The door to Nick's store opened with a ring, and she came to his usual spot at the cash register within seconds.

  "Hot damn, Shilloh. Are you okay?'

  She grunted, "It's fine, just some weird thrashing flora I came across."

  Fraulein stalked in behind her. Imperious, with a brand-new fur pattern and a subtle put-upon air. As if to say, 'Can you believe how dumb my human is? Look at how much I put up with.'

  One of the things she liked about Nick was that he took what he was given—not because he was dumb, but because he chose not to care about other people's private business.

  More than once, someone had come in very clearly lying to him about what ritual they were buying equipment for. He usually just rolled with it. She had asked him why he didn't push for the truth. His answer had been that they didn't have anything that would make a big enough explosion to weigh on his conscience, so they were allowed to be secretive.

  Shilloh leaned against his counter, already thinking about how she would frame her request when he surprised her.

  "That's horse shit. You've got cuts and bruises, and you're moving like mummy."

  She blinked.

  "What?" The burly shopkeeper asked. "Why are you looking at me like I'm the weird one?"

  "I don't know, I didn't peg you for someone who gets involved."

  "I'm not," he glared. I hate drama, I don't like crises, and I am not a fan of bullshit."

  They both stared at each other, "… I'm waiting for the 'but' that comes after that."

  "There isn't one. I hate this, and I want it to stop. So tell me why you look like your bobcat ("kitten," Shilloh whispered) decided to kick your ass."

  Even through her exhaustion, she felt a warm little knot form in her stomach. He wouldn't say it, but she knew the part he had left out. He didn't like drama, so he only put up with it for friends.

  That was… nice.

  Though that word was too mellow for the surge of warmth and protectiveness that welled up inside her. But 'nice' was all she was willing to concede. Any feelings larger than that would need to wait till she was alone in her house with wine, a bath, and no one able to see her. All this friendship and vulnerability made her feel gross.

  "Thank you, Nick. I appreciate the sentiment. I've been helping Wade and Jasque find something dangerous. I've had to shoot some things and take on some risks."

  He frowned but didn't interrupt.

  "They think they found out the thing we've been looking for. But they're wrong. I know it. And the magic it's using is some deep stuff. I don't think it's okay to let them be wrong."

  His eyes narrowed. He reached under the counter, grabbed a water bottle, and tossed it to her with a bit too much aggression.

  "You know. I was having a really mellow week. Work was going exactly apace. My family wasn't having any drama. My biggest concern was budgeting for a wedding I needed to attend in a few months.

  "I'm sorry."

  He brushed that away with an irritated swipe of the hands, "Start from the beginning."

  ~~~

  She finished her tale, and Nick puffed out a breath.

  "I'll be honest. I think it's more rational to place faith in the expert crypto hunters rather than your strong intuition. Even if it is informed by a life spent getting to know the rhythms of nature."

  "Fair," she said. And Shilloh meant it. If anyone other than a dryad was saying this, she would be highly skeptical, if not outright mocking. "But let us presume that I am not embarrassingly wrong."

  He gave her a very expressive silence.

  " And," she said, forging on, "let's further assume that I would like to know more about this branch of magic. The whole claiming of territory and ownership stuff. Where would you advise this hypothetical not-a-paranoid-idiot-Shilloh to go?"

  "Dunno, it's just really hard to imagine what she would look like."

  The dryad laughed, and he smiled before answering her question, "So, speaking honestly, I don't know too much about it. It's possible via ritual. But that's firmly in my mental filing cabinet labeled, 'too annoying to research unless a client pays for help.' I could hazard some guesses about it, but that magic has vagueness to it. A sort of concept-driven rather than mechanical drive output that makes it very hard to reproduce in ritual without seeing how it's been done successfully before."

  "Where would you go to research it?"

  He raised an eyebrow, "Please take this as me mocking you and not being a dick to you, but you don't want to go where I would go. It's boring. Plus, the level of hot air and pretension in these studies would drive you to arson."

  "Okay," she frowned, going over to one of his shelves. This one was full of springs. She was too tired to hold still, so she wiggled a spring that was thin enough to make a funny noise while she played with it. "That's fair, but I don't know what to do with that."

  "Easy, you promise me that you will take a day, if not three, to recover before you take any action. Then I'll give you a lead that would be obvious if you weren't in a compromised state of mind."

  Rage had a tendency to linger. She was no longer smoldering with it, but it was not far gone. That was enough for her to go straight from laughing to the sort of anger that made your skin hot.

  "You can't order me around and insult me."

  "I also can't be complicit in you getting hurt."

  "All I need is—"

  She proceeded to make a very persuasive case. The big bald man just looked at her with calm eyes. He did not interrupt. No faces were made, and no curse words were whispered. He even nodded as if acknowledging a few of her points.

  "—and calling in a report with some additional evidence isn't inherently dangerous. Not like I'd try to go stop it alone."

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  He looked at her with a face that would have looked politely restrained if not for the default pissed-off cast on his face. As it was, he appeared like he was channeling anger into civil disobedience.

  "No," said Nick.

  "What do you mean, 'no.'"

  "Exactly what I said. I'm not telling you to stop, though I should. I'm asking you to take a day to get your shit together 'cause you look like you're in bad shape physically. The fact that you can't even entertain that level of concession means you're operating on pure stubbornness and absolutely should not be meddling in a dangerous affair when you have no training or support."

  "This can't wait!"

  "Why?"

  Shilloh was about to say it was too dangerous but recognized the trap. Could she say it was urgent? No. He would tell her to call things in immediately if it was that urgent, which she refused to do.

  An uncomfortable realization struck her.

  "Oh, you son of a bitch," she said, already unhappy with how many feelings had come up today. She held up a hand to quiet him before he could ruin it. Quietly and deliberately, the dryad closed her eyes. She used each exhale to relax different muscles. Rolled her neck around a few times and tried to imagine her grandmother's voice telling her what to do.

  "I," Shilloh said, wondering why staying calm felt like it took more strain than powerlifting an elephant, "don't want to do that because I am angry. I want to be vindicated."

  "That is fair," Nick said, not rubbing it in, much to her surprise. "Might I request that you seek to be vindicated while being safe and focusing on your own personal priorities? To an outside observer, this looks like you tricking yourself into spending more of your time and effort on situations you don't enjoy. Though I'm also bad at ignoring things being mismanaged right in front of me, so I can't throw too many stones."

  Well fuck. That was hard to argue against. Especially when he said it like everyone else was the problem and she was too good for everything pissing her off.

  "I'm not stopping."

  He shrugged. "Dude, you're a nice lady, but I'm not willing to spend hours or days forcing you to go that far. Just sleep and get some food."

  "Fine."

  A look of relief crossed his face. "Cool. So, to answer your question. Just ask someone in the PAAW Security Office."

  "The S.O.?" But even as the name left her mouth, it started to make sense.

  Things have been much less standardized and official ever since M-Day. Lots of weird practices and businesses have popped up, all trying to figure out a way to profit from each new change that came with their staged apocalypse.

  Most of these attempts failed, but organizations that were lucky enough to work had resources thrown at them. Small tricks and innovative tactics for surviving were picked up and spread far—at least until the organizations failed, and a brand new 'solution' to the apocalypse rose up through the Darwinian ranks of innovation and desperation to replace it.

  PAAW—the Post Apocalyptic Association of Weres—and the Blightbanes had come about just that way. A small region had faced a threat. A group of people banded together to survive it. Cryptos, bandits, or the casual cruelty of deities, it didn't matter. When someone survived where many others died, they collected adherents and followers.

  A small group became a small organization, which then spread to the next town, the next county, and so forth.

  What was left of the government saw results and didn't quibble. They were at war, so they slapped the seal of approval on organizations that scaled well enough, gave them funding, and assigned them new responsibilities each time they succeeded.

  Eventually, the Blightbanes became a quasi-government organization like the Red Cross. Sure, their charismatic leader had horrible naming sense, but they got the monsters dead, and that was what really mattered.

  Similar funding and support had happened with PAAW. They were more on the private organization side, though. Probably because their roots were being discriminated against and exiled, Weres banded together and formed communities. Their utility as a buffer species and higher survivability meant they had thrived. But, their ethos was still firmly rooted in ground watered by an 'us-versus-them' mentality. On PAAW lands and in PAAW communities, the Security Office was the peacekeeper.

  It made perfect sense that they would be experts in the magical claiming of territory. Every Were had the potential to create a Mark. So, not only were they policing a population with the ability, but they were probably drawing the ire of every magical species with a similar power that saw their Marks as a challenge.

  "Holy shit. You were right. That really was an obvious suggestion."

  He nodded and started fiddling with his desk to ensure everything was perfectly parallel. "Easy mistake when you're worn out."

  There had been subtle emphasis on his last two words. She sighed as she handed him back the spring that she had been fidgeting with. "Maybe. That should have been something I would have thought of immediately. But, if you were right, that would be embarrassing. Even though I admit nothing, let's never talk about it again just to be safe."

  He looked at her skeptically before nodding once and speaking in a much less strained voice. "If you want, Birch has connections and some sway that might get the S.O. to cooperate with you."

  "I already know someone. Plus, no offense, but I've met Birch like four times. I'm not ready to call in favors yet."

  "I could be the one that calls it in. It would even be fair. Learning about this could be pretty cool, and you're doing the leg work for me."

  She wanted to argue but held herself back. "Fine. But I'll let you know what I find out. It will be an in-depth report, and we'll be even for you loaning me your brain."

  She had said it smiling and meant it as a subtle 'thank you.' But Nick immediately crossed his arms and glared. "Uh-uh. Nope. No debts and back-and-forth. That's tedious. Friends are helpful. Statistics and the law of large numbers will lead us into long-term equivalence."

  Shilloh dropped her eyes and busied herself, petting Fraulein. She had been going about on her crusade alone and getting pretty angsty about it. And suddenly, she not only found out she had been ignoring a friend, but a pretty damn good friend who was willing to have awkward talks and say stuff like that.

  But feelings were weird, so she decided to ignore it. "I can be okay with that," she said, then she forced herself to stand up straight and put on a smirk." But you'd better stop weeping every time you dramatically profess your friendship to me."

  "We're not children."

  "You're practically belting into the night sky like it's a musical."

  "I'm a clear and conscientious communicator."

  "I'm afraid you'll faint like my great grandma at an Elvis concert."

  "I'm not embarrassed by having a friend or sharing my emotions.

  Shilloh's nose scrunched up, "Gross. I am. That shit is how you get cooties."

  The big bald man rolled his eyes and turned to pull a ledger out from under his desk. "Children," he grumbled, taking a pen and returning to his job. "I swear I'm surrounded by children. Just go. Rest and recuperate, and I'll call once everything is set up with the Security Office."

  She was torn between thanking him and pissing him off more, but he didn't let her open her mouth.

  "Stop it. I've met my drama quota for the day. I don't care what you do; I have executed my duty as a friend, and your recuperation is completely your concern. Unless you're about to ask me to recommend you some good books to read or a nice lunch spot, we can be done."

  "You're no fun."

  "No," he said with a faint smile, "I'm not fun. But I am very stable and very pleased with banality."

  "Why? Life is vivid and fun and full of wonders."

  "You know, they say the worst curse to put on someone is to wish them to live in interesting times. I don't want to live through an interesting war, a monster surge, or anything else that makes it into a history book. I want to have a vivid, fun, wonderful life that is as uninteresting as I can manage while still being happy.

  You," he continued, "should go enjoy your interesting monster, and your interesting Blightbane conspiracy. I'm going to read a book with spaceships in it and go to bed early."

  She started to walk away but paused halfway towards the door. "So, can we pretend I stalked off with my head held high? Cause I actually would love a book recommendation."

  With a snap, Nick shut his accounts ledger and leaned over the counter with more energy in his eyes than he had possessed when talking about her life and death monster hunt.

  Off to the side, she saw a certain bobcat slink up towards the rear of the counter in Nick's blind spot. She found herself smiling and walked back to the counter.

  It was one of the better parts about living on the border like this. Every season was a life-or-death matter. Everyone got too caught up in it at some point, but it was easy to find someone to set your head straight and remind you of the important things.

  "What is your stance on smut?" She asked, allowing herself to foist her responsibilities off on Future-Shilloh.

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