Rite followed the somewhat familiar patrol path away from the clearing, ignoring Cookie’s raucous jeers and Twinkle’s shouts.

Bile burned in his throat, and Rite rubbed his aching stomach, remembering the empty bottle sitting on the nightstand. At this rate, he knew the medtechs would have him back on an even more restrictive diet. Unless they washed their hands of him and sent him back to the capital.

He stopped and scrubbed his face, grimacing at the gritty dirt and tears that smeared across his skin. This — feeling scorned, feeling abandoned because the people he was supposed to rely on saw him as nothing but an extension of the Ambassador — didn’t solve anything, and he knew it. Sighing, he pressed his fingers to his eyes, focusing on the spangled colors that shot across his blackened vision.

Then he froze, hands still blocking his sight.

A muffled sob reached his ears — vocal misery to match his silence. 

Rite dropped his hands and crept toward the clearing which — he knew from the maps he’d studied and the last three nights of patrols — held another live trap. At the tree’s edge, he stopped again.

Moonlight glazed a small-boned figure with dark, ragged hair that knelt next to the trap, tugging at something stuck inside. Thin shoulders shook with sobs.

Frowning, Rite tipped his head in consideration. The whole point of the TNR program was to capture discards — not felines or canines with owners, however poorly equipped those owners may be to take care of their beasts. He fingered the spelled key looped on his belt and glanced over his shoulder. Should he wait for the experienced TNRs to catch up?

Another glance at the sobbing figure settled his mind, and he strode into the clearing. The figure jerked around at his approach, and the moonlight revealed small, high breasts and a face that, even streaked with tears and dirt, could only be described as breathtaking. The girl drew herself to her feet and placed her painfully thin body between Rite and the trap. Her sharp gaze traced his black uniform, the stunner-rod, and the tangle-line before landing on his face with a hatred that made him stop short.

“Haven’t you done enough?” Her eyes glinted silver in the moonlight.

“What?” Rite shook his head. “We’re — I’m here to help. Your pet got caught by mistake, right? We only work with strays.” He stepped forward again. “I’ll help you get it free, then see you safely home. It’s dangerous out here at night.”

The girl choked, a half-laugh, half-sob tangled up.

“You’re here to help?” She spun away, revealing the trap. “This is your help?”

Moonlight tried to soften the horror inside the trap. Too-thin limbs, straggling hair — muted to an almost artistic image. Blood splatters — darkened to black by the night. A tiny arm — crushed by the metal door. Baby-soft skin — shredded, as a child had fought to be free. 

Only a reflexive locking of his knees kept Rite on his feet. Only instinct sent his fingers to the tangle-line as a soft growl announced the girl’s intention. Then he collapsed onto the packed dirt beside the now-tangled wolf.

His mind felt crippled as he stared from the girl — still too thin, even as a wolf — to the child, dead in the live trap. A flicker of shame pierced him as training made him inspect her teats — this one had no cubs nursing, no others to seek out immediately. He pieced together crude jokes, whispered rumors, and party lines into a picture that sickened him, especially as he considered his willingness — his eagerness — to participate.

“Can you shift back?” he asked, not meeting the wolf-girl’s eyes. The soft growl — a near-silent promise — faded into something more human, though no less hostile. “Why?”

Her gasping half-sob, half-laugh cut him to the bone.

“No.” He shook his head at the misunderstanding. “I know why you attacked. What I meant, though… You know they’re traps. Why do you get caught?”

He didn’t think she’d answer. He wasn’t sure she could, with her breath sawing through her nostrils like each would be her last. Gradually, she calmed, still tangled and helpless, but exhausted.

“The food is hard to ignore.” She licked her lips. “Especially when we’re fleet-footed… We never have enough to eat.”

Rite opened his mouth, then shut it. 

“But the pheromones?” The girl shuddered. “It smelled like mother. She ran in before I could stop her, then tried to run back out when she realized her mistake.”

The trap — set to the expectation of a full-grown beast — might not trip if a child entered. 

Might not.

“This can’t go on.” 

The girl scoffed, twisting in her bindings.

“It can’t. We’re… we’re exterminating—” Rite bit his lip and swallowed down the bile that rose in his throat. Softer, he continued. “We may not have corpses littering the forest when we’re done, but this isn’t any better.”

“What can you do about it, tinder? A little bit of fluff, fueling the TNR program?”

Rite could almost picture it — expending himself on a destructive cause, while all the Nexus looked on, thinking he was helping them build a future.

“They don’t know. They can’t know. Except a few.” Rite considered, painfully, who had to know and swallowed. “So… we tell them.”

He shoved to his feet and crossed to the girl, pressing the key to the center of the tangle-line. Freed, she scrambled away.

“People are stupid. They’ll never believe you,” she said, rubbing her limbs and resting on the forest detritus.

“But they’ll believe us if we show them.” Rite extended his hand and held his breath. “What’s your name?”

Without accepting his aid, the girl rose to her feet, looking him straight in the eye. She glanced between the cage and his stunner-rod, still holstered on his belt.

“Whisper,” she said, reaching for his hand. “Call me Whisp.”