#Chapter 125: Dead Things

DEREK The cemetery was quiet. The kind of quiet that settled into your bones, that made your thoughts louder, your memories sharper. I stood alone, one hand tucked into my coat pocket, the other wrapped around the slim stem of a white chrysanthemum. It was early—too early for mourners or caretakers. The dew hadn’t yet burned off the grass. The sun filtered through the pines at an angle, gilding the headstones in soft gold. My father’s grave was near the back of the Silverclaw grounds, in the family section. The stone was simple. Elegant. His name carved in clean serif letters. The date. The title of Alpha. And beneath that, the phrase he used to say in almost every lesson he taught me: “Lead with strength, protect with honor.” I knelt and placed the flower at the base of the headstone, brushing away a few stray pine needles with my fingertips. It never felt like enough. There were so many things I wished I’d said to him. Things I wished I’d asked. Warnings I wished he’d