The call had never truly been Sioux — only close enough to her voice to fool him in the dark.

Sals is lying still on the forest floor, hurt, hidden under leaves. The creature has gone. The trap has already closed. In the quiet after, one thought rises above everything else: he walked in without a weapon because the call sounded like someone he loved. It did not need to be her. It only needed to be close enough. That is the thing he has to sit with now, alone in the dark — not that something deceived him, but that it knew exactly which sound would make him stop thinking and start moving. We all carry a voice like that. A word, a tone, a familiar shape in the air. Something that can reach past our better judgment before we even notice we are moving. It is not weakness. It is simply what it means to have people who matter to you. But it is worth knowing which voices you would follow anywhere — and whether you have ever paused to ask why. What is the sound that could lead you somewhere before you have thought to check where you are going?