text: With the distraction of the returning electricity, it was easy enough for Cooper and Park to set out on the trails unnoticed.
  
  They'd grabbed one of the trail maps from the lodge, but Cooper also had his phone out, looking for inconsistencies between the map offered and the pictures of the one they'd found stuffed up Kreuger's desk leg. Like the version offered in the welcome packet, the lodge map was a bit basic, but from what Cooper could tell there were no major differences. Why go through the trouble of hiding it?
  
  Cooper snuck a peek at Park walking beside him in his sleek black rain jacket and sturdy hiking boots, dark hair collecting pre-rain mists blown in on the wind. He looked like a rugged wet dream. Literally wet, though.
  
  Might just have to ask him to marry me right now. Cooper laughed out loud, a short, almost hysterical sound, and Park looked at him, alarmed. "Now what?"
  
  "Nothing," Cooper said quickly, and went back to looking at his feet so that they stayed firmly out of his mouth.
  
  The trail was unexpectedly clear considering the acrimonious relationship between the businesses, and Cooper considered Paul's assertion that Monty was sabotaging her neighbors. Would she really go so far as to fake a death to drum up some bad publicity? What about Paul? Obviously Vanessa was the one who loved this place, who had grown up here, who wanted to work in counseling. If Paul was just along for the ride, maybe he was ready to get off at the nearest stop. Return to the best pack of his life.
  
  Kreuger was an anachronism, too. A bully and ex-pack leader, an outcast with a broken spirit, the man who had heard Reggie missed being outdoors and crafted a way for her to always look at the sky. No one working at the retreat seemed to even consider the possibility that Kreuger had killed Llcaj. He's not like that, Reggie had said. But Cooper had been working in this field for long enough to know there wasn't one type of person who killed.
  
  A slight rustling sound had started, and Cooper took a moment to realize it wasn't more wind but the beginnings of a drizzle against the leaves, too slight to penetrate the forest canopy.
  
  "The rain's started earlier than it was supposed to," he said with slight concern. The real brunt of the storm wasn't supposed to hit until the night. He hoped this stayed a manageable drizzle.
  
  "We're close," Park said. "I can smell the sawdust."
  
  Cooper compulsively inhaled, getting nothing but rain and summer earth. Park was watching him, amused. "Checking to see if that bite's kicked in yet?"
  
  Cooper's face heated. "I didn't think I was going to...change entirely. I just thought it might have, you know, an effect."
  
  Park hummed. "Disappointed?"
  
  "That feels like a trick question," Cooper said. Then, impulsively, "Are you?"
  
  Park looked perplexed. "Why would I be disappointed?"
  
  Cooper shook his head. "I don't know."
  
  That was a lie. We need to be around our own kind, Muñoz had said. Not the first time Cooper had heard a sentiment like that. He was not a good boy from a good family, as far as the Park pack was concerned. Park himself had never given any indication that he wished Cooper wasn't human. But the prospect of an engagement made you rethink these sorts of things.
  
  Cooper's pulse was pounding. "When you were young, what did you imagine your life would be like at forty?"
  
  "Steady on," Park said. "I've got a few months yet."
  
  "I mean, did you think you'd be working criminal investigation? A professor? A bachelor on the town? Big family? Dating another werewolf? Ma-married?"
  
  "God, no," Park scoffed, and Cooper's heart jumped into his throat. "I couldn't comprehend a life beyond the Shepherd. Almost from the moment we moved in with my grandparents, I knew I was being groomed as the enforcer of the pack and that one day I'd take over as alpha. Leaving was unthinkable. If I thought about the future at all, it was that. But I tried not to think about it."
  
  A rumble of thunder sounded and the rain started falling harder, droplets sneaking between the leaves and onto their heads, running down their faces. Cooper pulled his hood up and slipped his hand into Park's. "And before that? When you were younger?"
  
  Park was quiet for a while. He rubbed his thumb over the back of Cooper's hand, thoughtfully. "When I was six or so, I had one of those little plastic toy tow trucks. I can't even remember where we got it. Maybe it was one of my older siblings' once, but I was obsessed. Latched onto it like kids do. Took it everywhere, slept with it. When my little sister Addy was teething in fur, she gnawed the boom right off, but I still loved it. I thought tow truck drivers must be the luckiest. Always driving around helping stranded people. Making new friends every day."
  
  Cooper smiled, tickled. "So you wanted to be a tow truck driver?"
  
  Park hummed in disagreement. "We moved around a lot then. Now I guess it was because Mom and Dad were with the WIP," he said, naming the Wolf Independence Party. An organization whose members ranged from protesters lobbying for power reform on one end of the spectrum to domestic terrorists on the other. It was unclear where exactly Park's wayward parents fell on that scale. "As a kid I didn't know why we were always moving. I assumed it was because we were poor and not supposed to be cramming eight people into a one-bedroom apartment in the first place. The point is, sometimes I'd get home and all our stuff was in the car ready to go or I'd be woken up in the night and told we were leaving right now." He paused and ran his free hand through his wind-blown hair only to have it tossed into disarray again.
  
  It almost seemed like Park had come to the end. Wasn't going to say anymore. But haltingly he continued, "One time, I woke up and we were already in the car. Apparently, my dad had carried me while I was still passed out. Of course I'd dropped my truck. On the couch I slept on or on the way out of the apartment somewhere—" Park shook his head, cutting himself off. "It doesn't matter where. The point is it must have fallen out of my hand and Dad didn't notice. I cried and begged them to go back, but we were already an hour out by then and it was just a stupid little plastic truck."
  
  He laughed oddly. "God, we must have been annoying. Six kids complaining and crying while you're on the run for your lives and trying to stay incognito. I can't believe I never once guessed they left us behind by choice."
  
  Cooper squeezed Park's hand, his throat tight. "I'm sorry."
  
  "It was a long time ago," Park said dismissively, though the hurt in his voice belied his words. "It was a toy and our lives were in danger. But I didn't know that then. All I knew was that one day I was going to grow up and live in my own house that no one could ever make me leave ever again."
  
  Cooper was silent. Heartache was an odd feeling to have when one was contentedly walking hand in hand with the person they loved. But he felt it all the same. Heartache for that little boy begging to go back for the only consistent, sure thing in his life: the truck he'd played with while imagining any possible way to make friends.
  
  Cooper tugged Park to a stop. Looking up at him, just slightly taller, meant the rain fell into his eyes and he had to keep blinking to see Park's gently confused expression. Cooper took hold of Park's head and pulled him down for a deep kiss. His lips were cool from the rain and it was an odd contrast to the warmth of his mouth.
  
  "What was that about?" Park asked afterward, a little breathless.
  
  Cooper shook his head. "I'm sorry I've been such a dick about this whole buying a house thing."
  
  Park's soft, curious look froze then shifted into something more concerned and self-conscious. "Not a dick," he said carefully. Cooper raised an eyebrow and Park conceded, "Maybe a little prickly. Dick-lite. But I don't blame you. I didn't think about how buying a—a forever home is different from me moving into your apartment. It's a big step and I rushed you into it and—" Park took a deep breath "—if you need to hit pause, back up, stay at yours longer or maybe just find somewhere a little bigger to rent instead, I'm okay with that. Really I am."
  
  "No!" Cooper protested loudly, clearly surprising Park, but he couldn't help it. The thought of not settling down together, building something long-lasting with Park, was much scarier than the thought of giving up his own space. Joyce was right. He'd been clinging to the familiar, resistant to change, because for the first time in a long time, he wasn't running from anything. Nothing in his life was bad. But that didn't mean it couldn't get better.
  
  Cooper buried his face against Park's shoulder and groaned. "Now you've done it. I'm about to emote all over you."
  
  "That's all right. The rain will wash it away."
  
  He pulled back to look Park in the eye. "Okay, look. I want to buy a house with you. I'm happy we're doing this. I'm happy."
  
  Park studied him, then squeezed his hands and took a deep breath. "But..." he prompted.
  
  "No but. Not but!" Cooper hesitated. "Just you have to promise me something. If it's not what you think...if we're not what you think or you realize this isn't...working for you anymore, promise me you won't stay in this relationship because you think you need to support me or because you think I'm your only shot at following an alpha or because it hurts you to leave a pack. I don't want to ever put you in that position. Fallen out of love but unable to leave. Without a choice."
  
  Park opened his mouth, but Cooper held up his hand. "Please let me finish."
  
  He cleared his throat, gearing himself up for what he needed to say next. "So, I want you to know that I will be your family, pack and your, uh, alpha for as long you want me. As long as you need me. Even if we're not, you know, together anymore. You don't have to be with me or buy me things or take care of me, 'cause I'll always have your back. With or without the trimmings."
  
  So help him, he meant it. Even if it would feel like hell itself to be so close to Park but not with him anymore. Cooper didn't see any other way to neutralize this inequality of power. He had to leave the exit open, not because he wanted Park to take it, but because he needed to know they were both in this freely. Always.
  
  Park was staring at him with a blank look and Cooper gestured that he was done now.
  
  "Thank you," Park said seriously. "That's...very...nice." He nodded, not quite meeting Cooper's gaze. "I appreciate your...concern and support. I feel quite the same way about you."
  
  For a long moment the only sound was the rain on leaves, falling on their heads and streaming down their faces. But there was something...some undercurrent of emotion that was hard to identify beneath Park's overly formal tone.
  
  Cooper narrowed his eyes and noticed Park's lips start to twitch before he clamped down on them hard. He seemed to be struggling to choke something down. Abruptly he broke and burst out with a sound Cooper might have called a giggle if it wasn't Park.
  
  "Are you—are you laughing at me?" Cooper asked, appalled.
  
  "No, no, not at you," Park insisted. He had to shout a little over the sound of the rain, rapidly getting heavier and heavier. "I'm sorry, I'm not laughing because it's funny. I'm laughing because—" He shook his head, then wiped water out of his eyes, still uncontrollably grinning. "It's nice, is all."
  
  "That's not all," Cooper said suspiciously.
  
  Park raised his arms and let them smack back down to his sides in an over-large shrug. "Cooper, I'm the most feared and powerful werewolf this side of the continent, and somehow I've managed to fall in love with the only person in the whole world who thinks I can't stand up for myself. Do you know I've been driving myself crazy thinking Oliver, you idiot, you've pushed too fast, come on too strong, he's going to get scared off, while you're over here worried about my autonomy. Me."
  
  "I didn't say you can't stand up for yourself," Cooper muttered.
  
  Park laughed again, more freely this time. "Is this why you were talking all that stuff about feeling trapped? I said leaving a pack is a bad feeling, not some unbreakable soul-bond that induces certain death. My god, can you imagine?"
  
  Cooper turned away, suddenly embarrassed, but Park caught him and pulled him into a kiss, their faces slick in the rain, Park's hand dragging through Cooper's wet hair.
  
  "What was that about?" Cooper echoed when they separated.
  
  "Turns out I like it when you worry about me." He knocked their noses together. "I like it a lot. Thank you." He kissed Cooper again, soft and teasing. "And I'm excited to go home and house hunt with you."
  
  "Me, too. I think we'll do better," Cooper said with determination, then added with a laugh, "Maybe just less five-foot marble fireplaces this time."
  
  Park's brow furrowed. "I quite liked that fireplace," he murmured, which answered Cooper's question about Park's aesthetic. But having wildly different tastes suddenly felt a lot more manageable, all things considered. "Anyway, maybe we can focus on the case before we drown out here?" Park continued, and nodded toward the side of the trail that dropped off into a steep hill.
  
  "Right." Cooper kissed his nose quickly and stepped out of Park's embrace. He looked over the edge and below he could see a medium-sized warehouse. A couple of flatbed trucks were parked in the muddy lot at angles, as if they'd been hastily abandoned. Large brown puddles with rainbow sheens of oil had begun to form. The mill was oddly quiet. He had assumed Beck would have come and gone by now, but he'd still been expecting some signs of life, saw sounds and the bustle of employees.
  
  "Maybe they're closed," he considered out loud.
  
  Park frowned and nodded at a single dark SUV pulled up next to the building. "Well, someone's working overtime." He tucked the lodge map into his inner pocket and zipped his rain jacket all the way up. "Ready to look hopelessly lost?"
  
  "I've only been practicing my whole life."
  
  They hurried toward the warehouse, but the rain was near torrential now and out of the cover of the trees they were quickly soaked through. There were two enormous garage doors, but Cooper couldn't see any way for them to get in. "Now what!"
  
  Park said something, but Cooper couldn't hear him over the wind and rain on the warehouse's metal roof. "What?" he shouted back, squinting as water got into his eyes.
  
  Park gestured that they should go around the building, and together they started to run, hunched over as if it were possible to dodge between the drops. On the short end of the building, they found a white door. Above it a security camera was pointed directly down at any potential intruders.
  
  Cooper nodded at it, squinting up into the rain, and shouted, "Pretty high-end security for a place like this!"
  
  Park grabbed the doorknob, and though his hand slipped on the wet metal, it was unlocked. "Not that secure!"
  
  "Wow, that got bad fast," Cooper gasped once they were inside. He wiped uselessly at his soaked face with his soaked fingers, irritated by the drops streaming relentlessly down his cheeks. Beside him, Park shook his head, splattering Cooper with stray water. "Excuse you."
  
  Park winked, his hair all puffed out. Outside, the rain continued to pelt the walls and the roof, and the sound echoed around within the warehouse. It was more cramped than Cooper would have imagined. Most of the space was packed with enormous metal shelves, loaded with, well, wood. Four-by-fours and beams of various lengths, rectangular stacks wrapped in white and neon green plastic with the Montclaire Mill logo prominently featured—wood waiting to be delivered.
  
  The other half of the space was dedicated to metal machines Cooper wouldn't begin to know how to work. A complicated network of metal boxes, steps, walkways, tracts and saws that resembled a Rube Goldberg machine that had been interrupted halfway through assemblage. In fact, the whole place had a feeling of work that had been abandoned suddenly and left behind untouched. There was even a fat, raw tree trunk, messily shaved of bark and suspended from the ceiling by chains and pulleys.
  
  "So much for casually interviewing the employees," Cooper said.
  
  "Hello?" Park called. "Anyone here?" An eerie silence answered him. "They wouldn't have just left it all unlocked," he reasoned. "Let's look around."
  
  They explored the warehouse. There wasn't much to see besides tree trunks in various stages of being disassembled and machines that were cold to the touch, until they got to the opposite end where there was a metal-grate staircase. These led to a second-floor office that sat like a balcony. The walls were glass so that whoever worked here had an easier time literally overlooking the mill workers.
  
  Inside, the office's light was on, bathing the plain desk, filing cabinets and office chair in a sickly fluorescent glow. "Maybe the real source of fighting was that Monty and Kreuger were competing for whose office is more of a dystopian barrack," Cooper suggested, glancing over the desktop.
  
  "Look at this," Park said. Cooper joined him at the wall where Park had removed a large framed photo from its nail. Behind it was a safe. "Beck said she was complaining about trespassers and theft. Looks like she's upgraded since then."
  
  Cooper agreed, but his attention was caught by the picture in Park's hand. "Can you hold that up a minute?"
  
  A group of seven smiling people in familiar neon-green T-shirts stood by a bulldozer. Cooper recognized Monty in the center, her arms slung around two burly guys. Behind them was a low, long white dilapidated house he knew had once been pretty.
  
  "I recognize that place," Cooper murmured. "That's the building Vanessa was posing in front of. The photo hidden in her book of the man and the boy."
  
  "Are you sure?" Park asked.
  
  "It's a lot worse for wear here, but it's definitely the same. Is it weird she sold the part of the property where she grew up, do you think?"
  
  "Could be a lot of reasons for that, though."
  
  Downstairs, a door slammed shut. "Shit," Cooper whispered.
  
  Park quickly replaced the photograph on the wall and then gestured toward the door. Cooper nodded and followed Park out of the office to the landing at the top of the stairs...
  
  ...and ran right into his back with a grunt when Park stopped suddenly.
  
  "Don't you move!" a voice yelled from below.
  
  Park's hands slowly raised in the air and Cooper followed suit, stepping carefully around him to see.
  
  Down below, in the center of the warehouse stood Monty. She was soaking wet, had debris in her hair and a smear of mud on her face, but her hands were rock steady, wrapped around the shotgun balanced on her shoulder, aimed right at them.