Chapter 13 The Night Hollow Pines Stopped Pretending #2
The crowd was dispersing now. Moving with purpose instead of panic. Sheriff Thorne organizing volunteers. Lila coordinating medical supplies. Charlie opening his store to hand out flashlights and batteries and whatever else people needed to feel less helpless.
Parents gathered their children close. Elderly folks accepted help getting home. Young people exchanged numbers, forming impromptu watch groups.
Hollow Pines was choosing to fight.
And I was choosing to disappear before I became the thing they had to fight against.
Evan caught my eyes across the street. He looked tired. Younger than he should. The weight of Head Alpha settling onto shoulders that were strong enough to carry it but shouldn't have to yet.
He nodded at me. Just once. Acknowledgment. Gratitude.
I nodded back.
The pack was functioning. The town was organizing. The pieces were moving into place.
I was the only piece that didn't fit anymore.
Gideon finally spoke, his voice low enough that only I could hear.”What're you thinking?”
I looked at the broken street. At the bloodstains. At the gap in the Moonbeam's wall that would always remind me of the woman who'd chosen to stay in a dangerous town because she loved the people in it.
“That I'm tired,” I said.
Truth. Just not all of it. I was tired, and Gideon was wrecked from pulling me back, and I wouldn't add to his burdens by telling him I was about to become one more loss he'd have to carry.
His hand stayed on my shoulder. Steady. Present.
“Come on,” he said finally. “Let's get you somewhere you can actually rest.”
The walk back to my apartment felt longer than it should have. The streets I'd walked a hundred times looked different now—less familiar, more temporary. Like I was already seeing them through the lens of memory rather than present moment.
Gideon stayed close the whole way. Not talking. Just there. His presence was the only thing keeping my wolf from pacing itself into madness.
We reached my building. Climbed the stairs. The door to my apartment hung slightly crooked on its hinges—I'd left in a hurry earlier, hadn't bothered locking it properly.
Gideon moved through the space with the careful attention he brought to everything, checking windows, testing locks, doing the small protective things he probably didn't even realize he was doing.
“You should sleep,” he said. “Your body needs to recover.”
“What about you?” I gestured at him. At the exhaustion carved into every line of his face.
“I'll manage.” He said it like fact. Like his body falling apart was just another variable to account for. “Done worse.”
“That's not reassuring.”
“Wasn't meant to be.” He moved toward the door. Stopped. Turned back. “Ronan.”
I looked at him. He was standing in my doorway with his hand on the frame, and the expression on his face was the one he'd been trying not to show me all night.
“I meant what I said earlier,” he said quietly. “However many times it takes. I'll pull you back every time. You understand me?”
The weight of it landed in my chest. Not a promise. A vow. The kind a man makes when he's decided the cost doesn't matter because the alternative is unacceptable.
“You shouldn't,” I said.
“I'm not watching you disappear into that dark because I wasn't willing to bleed for it.”
“Gideon—”
“Don't.” He cut me off. “Don't tell me it's not worth it. Don't tell me to let you go. I'm not doing that. So whatever you're about to say—save it.”
He knew. Somehow he knew what I was planning, or he suspected, and he was putting it in the open before I could build the lie.
“I'm a liability,” I said. Voice rough. “You saw what happened tonight. Silas says one word and I turn into the thing that kills the people I'm supposed to protect. You can't fix that. Can't bleed yourself hollow every time he pulls the strings.”
“Watch me.”
“Why?” I asked. Because I needed to hear him say it. Needed to understand what he thought he was getting in exchange for tearing himself apart.
Gideon was quiet for a long moment. Then he stepped back into the room and walked towards me.
“Because you're not just a weapon,” he said.
His voice was quiet. Steady. The voice of a man who'd made his assessment and wasn't revising it.
“You're a man who's been carrying someone else's crimes for thirty years and still showed up to protect people tonight.
You're a dire wolf who steadies a pack without trying.
You're—” He stopped. Looked at me with those grey-blue eyes that saw too much.
“You matter, Ronan. To the pack. To your brother.
To me. And I don't abandon things that matter.”
“You're making a mistake,” I said.
“Probably.” His mouth almost curved. Not quite a smile. Something more rueful. “Been making them for years. This one's at least interesting.”
Then he reached up and pressed his hand against the side of my neck.
“Get some sleep,” he said. “I'll be back tomorrow. We're taking that compulsion apart piece by piece, and then we're figuring out how to keep Silas from rebuilding it. You're not doing this alone anymore.”
He left before I could argue.
I listened to his footsteps fade down the hallway. Heard his truck start. Listened to the engine noise disappear into distance.
Then I stood in my empty apartment and made myself face what came next.
He'd just told me he'd bleed himself hollow to keep me here. Had touched me like I was worth saving.
But staying meant becoming the weapon that killed him.
I'd been a weapon for thirty years without knowing it. Had done things I couldn't remember, hurt people whose faces I'd never seen, followed commands that weren't mine.
That ended tonight.
Silas wanted to use me. Wanted to aim me at the pack, at the town, at everyone I cared about.
He couldn't aim what he couldn't find.
I moved through the apartment mechanically. Grabbed the few things that mattered—wallet, keys, the jacket Daniel had given me when I first came back. Left everything else. Didn't need much where I was going.
Didn't know where I was going.
Just away. Far enough that when Silas called, when he rebuilt the compulsion and tried to pull my strings again, there'd be nobody nearby for him to make me hurt.
I took one last look at the apartment. At the broken drawer I'd been fixing when the compulsion first hit. At the sparse furniture and empty walls that had never quite become home.
Then I walked out the door and didn't look back.
The forest waited at the edge of town. Dark. Deep. Old enough to hide anything that needed hiding.
I shifted as I hit the tree line.
Then I ran.