Everything planned. Everything prepared. My parents had spent twenty years building a life in this pack, but they’d never stopped preparing for the day it might end. The paranoia of the powerless, always ready to run. And now that preparation would save my life while condemning theirs.
“Promise me you’ll live. Promise me,” my mother demanded, her hands still cupping my face. Behind her determination, I saw the fear. Not for herself, but for the daughter she was sending into the unknown. The child she’d never see again.
“I’ll never forgive him for this,” I said instead of the promise she wanted. Forgiveness was for people who could afford mercy. I’d left that luxury in the judgment hall with my mate bond.
“Don’t waste energy on hatred. Use it. Channel it. Survive first, then decide what comes next.” My mother, ever practical even in devastation. “The western route avoids main pack thoroughfares. Ronald knows which gas stations don’t check IDs, which motels take cash without questions. Listen to him.”
My father pulled me into an embrace that said everything words couldn’t. When he pulled back, his eyes held the same determination that had carried him from nothing to almost power.
“You’re still a Thornback,” he said. “That means endurance. We bend, but we don’t break.”
Ronald arrived as darkness fell, his old sedan idling quietly in the back alley. He’d served our family for fifteen years, driving my father to late-night meetings and my mother to social gatherings. Quiet, reliable Ronald who’d taught me to drive in this very car. Now he’d risk execution to give me a chance at freedom.
My father had saved Ronald’s daughter once, securing medical treatment when she’d been denied as a half-blood. That debt ran deeper than employment, the kind that made a man risk his life for a phone call. Ronald had already disabled his car’s GPS,replaced the plates with ones from a junkyard. He’d done this before, I realized. My family wasn’t the first he’d smuggled to safety.
I’d packed light on my mother’s instructions. Two changes of clothes, nothing distinctive. Hair dye from her bathroom cabinet. A burner phone still in its packaging. The cash was divided between hiding spots, shoes, bra, jacket lining. My grandmother’s ring, the only jewelry worth keeping, sewn into a hem. Everything designed to look poor, transient, forgettable.
“Rhea,” he said simply, opening the door. No questions about the bandage on my neck or the tears on my mother’s face. Just steady Ronald, doing what needed doing.
I hugged my parents one last time, breathing in their familiar scents. Trying to memorize the feeling of being loved, being wanted, being theirs. Then I slid into the backseat where tinted windows would hide me from the casual view. The envelope of escape supplies weighed heavily in my lap. My entire future was reduced to cash and lies.
As Ronald’s car pulled away in darkness, I watched my childhood home shrink in the mirror and made a silent vow, I’d survive this, and someday, Damon Kildare would pay for every drop of blood spilled tonight.
10
— • —
Rhea
The service roads Ronald took wound through territories I’d never seen, despite living here my whole life. Smuggling routes, he explained, designed for those who needed to move unseen. My father apparently maintained networks I never knew existed. The car smelled of citrus air freshener and old coffee, mundane scents that grounded me while my world imploded. Ronald kept checking mirrors with paranoid frequency, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.
The pre-dawn darkness wrapped around us like a shroud. We had maybe two hours now before sunrise, before the execution order went into full effect. Every minute counted now. Ronald drove without headlights where he could, navigating by memory and moonlight through back roads that didn’t appear on any official pack maps.
In my lap, the leather journal my mother had pressed into my hands felt heavier than it should. I opened it carefully, angling it to catch the dim dashboard light. Her precise handwriting filled page after page. Remedies for everything from wolfsbane poisoning to difficult births. Healing techniques passed down through generations of omega women who couldn’t rely on alpha or beta doctors. Survival tricks for those cast out. She’d been preparing this for years, I realized. Adding to it steadily, knowing this day might come.
Tucked between the pages were photographs I’d never seen. My parents before I was born, young and hopeful. Me as a toddler, face covered in birthday cake. The three of us at last year’s harvest festival, before everything went to hell. The casual cruelty of it broke what was left whole in my chest. These images were all I’d have of the life stolen from me.
“Your father transferred those contact names before we left,” Ronald said, noticing my silence. “Check the phone they gave you.”
The burner phone showed dozens of contacts. Codes instead of names, but I recognized my father’s system. Safe houses marked with bird names. Allies with tree codes. Emergency resources tagged with numbers. Twenty years of carefully cultivated omega networks passed to me in a few desperate minutes while guards waited outside.
“How do you know these routes?” I asked, needing distraction from the ache in my chest.
“Your father saved my daughter once, as you already know. Got her out of an alpha’s grudge match that would’ve killed her.” Ronald spoke to fill the silence, sharing debts owed. “Beenwaiting fifteen years to repay that. Though I’d hoped it would be under better circumstances.”
He navigated a particularly narrow path between abandoned warehouses, the sedan barely fitting. This wasn’t his first time running these routes. How many other omegas had he ferried to safety over the years? How many families had my father helped escape through these shadow networks?
“Jenna was barely sixteen,” Ronald continued. “Wrong place, wrong time. Alpha’s son took interest in her. When she objected...” He shrugged, the gesture saying everything. “Your father intervened eventually. Used his position to get her treatment after the attack. He saved her life. And mine.”
I had known that my father had helped a wounded omega, but I had not known the extent of the story. Now it made sense why he had looked so weary when Damon had presented me as his mate in front of the council.
The bandage at my neck had soaked through twice already, and I pressed a fresh gauze pad against it. Mate wounds wanted to bleed, my body rejecting the unnatural severing. Each throb reminded me of what I’d lost. Not just Damon, but the future I’d glimpsed so briefly. Safety. Belonging. The dangerous illusion of being chosen.
“Don’t look back. Not even once,” my father had said in those final moments. The words echoed now as Ronald turned onto another unmarked road. But how could I not look back? Everything I’d ever known lay behind me. Ahead stretched only uncertainty and exile.
“There’s a rest stop about ten miles out,” Ronald said, checking his mirrors again. “I need to switch plates there. Can’t be too careful.”
The sky was starting to lighten at the edges, purple-black giving way to deep blue. Dawn was approaching like a deadline. Once the sun rose, I’d officially be banished. Any pack member who saw me could execute me on sight. The thought should have terrified me. Instead, I felt oddly numb.
