Chapter Four

Sera’s POV:

The guard booth came up fast, yellow light spilling across the road. I gripped the steering wheel tighter and tried to make my face look normal even though my eyes were swollen and my throat felt raw from crying.

He leaned out of the booth window and waved me through without even looking twice. No questions. No mindlink to the Alpha. Just a wave like I was going to get groceries and would be back in an hour.

I pressed the gas and the pack border passed beneath my tires and I waited for it, that pull in my chest that happened every time I left pack territory, but instead something loosened. The pressure that had been sitting on my ribs for days lifted and I could breathe deeper than I had since Cade's face twisted with disappointment under the firelight.

The highway stretched empty in front of me and I drove.

Three hours later I pulled into the bank parking lot in the nearest human town. My hands shook when I filled out the withdrawal slips, when I closed the savings account Mom and Dad had opened the day I was born, when I watched the teller count out bills that added up to eighteen years of birthday money and summer jobs at the pack sawmill.

"You sure about this, honey?" The teller was older, gray hair and kind eyes. "That's a lot of cash to be carrying around."

"I'm sure." My voice came out steadier than I felt.

Next stop was the car dealership where a salesman with too much cologne looked at my electric car and then at me.

"You want to trade this?" He walked around it slow. "It's only a year old."

"It won't make it cross country." I kept my voice flat. "I need something reliable."

"Cross country, huh? Running away or running toward?"

"Does it matter?"

He laughed and showed me three used sedans that might work. I picked the Volvo because it looked sturdy and the price was right and because standing in this parking lot was making my skin crawl with the need to move, to put more miles between me and the pack before someone woke up and read my note.

By the time I got back on the highway the sun was setting and my whole body ached from not sleeping, from crying, from holding myself together with nothing but willpower and the knowledge that if I stopped moving I might fall apart completely.

I found a dirt road that led nowhere, ate soup cold from the can because I couldn't make my hands stop shaking long enough to heat it, then curled up in the backseat with Mom's blanket wrapped around me.

They'd found the note by now. Dad would be pacing. Mom would be crying. Ash would be trying to fix it somehow even though there was nothing to fix because I'd made my choice and I wasn't going back.

The mate bond pulled at my chest, a constant ache that wouldn't quit, and I pressed my hand against my sternum like I could push it back inside but it just throbbed harder.

I cried until my throat was too sore to make sound and then I cried more.

The days seeped together after that. Gas stations and rest stops and cheap motels where I paid cash and used fake names. I drove through forests that gave way to plains that gave way to desert, watched the landscape change outside my window while the pain in my chest stayed exactly the same.

Two weeks in and I crossed into Washington, saw the mountains rising up in the distance and something in me said this is far enough, this is where you stop.

I found a town tucked between forest and foothills, the kind of place that looked like it hadn't changed in fifty years. Main street lined with brick buildings, mountains in the background, air so clean it hurt to breathe after two weeks of highway exhaust.

A diner sat on the corner with a faded Help Wanted sign in the window.

I parked and sat in the car for five minutes trying to make myself go inside because this was it, this was me choosing to stay somewhere, to build something instead of just running.

The bell over the door chimed when I walked in and the smell hit me hard, coffee and bacon grease and something baking in the back, and my stomach twisted because I hadn't eaten a real meal in days.

"Sit anywhere you like, sweetie." A woman called from behind the counter, older and round with gray hair pulled back in a bun.

"I'm not here to eat." I walked up to the counter and my voice came out smaller than I wanted. "I saw the sign in the window. Are you still hiring?"

She put down the coffee pot she'd been holding and looked at me, taking in my wrinkled clothes and messy hair and the dark circles I knew were under my eyes.

"You eighteen?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Running from something?"

My throat closed up. "No ma'am."

"Don't lie to me, girl. I can see it all over your face." But her voice wasn't mean, just matter of fact. "Question is, are you running from the law or from something else?"

"Something else." The words came out cracked.

She nodded slow. "You graduate high school?"

"Not yet but I'm close, there was this thing that happened with my family and I..." I looked down at my hands because I couldn't finish that sentence without crying and I'd done enough crying for one lifetime.

"Oh honey." She sighed long and heavy. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have pushed. Tell you what, I'll give you a month trial and if you work hard and don't cause trouble, the job is yours permanent. But you have to promise me you'll study for your GED. That's not up for discussion."

"I promise." Relief flooded through me so fast my knees went weak. "Thank you, I won't let you down."

"I'm Judith, everyone calls me Mrs. Judith even though I tell them not to." She smiled and it crinkled the corners of her eyes. "What's your name?"

"Ser." I used my nickname without thinking. "Ser Gomer." Mom's maiden name felt safer than Hartley, felt like putting on someone else's skin.

"Well Ser, you got a place to stay or are you sleeping in that car?"

Heat flooded my face. "I was going to find a motel."

"Don't bother, the only one in town is a dump. My sister owns the mart down the street and the apartment above it just opened up. Come on, let's go talk to her."

Mrs. Judith's sister was shorter and rounder and just as kind, showed me an apartment with bare walls and old carpet but windows that looked out at the mountains.

"First and last month's rent," she said. "You start work tomorrow?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Then you can pay me at the end of your first week. Judith vouched for you and that's good enough for me."

Two days later I stood in my new apartment surrounded by secondhand furniture that didn't match and boxes I hadn't unpacked yet. I had a job. I had a place to live. I had a new name and a new life and I should have felt relieved but all I felt was hollow.

The diner filled up with locals during lunch rush, people who came in every day and ordered the same thing and called me sweetheart even though they didn't know me. Mrs. Judith moved through the crowd easy, knew everyone's name and their regular orders, and I tried to memorize it all while my feet ached and my hands cramped from carrying heavy plates.

"You're doing great," Mrs. Judith said during a lull. "Natural at this."

"Thanks." I wiped down the counter for the third time because I needed something to do with my hands.

The bell over the door chimed and I looked up out of habit, ready to grab menus and seat whoever just walked in.

My heart stopped.

Standing in the doorway was the last person I expected to see two thousand miles from home.