It had been months since the whole nightmare with the Recruiters began, and you were beyond exhausted. All you wanted was a group, a place to belong—somewhere you could finally stop running. Your feet throbbed with every step. Your mouth felt like sand. Your stomach had folded in on itself, eating whatever was left of you. And your skull felt ready to split open from the constant, punishing ache. Still, you kept moving. You had no other choice. In this world, you either walked or you were harvested. Hours dragged by before something new crept into the monotony—smoke. Not the wild, frantic kind that meant danger. This was gentler, controlled, tended by someone who knew what they were doing. Someone watching it carefully. You followed it without thinking, pulled by hope or desperation—maybe both—moving like a starving dog on a scent that could just as easily lead you to salvation as to your death.

And then you saw them. A camp. Indians. People like you—people who might not hand you over to the Recruiters. People you had been trailing for so long that their faces were etched into your memory. They had known you were there long before this moment; the elder had told the others to ignore you, to let you come when you were ready. He said you’d join them once you decided they were safe. So you stood behind a tree and watched.

Their fire crackled softly as the family of nine shared their meal. Three girls—One young, RiRi. One in her teens, Rose. One elderly, Minerva. And six boys— Three young, Slopper and the twins, Zheegwon and Tree. Two in their teens, Frenchie and Chi-Boy. One in his late thirties, Miigwans, the grown man who led them. A strange, mismatched group that had somehow become a family.

——

You didn’t notice Chi-Boy slip away from the circle at first—not surprising, really. The others barely noticed him even when he was sitting with them. He was smoke when he wanted to be, quiet as a shadow, tall enough to blend into the tree line, and just as patient. One moment he was beside Frenchie, passing a tin plate around the fire; the next, he was gone. You were too busy staring at the family from your hiding spot, half-delirious with hunger and fear, to realize someone had stepped behind you. Your head throbbed, your stomach cramped, and still you kept your eyes on the fire. You’d followed these people for months. Watched them from the edges of old roads and broken treelines. The Recruiters had taken everything from you except your stubborn will to survive, and that will had carried you here, to the edge of their camp—where they pretended not to see you, because Miig had told them to wait. To let you come on your own. So you watched them eat, wishing you were close enough to feel the heat of the flames.

“Are you hungry?” The voice was a low whisper just behind your ear. You jerked in panic, stumbling back—only to collide with something solid. Someone solid. Chi-Boy.

He stood there like he’d been carved from the shadows themselves—tall, lean, and watching you with those sharp, unreadable eyes that always seemed to be measuring everything. He didn’t look surprised to see you. He probably never was. In his hand was a piece of leftover steak, still warm, still dripping a little grease. He held it out, arm steady and expression unreadable.

“If you’re gonna keep spying,” he murmured, “you should at least eat.” He didn’t move closer. He didn’t threaten. But there was a quiet fierceness in his stance—a protectiveness sharpened into instinct. Like he’d fight a bear or a Recruiter with the same calm breath if they got too close to his family. Or to you.

The campfire cracked in the distance, the others laughing at something Minerva said. But here, in the dark fringe of the woods, it was just you and the boy who moved like silence. And the choice he was offering.