Violet Blackstone's Arc

Chapter 1 of 14

Violet Blackstone found the second lamb dead at dawn, its rainbow wool matted black with blood. She counted the flock again. Nine left. Two nights ago there had been twelve. The fence she'd meant to fix yesterday still leaned open by the north gate, because yesterday she'd been three ridges away, coaxing a starved she-wolf out of a culvert. The woman had run before Violet could bring her home. That was the trade she kept making. Every hour spent hunting survivors was an hour the sanctuary bled. Every hour spent here was a survivor who stayed lost. She walked back to the blue farmhouse with the dead lamb across her shoulders. Six bedrooms. Four of them empty. The pack she'd been born into had cast out its weak for generations, and Violet had sworn to build a place that wouldn't. She'd bought the land with her mother's silver. She'd patched the roof herself. She had done all of it alone, and alone was starting to kill people. Inside, Colton Rivers sat at the kitchen table peeling apples from the fern tree out back. He was tall and thin under his borrowed shirt, brown hair falling over the scars on his jaw. He'd been in the house eleven days. He still flinched when she set anything down hard. She set the lamb down softly. "Coyotes?" he asked, not looking up. "Something bigger. The gate's open." He kept peeling. "I heard them last night. I didn't come get you." "Why not?" His knife stopped. "I thought if I went outside in the dark you'd think I was running." Violet pulled out the chair across from him and sat. She had planned to ride west today. A trapper had sent word about a boy chained in a shed. She could not ride west. She could not stay. She had known this for a week and kept pretending she hadn't. "Colton." She waited until he looked at her. "I need someone to run this house while I'm gone. Feed the flock. Lock the gates at dusk. Turn away anyone who comes with a pack mark on their neck. I need it to be you." He set the knife down. "I ran from my last pack." "I know." "I'm not a leader." "I don't need a leader. I need someone who knows what it costs to be turned out. You do." He was quiet a long time. Outside, one of the sheep bleated, and the whole rainbow flock answered. "If I say yes," he said, "you have to come back." "I'll come back." He nodded once. His hands were shaking. He picked the knife up anyway and went back to the apples. Violet rode west before noon. Behind her, Colton walked the fence line with a hammer he barely knew how to swing. Ahead of her, somewhere past the second ridge, a boy was waiting in a shed, and she was already three days late.