010— "YOU WISH."

"You look exactly like someone we've been searching for."

My heart dropped to somewhere around my ankles.

But my face… my face was doing something completely different. My face had decided we were fine. We were confused actually. Mildly offended even.

"Me?" I let my eyebrows climb. Looked behind me like there might be someone else in the alley. I looked back and added a small bewildered laugh that I was very proud of. 

"I think there's been some kind of mistake."

"Has there."

"I've lived in Briar Falls my whole life." I gestured at the alley like it was a character reference. "Born here. Well… nearby. Small town, very unremarkable, you wouldn't know it."

The big one said nothing. Just looked at me.

"Is this about the Hendersons?" I tried. "Because I told them I'd return the casserole dish and I fully intend to, life has just been…"

"We're looking for a woman from Silvercrest Pack."

"A… sorry, a what?"

"A pack."

I blinked at him slowly. The blink of someone hearing a foreign language for the first time. 

"Is that a band?"

Something shifted in the group. Two of them exchanged a glance. The big one's certainty wobbled. Just slightly, just for a second, and I could feel it. The bluff was working. Actually working. I almost exhaled.

Then one of the others stepped forward.

He had a photograph.

He held it up.

I looked at it for exactly one second before I looked away because it was my face. My actual face, taken from a distance, slightly grainy but absolutely clear enough.

"You look exactly the same," he said. 

"And you smell…" He inhaled slowly and frowned. 

"You smell—"

I ran.

I didn't decide to run. My legs just made the executive decision without consulting anyone. One second I was standing there and the next I was sprinting down the alley with four wolves behind me and exactly one thought firing through my head on a loop.

“Corners. Lose them in the corners.”

I knew this town in my bones by now. Three months of mapping every exit and shortcut and gap between buildings had been building to exactly this moment. 

I cut left where they'd expect right. Squeezed through the narrow passage behind the bar on fourth. It was barely wide enough for me, absolutely not wide enough for men that size. I took two more turns hard enough that my shoulder screamed.

But, I could still hear them.

“Faster,” I thought. 

Come ON!

I turned a corner.

And ran face-first into a chest.

A very solid, very immovable chest that grabbed me before I bounced off it completely.

I looked up.

Oh. You cannot be serious.

Kai Volkov looked down at me. Took in everything. My state, my breathing, the sound of footsteps getting louder behind me in about one and a half seconds. 

Then without a single word he grabbed my wrist and pulled me sideways into the gap between two buildings so fast I didn't have time to argue.

"Let go."

"Shut up."

"Don't tell me to…"

His hand covered my mouth.

My back was against his front. I could feel his chest against my shoulders — steady and barely even breathing hard, which was genuinely insulting. I grabbed his wrist with both hands and pulled and got absolutely nowhere and then…

Footsteps.

Right outside the gap.

I went completely still.

One of the wolves slowed. His silhouette filled the entrance — close enough that I could hear him breathing. My heart was so loud I was amazed it wasn't giving us away. He stopped and just stood there. One second. Two. Five.

I did not breathe. Couldn't.

Someone called his name from down the street.

He turned and left.

I waited until the footsteps faded into nothing. Then I exhaled so hard my whole body deflated.

Kai's hand dropped from my mouth.

I stepped away from him immediately.

"Thank you," I said, in the flattest voice I had ever produced. "Truly. Very heroic. You can go now."

I turned and walked toward the street.

His hand closed around my wrist.

"Let go—"

"You're coming with me."

"I am absolutely not…"

"Those wolves will go to your apartment. Then everywhere else you've ever been."

He was already scanning the street.  

"You have nowhere safe."

"I'll figure it out."

"With what."

I opened my mouth.

"Your three hundred dollars?" he said.

I closed my mouth.

"I need information," he said. "You need somewhere to stay. We make a deal."

"I don't make deals with people who choke me."

"You do tonight."

I yanked my wrist. He held on. I yanked again. Same result.

"Okay fine," I said, switching tactics. 

"Fine. But as you literally just witnessed with your own two eyes, I am not a spy. Those Silvercrest wolves were…"

I stopped.

The words played back in my own head.

Silvercrest wolves.

I wasn't supposed to say that.

The silence lasted about three seconds. Which was three seconds too long.

He turned to look at me very slowly. 

"How did you know they were from Silvercrest?"

"I… the way they. Their accents…"

"Try again."

"I have a very good ear for regional…"

"Sloane."

"I GUESSED." I threw my free hand up. "I took one look at four enormous wolves chasing me and I guessed their exact pack of origin. I'm very intuitive. It's a gift actually, my mother always said—"

"Everything that comes out of your mouth," he said, "is a lie."

"That is SO rich coming from YOU." I pointed at him and I was fully committed now, no brakes, "You who broke into my apartment. You who burned my things. You who choked me at six in the morning on an EMPTY RINK…"

He turned and started walking.

Still holding my wrist.

Which meant I was walking too.

"Where are you… I don't need you anymore, the wolves are GONE…"

"Car."

"I'm not getting in your…"

"Car, Sloane."

"If you don't let go of me right now I will scream so loud that every human within a two mile radius…"

He stopped at the SUV. Opened the passenger door. Turned and looked at me.

"Get in."

"No."

"Sloane—"

"I said no. Also, I'm Gaya not Sloane."

 I stepped back. "I don't care about your deal. I don't care about the wolves. I would rather take my chances out there alone than spend a single night under your roof.”

He raised an eyebrow. "You'd rather…"

"Yes."

"With four wolves who have your photograph."

I crossed my arms. "Goodbye, Kai."

He looked at me for a moment.

Then he leaned against the car. Crossed his arms. And just waited. Like he had absolutely nowhere to be. Like he already knew exactly how this ended and was just giving me time to catch up.

It was the most infuriating thing he'd ever done to me.

"Stop looking at me like that," I snapped.

"Like what."

"Like you've already decided."

"Haven't I?"

"You don't get to decide things for me. You don't get to just stand there being smug and act like…"

A sound.

Behind me. Distant but getting less distant. Footsteps — more than one set, moving with the kind of unhurried certainty that meant they were looking.

I went very still.

Kai said nothing.

Just looked at me. At the open door. Then back at me.

The footsteps got closer.

I got in the car and slammed the door hard enough that the whole SUV shuddered. I crossed my arms and stared straight through the windshield and said very quietly through my teeth—

"I am going to make your life genuinely miserable."

"You wish." He said, and started the engine.