of them were here.

"Look," Beatrix said, her voice breaking through my fragmented thoughts. She turned the laptop slightly so I could see the screen better. "They have next-day delivery. I think this might work until we can figure out a more permanent solution."

I leaned forward, focusing on the website she'd found. Temporary mesh fencing panels, the kind you saw around construction sites and outdoor festivals. Modular. Portable. Not pretty, and certainly not designed to keep out predators from another dimension—but better than nothing. Better than the complete lack of barriers that currently left Bixbus exposed.

"Do you think we could order enough to protect the entire settlement?" The question emerged before I'd fully thought it through, born from a flicker of something that might have been hope. It felt unfamiliar after the darkness of the past hours—a fragile thing, easily crushed.

Beatrix's gaze met mine, and I saw the same uncertainty reflected there. She wasn't going to lie to me, wasn't going to pretend this was a perfect solution. "I'm not sure," she admitted. "But it's worth a try. And in the meantime, we can look into other options."

She turned back to the screen, fingers resuming their dance across the keyboard. I watched her add items to the cart—fence panels, concrete feet to hold them upright, connecting clamps. The numbers climbed with each addition, and I winced internally at the cost. Money I didn't really have, spent on supplies for a settlement that existed in a dimension no one on Earth knew about.

But what choice did we have? The shadow panthers had already proven what they could do. Duke was proof of that. And Henri was still in Clivilius, along with the settlers I'd brought there—some willingly, some not. They were all counting on me to keep them safe, whether they knew it or not.

"Delivery address," Beatrix said, glancing at me. "The Owens property in Collinsvale?"

I nodded. The Owens house had become our staging ground on Earth—an empty property whose owners were now permanent residents of Clivilius, whether they'd intended to be or not. Using their address for deliveries was just one more way I'd co-opted their lives for my purposes. One more item on the growing list of things I tried not to think about too carefully.

Beatrix entered the address, confirmed the order, and clicked the final button. The screen displayed a confirmation message, and just like that, it was done. Temporary fencing, scheduled to arrive tomorrow, ready to be transported through a Portal to another dimension.

"I know this is just a temporary solution," Beatrix said, her voice softer now. "But it's a start. It should be enough to give the settlers some security until we can figure out something more permanent."

A start. That's what it was. Not a solution—not even close. The fencing wouldn't stop a determined shadow panther, probably wouldn't even slow one down for long. But it was something visible, something tangible. A perimeter that said this space is protected even if the protection was more psychological than practical.

The settlers needed to believe they were safe. Needed to feel like someone was looking out for them, making plans, taking action. Even if the truth was that I was barely holding things together, making it up as I went along, burying my dog one hour and ordering construction supplies the next.

"Yeah, it will," I agreed, and something strange happened. A smile tugged at the corners of my lips—small, fragile, but real. The first genuine smile since Duke had died. "And it will give them some peace of mind too. They've got every right to be worried about the shadow panthers and other dangers that might be out there."

Other dangers. The words echoed in my mind. Charity had mentioned to Beatrix about creatures worse than shadow panthers. Things that would be attracted to Duke's body if we'd buried him in Clivilius. The settlement wasn't just vulnerable to one type of predator—it was vulnerable to an entire ecosystem of threats I didn't understand. Predators I hadn't even seen yet. Dangers I couldn't anticipate because I was operating blind, building a civilisation in a world I knew almost nothing about.

But we'd taken a step. One small, chain-link step toward protecting what we'd built.

The hope that had sparked earlier—tentative and uncertain—steadied slightly. Not into confidence, exactly. I wasn't foolish enough to think that ordering temporary fencing had solved our problems. But into something more sustainable. A sense that maybe, with enough small steps, we might actually make it through this.

I looked at Beatrix—exhausted, dirt-stained, her hair still tangled from the work we'd done in the garden. She'd shown up when I needed her. Had sat with me in my grief without trying to fix it. Had helped me bury Duke, then pivoted immediately to practical solutions because that's what the situation demanded. She hadn't flinched from any of it.

We have each other.

The thought settled into my chest, easing some of the tightness that had taken up residence there. I wasn't alone in this. Paul might be angry with me, Jamie might hate me, but Beatrix was here. Two Guardians, standing side by side, trying to build something in a world that seemed determined to tear it down.

Tomorrow, the fencing would arrive. We'd transport it to Clivilius, set up a perimeter, show the settlers that we were taking steps to protect them. It wasn't enough—would never be enough—but it was a start.

And right now, a start was all I could manage.