What Grief Doesn't Wait For

The lagoon falls behind them, but neither woman can shake what they witnessed there. Karen voices what Glenda won't admit: something about the water feels wrong. The healing properties everyone whispers about don't explain the agony that tore through Kain's body, the sounds he made that had nothing to do with stoicism.

Then Glenda sees the scratch on Karen's arm — fresh, angry, unexplained. The story that follows lands like a blow. Duke didn't survive the night. Another shadow panther attack, another life claimed while others slept or fought or bled. The grief is unexpected in its sharpness. Glenda hadn't liked Duke, not really. But he'd been theirs.

Camp greets them with silence — the wrong kind. No voices, no movement, no sign of the people who should be stirring with the sun. Joel's tent is empty. The question of where he's gone joins the growing list of things no one can answer.

By the river, Jamie cradles Duke's body like something sacred. Paul and Charity stand nearby with a silver-haired stranger — the woman whose scream split the darkness. When Jamie collapses under the weight of what he's lost, Glenda finds herself reaching for the only thing she knows: action, ritual, the steady work of holding others together while her own composure threatens to crack.

Karen stays by the fire, coaxing embers back to life, watching the horizon for figures that haven't returned. The waiting is its own kind of wound.