Chapter 23 - Maisie

It’s been only two months since I was last living above the clinic. The day after arriving back, I find myself sitting behind my desk just to remember how it felt to be there, held firm in the silence.

It hasn’t gotten dusty. Veronica maintained this place while I was gone. But it’s closed right now, and I’ve been assured it’ll stay that way until I’m ready to decide what to do next.

Nonetheless, here I am, behind my desk.

The room is so quiet when Keira comes in that the sound of her boots squeaking against the tiled floor, tracking in the rain and the faint scent of wet earth, is almost cacophonous. The rain has finally slowed after days, but the wet heat in the air has settled and left the ground soaked through.

I’ve been trying to focus on reorganizing the medicine cabinets, but my hands are shaking too badly to hold onto anything for long. When I hear her enter, the sound startles me so badly that I drop a roll of bandages and have to scramble to pick it up, cursing under my breath.

“Sorry,” I mumble, not yet turning. “Just give me a second.”

She says nothing, but I feel her presence behind me—strong and sure but heavy with unspoken words. I don’t need to look to know she’s worried.

As I re-shelve the bandages, she clears her throat softly, and I finally give up, turning to face her.

"Hey," I say, my voice small in the otherwise empty space. I brace my hands on the top of my desk. "Is everything okay?"

Keira doesn’t answer right away. Instead, she leans her narrow hip against the counter a few feet from me, crossing her arms over her chest. Her usually sharp, analytical gaze is soft with concern and understanding, but it still makes me feel like I’m being X-rayed. She has that effect on people.

"Maisie," she begins, her tone low but steady, "There’s something you need to know, and I care too much about you to talk in circles about it. You just need to hear it."

Not more bad news. God, please, no more bad news. I’m not sure I can handle it—I’m not sure my nerves can take another scare.

I sit behind my desk, half-falling into my chair. “Oh.”

Keira moves closer. She pulls up a seat opposite me but doesn’t move into my space. I appreciate her for letting me keep my distance.

“Go on,” I prompt after a moment, bracing myself.

I heard once it hurts less if you don’t try to prepare for impact. But I’m not sure I believe that anymore.

"They’re going to attack Rosecreek," Keira says. "It’s not just a possibility anymore. We thought we had more time, but after the raid and them learning you and Zane’s real allegiances, they’re coming for us. Could be a week, maybe more. Maybe less." She pauses, her jaw tightening, eyes locked on mine. “We’re going to evacuate civilians. You’re on the list. You and the baby.”

The room shifts for a moment. Everything seems to tilt to the side and the ground disappears from under me.

I grip the desk, knuckles white. In the front of my skull, the throb of my pulse rattles all the way through me. Breathe. Breathe, Maisie. You’re a doctor. Pull yourself together.

It’s not like I didn’t know this was coming. Some part of me has known since two nights ago, when Brendan tried to kill me, when Zane barely stopped him. I knew, even then, or some part of me did. I felt the presence of the impending war as it followed us all the way back to Rosecreek.

But hearing it spoken out loud, hearing Keira tell me that I’m supposed to leave…

Something slots into place in my heart. A key into a lock.

“No,” I say, shaking my head, the word sharp on my tongue. “I’m not leaving.”

Keira’s brows knit together, her mouth pulling into a thin line of worry. “Maisie—”

“I’m not leaving them behind!” My voice comes out far louder than I meant it to be. In the emptiness, it seems to echo with a permanence that embeds it. My clinic. My safe place. No longer safe from this. And I know I can’t be, either. “I can’t. They’ve done so much for me— you’ve done so much for me. I can’t just run when the pack needs me most. I’m a medic. I need to be here.”

Keira’s expression falters. A flash of something horribly pained crosses her features, and I know she, too, is remembering what she went through only months ago. Her sense of duty led her into unthinkable peril. I watched it happen. We both remember how close it was, in the end, to destroying her.

“Maisie,” she murmurs, “No one expects you to fight. No one would ever hold it against you if you left. You’re carrying a child. The pack needs you safe.”

"I can’t," I whisper, my voice breaking. “I can’t just... sit somewhere safe while everyone else is risking their lives. I owe them this. And if something goes wrong… if someone gets hurt… I can help. I have to help. Rosecreek is my home. My only home.” Tears well in my eyes. “I’m not leaving my home again.”

For a long while, she just looks at me. She knows about everything, all of it: the baby, Zane’s coldness, our fight, the rain, the promise I made to myself that night that I was through with it. I broke down and told her while Veronica was patching my head wound. It still aches now.

Was it really only two days ago that I still had him?

No, I tell myself. I never had him at all.

Finally, as if she can see where I’m spiraling to in my mind, Keira nods, though her jaw is still set. “Okay. But I’m putting you far from the front lines. You’re staying back. Absolutely no direct contact with them, and we’re putting an exit strategy in place. If they make it through the barriers, you leave. Immediately. I’m not negotiating that, Maisie. Even Olivia’s agreed to be evacuated. And you know the way she is.”

I exhale, my chest tight with relief, but guilt gnaws at me. If even Olivia is being sent away… I’d imagine Linnea is going, too, and all the kids will be brought to a safe place. I could help them if I needed to. Nobody would blame me for it.

But I can’t leave. I can’t run away from this. I’ve never been a fighter, but I’ll do whatever I have to do.

And whatever exit strategy she cooks up, it’ll be my decision whether I make use of it.

Searching for comfort. I rest a hand on my stomach. I’ve never liked my stomach before, I realize. I’ve always felt like it’s an unthinkably ugly part of me. But I don’t hate it anymore. How could I, with the little life growing inside me now?

“Thank you,” I say quietly.

Keira rests her hand on top of my desk, leaning close enough that I can see, in her eyes, the truth of her commitment. “You don’t have to thank me. We’re taking care of you, Maisie. The pack will protect you no matter what happens. You and your baby. I promise.”

I believe her. How could I not?

After a moment, she stands hesitantly.

“You don’t need to be there,” she promises me, “but we’re strategizing in the pack center. I’ll bring any news to you that you need to know, and the others will come by to check on you whenever they can.” She pauses as if wondering whether to say something, before seeming to think better of it and retreating toward the door.

I watch her slipping away, her usually voluminous blonde hair flat and raked back, the tired slant of her shoulders more pronounced than ever. In the gray light through the front windows, I understand her better now than I ever have.

And I know I need to ask her.

Before I can stop myself, I bolt up from my seat.

“Wait! How’s… how’s Zane?”

Keira looks over her shoulder. In her eyes, I see trepidation, conflict, sadness, a thousand truths I can’t hope to tap into. Was that what our enemies saw in my eyes as I lied to them? That impenetrable wall?

She’s an intelligence specialist. I realize the truth even before she has spoken. She will give me the information that is most beneficial for me to have and nothing more.

“He’s handling it,” she says as warmly as she can, as warmly as one can lie. “We’re all under pressure.”

And just like that, she’s gone.

***

Over the following week, Zane doesn’t visit me, but I can tell he has attempted to. He probably knows the pack will wring his neck if he bothers me outright, so he’s quieter than he could be, more withdrawn in his attempts.

The first time, I notice it in the way the back door creaks slightly when I come downstairs in the early hours of the morning. The air feels tainted with the faint scent of him, something primal and familiar, lingering just beyond the clinic’s walls.

But when I check outside, there’s no one there. The door, half-ajar, swings gently in the wind.

I close it, heart heavy, and go back to bed, trying not to think about the ache that follows me like a shadow.

A day later, I spot him out of the corner of my eye through the rain-streaked windows—just for a split second. His broad figure stands in the street, drenched from the unrelenting downpour, watching the clinic with a kind of helplessness I can feel even from a distance. I can barely see his eyes, but I know we’re watching each other. I feel his eye contact like a static shock.

But before I can make myself stand from my desk, one of the others must pass into his sight across the street at the pack center. He vanishes into the mist like a ghost.

They’re keeping him away. I know it’s for my sake. I try not to feel sick with guilt for that.

I find a letter folded carefully and slid through the letterbox in the front door. It’s his handwriting—rough and harried, streaked with damp, but unmistakably his. My name is scrawled across the front of the envelope. Each stroke seems to bear a heavy weight.

I can’t bring myself to open it. I leave it on my desk, where it seems to watch me imperiously.

The next morning, there is another. Then another. By the end of the week, a small pile of unopened letters sits in the top drawer of my desk, and I have not opened a single one, though even that feels like a terrible betrayal. Each time I see them, my stomach twists. I try to remind myself of my other responsibilities, the things I stayed to do, but I feel useless half the time, impossibly heartsick and headspun, lurching through the motions of my life like a misplaced ghost.

I make decaf coffee. The smell reminds me of our days in the condo. I try to breathe slowly through the waves. I try to stay afloat.

The rest of Rosecreek is far from still. The town is alive with anxiety, its momentum seizing in the air like the calm before the storm. I see it all through my windows, feeling like a prisoner, feeling like a bug in a terrarium. Even as the evacuation of civilians begins; families packing what little they can carry, kids hugging each other tightly as they say their goodbyes, children for whom I’ve babysat crying as they are ushered toward cars. Those of us who are staying begin to prepare for the worst.

The Haverwood Pack is coming. Any day now. The certainty of it seeps into everything. The very ground seems to hum with it.

I spend my days holed up in the clinic, throwing myself into the work: reorganizing supplies and prepping for the inevitable injuries that will flood through my doors. I draft treatment plans for everything from deep lacerations to magical poisoning, laying out salves and syringes filled with the shimmering blue liquid that can stabilize shifters mid-transformation if things get dire.

The shelves are stacked high with bandages, antibiotics, and painkillers. I prepare half a dozen emergency suture kits for those who will be out in the field, packed with stuffing gauze, needles, and bandages for tourniquets. But somehow, these things feel fragile, insufficient. I’ve been learning about shifter physiology—how our bodies react to trauma, how our natural healing processes can either save us or betray us in battle. Magic is unpredictable, but I’ve been experimenting with new techniques, infusing herbal remedies with the latent magic I’ve been training myself to harness.

It’s all I can do to keep my mind occupied. Anything to distract from the letters. From him.

I keep in contact with Keira, Olivia, and the others as they reinforce the town’s defenses. They call in as often as they can, trying not to forget me, though I can tell there are a thousand other things on their minds. They tell me about it all; they’ve turned every boulder into a possible shield, reinforced the natural barriers along the outskirts of Rosecreek, sharpened and loaded weapons, and fortified emergency bunkers deep in the woods where the wounded can be moved for treatment in the event of a complete takeover. They’ve laid explosives along the borders, too, and all manner of nastier traps—bear traps, pits, wires, bait, false signals, misleading lights, and structures in the woods surrounding our town. Nobody has to tell me whose idea all of those were. I already know who would think to construct such things.

I try to stay strong. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.

Some days, it’s all I can do to keep standing. The nausea is relentless. Fear is its best friend; both of them sit in my stomach and my chest at all hours. Morning sickness and anxiety are my constant companions, leaving me lightheaded and drained. I hold on to the edge of the countertops when waves of dizziness hit, my breath coming shallow as I wait for the worst of it to pass.

Keira catches me one day, leaning heavily against the doorframe, one hand on my stomach, the other pressing against my forehead.

“You okay?” she asks quietly, resting a warm hand on my bicep. She’s wearing one of Ado’s sweaters. She looks exhausted.

“I’m fine,” I lie, giving her a tight smile.

She doesn’t believe me, but she doesn’t push it. We both know there’s nothing else to be done. I can’t stop. I won’t stop.

Evacuations are finished quickly and efficiently. Those who stayed are our core, those of us stronger to hold down the fort. I see my packmates patrolling in the streets, their eyes flicking toward the horizon every time they step outside, as though expecting the Haverwood wolves to appear at any moment. Aris, Bigby, Percy, Rafael, Ado, Byron, Zane, Veronica, Keira, and Rosa all stayed behind. Everyone’s kids have been evacuated. Even Bits is gone, secreted away with everyone else to some nearby town even I haven’t been alerted to the name of.

I hear their footsteps at night, just outside the clinic. Sometimes, I hear hushed conversations through the walls, low and urgent, discussing strategies, defenses, and possible escape routes.

Keira pops in and out, updating me on the preparations, though there’s little she can say to soothe my nerves.

Everyone is on high alert, but there’s a sense of determination in the air. They won’t let Rosecreek fall without a fight.

As I prepare the last of my supplies, Keira drops by again. Her face is pale with exhaustion, her usual confidence dimmed by the burden of leadership.

“They’ll come soon,” she tells me, her voice tight as if she’s trying to hold back the incoming rush of the inevitable. But it’s like the tide. There’s no stopping it. “Maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after. But they’re coming.”

I nod, my heart racing. I hear the unspoken part. Maybe tomorrow, maybe sooner.

Fear will not break me. If there’s one thing everything with Zane has taught me, it’s that only I get to decide what breaks me. Rosecreek is my home. It’s all I have left. And I’ll do whatever I must to protect it, no matter the cost.