The Cost of Five Minutes

VANCE’S POV

“No.”

“He raised you.”

“He saved me.” Malachi’s voice is stripped to the bone. “I was eleven. Living in the drainage tunnels under the old industrial district. Eating whatever I could steal. He found me during one of his community rounds — the pack clinics he ran in the low-income districts. I had a fever that should have killed me, and he brought me home and treated me for three weeks