Page 169 of Strays
Four days before we were scheduled to return to work, we came back home. No press at our door, no threat hanging over our heads.
But we were still afraid to leave Jo alone. Aranya was in jail, but the people above him, the real ones running the network, were still free. We didn’t know whether they’d try to retaliate. We didn’t know what they might do to her. And she was scared too; we could see it.
The next morning, we drove to Bridgeport to buy everything we’d need to lock the house down. We bought smart cameras for every part of the house, inside and out. Motion-activated, night vision, real-time phone access, cloud storage. We put them everywhere except our bedroom and bathrooms.
We replaced the door locks with biometric ones; only our prints and Jo’s work. Now every door has a sensor, and every window has a break alarm. We gave Jo a smartwatch with a panic button and GPS tracker; one tap sends our phones her exact location. We also installed an app on her phone that does the same.
Still, I knew it’d be a long time before we felt safe again.
Now it’s the morning of our last day home, and we are playing basketball in the backyard after breakfast. At first, we played with her. She’s getting better, actually hitting the basket. But now it’s just the three of us passing the ball around.
I start sweating and yank off my shirt. Jay and Shane do the same. Jo’s scent reacts immediately: sharp, spiced, unmistakable. We take her inside within minutes, not even making it upstairs; we’re on her right there in the living room.
Pleasure. Closeness. Love. Joy. Home. It’s everything I feel when I’m inside her. It’s overwhelming in the best possible way. She’s my heart, living outside my body.
When we finish, Shane carries her to the bathroom to clean her up, and that’s when I remember the cameras. Yeah. We’re going to have to get used to those, remember to shut them off when things get private.
We eat lunch late, almost three in the afternoon, then put on a movie, one of our favorites. The kind Jo always says, “It’s so bad it’s good.”
We order pizzas for dinner. Tomorrow we’re back on the T1P diet, but today, we enjoy.
As we eat, Jo brings up the residency. “I’m not going back just yet. But I will, sometime in the next few weeks,” she says, looking resolute. “I’m scared to beout there, and I know you’re all nervous about it too. But I can’t let them take my career from me. If they scare me enough that I give up, they win.”
She’s right. I know it’ll be hard as hell having her out of the house, alone and unprotected, but we can’t lock her up. We’ll have to give her every protection we can, and trust that it’ll be enough.
Later, we curl up with her on the nest, her sweet scent filling every breath with calm, and I remember everything we went through to get here with her.
Balls tried to set us up. Even wrote to the MAB, trying to sabotage our match with her. But we got through it. Then Luc, disrespecting us in our own home. Talking and acting like we were animals. And all the people who stood with him, wanting us locked up because we didn’t react like dogs, wagging our tails to humans no matter what.
Then Aranya, and whoever’s behind him. They tried to destroy us. Tried to take Jo from us. And they almost did, but we take her back. And in doing so, we take him down.
He thought he could break us, but now he’s the one broken.
I hope that sends a message to anyone else who thinks they can cross us. We’re not the same pack we used to be, stray aegis trying to prove we’re controlled and safe.
Because we’re not.
We can be dangerous. We can be uncontrolled.
We can cut the leash humans think they still have around our necks.
The human world can throw whatever it wants at us. Like our pendant says: Whatever happens here, we remain.
Love and Loyalty: The Rescue of a Missing Nyra That Uncovered a Human Trafficking Network
By Barbara Leclerc | National Correspondent
In an operation described by federal officials as “deeply personal,” Johane Larsen, a nyra who vanished from a federal courthouse in Milstone, was safely recovered by her pack less than 24 hours after her disappearance.
Sources confirm that Larsen was removed from the courthouse under threat and taken to an undisclosed location. Her pack, Kory, Jayson and Shane Larsen, immediately launched a search effort. What followed has become one of the most consequential rescue operations in recent federal history.
“They acted without hesitation,” said one official familiar with the case. “Their only goal was to bring her home. And they did.”
But in the process, something far larger was uncovered.
Information obtained during the search led federal agents to a sprawling interstate human trafficking network. More than 300 women have since been rescued in coordinated raids across multiple states.
Among those arrested was Dr. Miles Aranya, a psychiatrist known for his work in women’s mental health. Authorities now allege that Aranya spent the last two decades operating trafficking rings. His arrest has reverberated across the medical community.
