Chapter 2: Burn and Run

“We’ll talk about the baby later. Right now we move,” Xena replied, her voice clipped.

I nodded. My throat hurt too much to answer.

"Bloodfang," Xena said the moment we were inside. "We leave tonight. Lucan saw us leave together. His men will be here within the hour."

My mouth fell open. The rival pack. The only territory Lucan couldn't storm without starting a war.

"They take travelers who swear allegiance. We go, we say our old pack fell apart, we start anew."

Her eyes dropped to my stomach. Her hand twitched toward me and stopped.

"Then we start," I said.

Her bathroom felt too small. Tiles cold under my feet. Xena grabbed scissors from a drawer while I sat on the closed toilet lid and stared at the floor.

Thick strands of my jet-black hair fell onto the tiles as Xena cut my hair—one after another. I watched them drop. The hair I had worn my whole life. The hair Lucan used to wrap around his fist when he wanted to remind me who owned me. It lay there now in useless piles.

Xena’s hands worked fast. When she finished, she handed me the scissors and sat down. I stood. My hands shook only a little as I cut her long blonde hair, and she didn’t flinch once.

Then the dye.

She mixed the ginger red for me, and the smell didn’t fail to burn my nose. She worked it through what remained of my hair. Raven Moonshadow was officially dead.

For Xena’s turn, we settled for a dye that turned her blonde hair brunette. It was perfect for blending into crowds. 

"New names," Xena muttered. "Scarlett Bane," she offered. I almost hated it.

"And Fiona Lightweather for you," I said.

Her hand found mine and squeezed once before she let go.

My hand moved to my neck without thinking. The small IronClaw mark sat there, as it always had.

Xena pulled the waistband of her pants down just enough to show the small dark symbol low on her hip. "I was going to remove this anyway," Xena said quietly. "I'm not spending the rest of my life one strip search away from death."

My fingers rose to my own neck. The mark there burned under my touch. No scarf in the world would fool a Bloodfang guard trained to look for Ironclaw brands.

I walked to the cabinet under the sink. My hands stayed steady as I pulled out the cleaning solution. The caustic stench almost chased me away, and the bottle felt heavy, but it wasn’t enough to stop me.

I stood over the sink. Stared at the red-haired stranger in the mirror. My fingers unscrewed the cap. The smell hit me first. It was sharp, chemical, and wrong. I poured it onto a cloth and, without thought, pressed the cloth to the mark on my neck.

My legs buckled. I gripped the sink edge until my knuckles screamed. A sound tore out of me—muffled, pressed hard between my teeth. I bit down on my fist to keep from screaming. Burning flesh and acid and something biological and rotten attacked my nostrils, and my stomach heaved.

My vision grayed at the edges, and the floor tilted. 

I held the sink tighter and breathed. In. Out. The same way I breathed on the bedroom floor after Lucan hit me. 

Just breathe. Keep breathing.

The gray pulled back. Slowly. I stayed upright.

The mirror showed wet, discolored, and ruined skin. Long gone was the Ironclaw mark. Xena found a scarf and wrapped it high around my neck without a word. The burn screamed under the fabric.

She took the acid and poured it onto her lower waist, where her mark was. The hissing sound echoed in the bathroom, and tears filled my eyes as I watched my best friend suffer because of me. 

“We need to move,” she told me when her mark was gone.

Packing came fast. We took money, stacks of cash Xena had hidden away. She had been preparing longer than I knew. 

Neither of us slept. My neck burned. My face ached. My hand never left my stomach. Grief sat heavy in my chest for the woman I was killing tonight. Raven Moonshadow. Luna. Wife. Daughter. All of it burning away with my hair and my mark and my name.

Dawn grayed the sky as the bus slowed at the Bloodfang border.

We joined the line as guards in Bloodfang colors watched everything. As though they were trying to send a warning, a dead body lay in front of the gate with spilled blood flowing around it. What drew me to the man, however, was the IronClaw mark on his wrist.

My heart hammered against my ribs. I didn’t look at Xena even when we stepped up together.

The guard studied us, asked questions, and we answered each as best we could. We were sisters. The Southern pack disbanded, and we were seeking a new home. My voice stayed steady. Xena added details from time to time.

The guard’s eyes scanned me and then stopped on my scarf.

“Take it off.”