Another pause. I hear him breathing, trying to steady himself. "Is he hurt? Does he need medical?"
"He needs Calder," Jonah says, loud enough for the phone to catch. "And he needs all of you. Now."
"Jonah." Sawyer's voice cracks completely. "Jesus Christ, Jonah. We'd thought... we've been searching."
"I know. I'm sorry. But we need to move fast. There are complications." He pauses, and his voice goes harder. Professional. "Shadow creatures are following us. They can't breach the truck, but they'll track us to the compound. You need to prepare defenses. Get everyone inside. Secure the perimeter."
The silence on the other end is different now. Tactical. "Shadow creatures. How many?"
"Multiple. And they're hunting me specifically, but they'll attack anything in their path."
"Understood." Sawyer's voice is all sheriff now. "We'll be ready. How far out are you?"
I glance at the landmarks passing by. I've driven these roads dozens of times over the past eight months. "Ten minutes, maybe less."
"Drive safe. Tanner's at a sleepover with a friend, so everyone else will be waiting." He disconnects.
I set the phone down with trembling hands. Jonah hasn't opened his eyes. His jaw works, tight with emotion he's fighting to contain.
"They never stopped looking," he says quietly. "Did they?"
"No. Everyone in town knows about the search for the missing Hayes brother."
He nods once, then stares out the windshield with that same intense focus he had when he woke up. Cataloging threats. Assessing danger.
Being what he is.
The silence stretches between us. I should probably let him process. Let him prepare for the reunion ahead. But my brain won't stop trying to make sense of the impossible.
"So." My voice sounds too loud in the cab. "Grizzly bear-shifters. That's actually a thing."
"Yeah." He doesn't look at me. "That's actually a thing."
"And your whole family."
"All five of us. Calder, Eli, Beau, Sawyer, and me." He shifts in his seat, winces. The corruption marks pulse darker for a moment. "Our clan has been guarding the ley lines for generations. They run strongest here. Someone needs to protect them."
Ley lines. The shimmer I've been photographing for eight months. The energy that makes my compass spin and my phone die and my skin prickle with awareness.
"The shimmer," I say. "The thing I've been documenting. That's the ley lines?"
"Most likely." He finally turns to look at me, and in the growing light the corruption has clearly aged him. Dark circles under his eyes. Hollows in his cheeks. "You can see them?"
"Sometimes. When the light hits right. Mostly I just feel them. Like static electricity, but deeper. In my bones." I navigate around a fallen branch, the truck's suspension groaning. "I thought it was just a geological phenomenon. Something I could capture on film and study. Maybe build my career on a discovery."
My career. The documentary grant. The life I had planned that didn't include dimensional tears and shadow creatures and men who turn into bears.
"It is geological. Just not in any way conventional science understands." His hand rests on the door handle, ready. "The ley lines are currents of pure energy flowing through the earth. They connect places of power. Create convergence points where reality gets thin."
Like the place where he came through. Where I watched him tear himself free from another dimension while shadow creatures hunted him.
"And I've been feeling you," I say quietly. "Through them. For six months."
He goes still. "What do you mean?"
"The dreams. They started six months ago. You, drowning. Fighting something I couldn't identify. Calling out." I swallow hard, remembering the nights I woke up gasping, tasting salt water, feeling terror that wasn't mine. "Calling my name, even though we'd never met. I thought I was losing my mind. Stress from the grant deadline. Too much time alone in the forest."
"The bond between us." He says it like it's fact. Like it explains everything. "It connects us through the ley lines. When I was trapped, when I was fighting to get back, I must have been reaching out to you without realizing it."
