ONE

~Kezi 

There’s one thing about being a Time Traveller that I quite enjoy.

My eyes focus on a single point on the ceiling of this car. A piece of frayed fuzz hanging down. Everything else around is fazes in and out of focus. Despite seeing it so vividly, I’m floating in between realities. Different parts of my mind reach for my conscious all at once. My emotions, my thoughts. 

If successful, it expels a euphoric state of pleasure that’s better than any drug. It’s the best way to push problems away for the meantime. Until they creep back up on me. This is my hiding spot. Right in the middle of my mind. 

“Kezi, wake up,” Avia’s voice creeps into my conscious. Just like like early this morning. 

Shielding my face with my hand, I allow myself to adjust to my surroundings. The morning light is blinding, but regardless, I attempt to assume where we are. Curving roads, rolling hills covered in dense pine. This is nowhere I know. Somewhere between Packs. 

“I need gas. How about you grab some snacks from the station, and we will continue. We aren’t so far away now,” Avia tells me, turning in a small gas station tucked in between two hills. 

I nod, despite the reluctance to step out into public after what happened early this morning. 

The gas station is occupied by one red truck parked on the side, clearly belonging to one of the staff, and a small hatchback getting gas. I would feel a lot more comfortable if no one was here. Contacting anyone is dangerous and traceable. Avia and I just need to get to another Pack, change our identities, and move on. 

She pulls in, and I hope out. The air around here is crisp and fresh. I’m curious. I would ask where we are if I wasn’t so concerned about someone else hearing. People may get suspicious. 

While Avia works on filling the car, I wander into the building, caution and snacks on my mind. 

Something buzzes above my head as I walk in, my tip of my shoe nearly catching on the edge of the mat. A woman at the counter barely glances above her thick rimmed glasses, concentrating instead on the paper in her hands. Perfect. 

I slip into an aisle, picking up foreign snack items, keeping them tightly pressed against my palm. Chocolate. Chips. Other indentifiable items. 

Avia walks into the store just as I reach the counter. She grins at me and winks. I’m surprised she’s so nonchalant about being here, in the open, with witnesses around. Surely we have been reported to officials, who now have a warrant for our arrest. A public one, too. One citizens can partake in. 

Avia pays, and even has the audacity to banter with the woman at the front about the weather. She’s speaks easily, smoothly, as if she has lived in the middle of nowehere all her life. This is why I trust Avia. She can talk when I cannot. 

“This is dangerous,” I mutter lowly to Avia as we walk back to the car. 

“You’re starting to sound like me,” she murmurs in response, sending me a wink. I roll my eyes at her. She’s awfully calm since last night, which is a new angle for her. I’m used to her imminent stress, constant head turns and cautious glances. Now I suddenly feel as though I’m compensating for her. 

Our drive begins again, and I waste no time trying to find out where she is taking us. 

“Where is it this time?” I question, peeling the golden packaging off a bar of chocolate. “You haven’t yet shared your masterful plan. I’m concerned.”

“That’s because you’re not going to like it,” she responds, looking grim. 

I sit up, even more curious. “Why not?”

“Because we are going to start a new life in the Harmony Pack. No one will find us there. We will find a small town and blend right in. I’m your young mother, and we will find a way to make our life right again. And this time, we won’t be found,” Avia says firmly. 

I’m silent for a moment. There is no real way to react to a plan of hers that will change her mind. This is how it’s going to be from now on. No question about it. 

The Harmony Pack is a daunting idea. Mainly because it’s so foreign to me. We have tried many Packs before, having revisited some. However, this Pack, set away from others, is one we never considered visiting. I know little about it. Only that it is a picturesque place with an Alpha named Noah. 

“You’re not saying anything,” she notices, glancing anxiously at me. 

I sigh through my nose. “It’s just what has to happen, right? It’s my life.”

Avia grimaces, but doesn’t reply for a moment. She’s been with me for a few years, protecting me when my parents claimed they couldn’t. She knows all that I have been through. Her sympathy has always been imminent, however, we both agreed it’s not something we can dwell on. This is my life on the line. If I’m captured, Alden will surely order my death like he has with the rest of us. 

I sleep the rest of the way. I find it the easiest way to cope. It seems as though I can remove myself from any situation and just be neutral. I yearn for that, in a normal life. 

I’m shaken awake by an insistent band. 

My body jolts awake, my eyes fluttering open. Immediately, I identify potential threats in the situation, but find none. Avia still sits next to me, driving soundly down a smooth road. No one else is in the car, or near it. We are fine. 

I place my hand over my chest, hoping to calm my racing heart. “Where are we?”

Avia has a content smile on her face, but that’s not what I notice. We are surrounded by endless meadows on either side of the road. Each blade of grass is drenched in a shade of green I’ve never seen before. It’s almost emerald in its pigment. And there are no fences separating the grass and the road. Only short walls of blooming flowers in a variety of colours. Most common seeming to be a baby pink and a pristine white. 

“Welcome to the Harmony Pack,” Avia says warmly. “Your new home.”

My agape mouth finally closes. “Where is everyone?”

“There is a village coming up in the next few minutes. We won’t stop there though. I’m thinking of a very specific one deeper into the Pack,” she informs me. 

Very slowly, very deliberately, she slides a piece of paper across the dashboard that I hadn’t noticed. Frowning at her, I pick it up, examining the words quickly scrawled upon the surface. 

Don’t mention anything. 

We are being monitored. 

An uneasy chills cools my blood. Is she being serious? I don’t know what to do. I put the paper down, and look forward, not saying a single word. 

“Our life has been hard, but this will be a new start for the both of us. Aren’t you excited?” She says. Her voice is tight all of a sudden. Forced. Something tells me she isn’t referring to our exact situation. 

“Apprehensive perhaps fits how I feel a little better,” I says shortly. “But it will be good for us.”

“Very true, you’ll start at a new school, make new friends. We will love it here,” she tells me, a quivering smile coming upon her lips. 

We don’t speak again until we reach our destination. By that time, I’m almost weak with relief. I was tense, and careful throughout that entire drive, thinking through what she meant, who was watching, and why she hasn’t turned around. 

She has chosen another suburban home in a tight knit villiage. They house is very bland, perhaps newly built. However, the rest of the town is anything but that. Nothing is out of place here. No piece of trash on the ground. Not a trace of any week in anyone’s gardens. It’s so perfect it’s nauseating. Uncomfortable. 

Avia and I still don’t speak as we take what little belongings we have, which in my case, is a sweater, and take it inside. Not that mine is very necessary. The weather here is Spring like, the sun hot on our backs. 

The moment my foot is in the door, my mouth opens to speak, but Avia puts her hand up to stop me. 

I watch her rush to find paper and a pen, and scribble down another note. This time, it takes awhile, leaving me shifting on my feet, worried about what it may entail. 

Noah has spies everywhere. He can hear everything. 

I brought you here because Alden won’t expect us in such a highly monitored Pack. 

No speaking about this again. We are a mother and daughter starting out new life. 

The content of the note is unnerving. What’s does she mean spies? How am I meant to live my life when everyone is watching at every turn? I feel hairs on the back of my neck raise at the very thought of it. 

“You start school in two days. I’m so excited for our new life,” Avia says warmly. “Aren’t you, Lexi?”

I visibly flinch. My new name. Kezi has been stolen, her identity vanishing. Now I am Lexi, a student at a school, learning something she has learned at schools everywhere for her past two years. No one will know though. 

No one can know.