Chapter 29 Mo
Mo
The village is a forty-minute drive from the compound, down a dirt road that eventually turns to pavement. I sit in the back of the truck with Lily, watching the forest thin out and the world open up into something I haven’t seen in a long time.
Buildings. Signs. Other people’s cars.
Like visiting a planet I used to live on.
Archer is driving. Elias called shotgun and has been singing along to the radio for the entire ride, butchering every song with the kind of confidence only the truly tone-deaf possess.
Three other pack members are in the truck behind us: a beta couple, Maren and Thom, who run the pack’s supply logistics, and Pam.
I found out about approximately three minutes before we left, and I couldn’t exactly object without looking like I cared.
I don’t care. Pam can go wherever she wants. She can ride on the roof for all it matters to me.
Lily nudges my arm. “You okay? You’ve got that face.”
“What face?”
“The one where you’re pretending something doesn’t bother you, but your jaw is doing that thing.”
I unclench my jaw. “I’m fine. Just haven’t been around this many people in a while. Civilization is weird.”
That part is true. The compound has become familiar, comfortable even, but this is different. Out here, I’m surrounded by strangers, and three years of hiding in the woods has left me with zero social skills.
Archer parks near the general store, and we pile out.
The village is small. One main street with a handful of shops, a hardware store, a diner with a hand-painted sign, and what looks like a community market set up in a parking lot.
I can tell from the scents drifting through the air that other wolf packs use this town, too.
Territory lines blur in places like this. Neutral ground for everyone.
“Alright,” Archer says, pulling a list from his pocket. “Lily, you and Blue take the food list. Maren, Thom, and Pam, hardware and medical supplies. Elias, you’re with me.”
Elias whines. “Why can’t I go with Blue?”
“Because last time you were in charge of groceries, you came back with four cases of beer, a bag of gummy bears, and nothing else.”
Pam hovers near the second truck, making a point of not looking at me. I return the favour. We’ve settled into a routine of aggressive mutual ignoring that works for both of us.
Lily hooks her arm through mine and steers me toward the market. “Come on. I need your opinion on whether we should get the good cheese or the cheap cheese.”
“There’s a difference?”
“Oh, Blue. You poor, cheese-deprived child. We have so much to teach you.”
The market is busy for a town of this size.
The market smells like a collision of everything from fresh bread from the bakery stall to grilled meat from the food trucks, to the sweet rot of overripe peaches, to car exhaust from the parking lot.
It’s overwhelming after three years of nothing but pine and earth.
The noise and motion set my wolf on edge at first, her hackles raised, scanning for threats.
But Lily chatters on beside me, and nobody stares too long, so after a few minutes the tension in my shoulders begins to ease.
I’m comparing two bags of dried pasta, one of which costs twice as much for no reason I can figure out, when Lily pulls me toward a stall selling winter scarves.
She holds one up to my face and declares it “perfect for your colouring,” which I’m pretty sure is something she heard her grandmother say.
I’m about to tell her I don’t need a scarf when I see him.
My entire body locks up.
He’s standing twenty feet away, near the diner entrance, talking to another male.
Leaning against the wall with that same lazy posture I remember.
That same tilt of his head, that same easy, careless way of standing, like the world exists for his entertainment and he’s just deciding which part to play with next.
Stuart.
I haven’t said that name, even to myself, in years. But my body remembers him, and my hands go numb. The market noise drops away until all I can hear is my own blood rushing in my head. My scent turns, I can smell it going sharp and sour. Fear leaks out of me.
He’s older now. Broader. Filled out into the kind of alpha that turns heads.
His dark hair is shorter than I remember.
But it’s him. I’d know that face anywhere, even in a crowd, even after a hundred years.
The face of the boy who told me I was special, who said he loved me.
Who held my hand and made me believe, for one stupid, na?ve month, that not all alphas were the same.
Sophie and I had been the only two omegas in the pack.
Well, us and old Martha, but she was past childbearing age and barely counted in the alphas’ eyes.
I was to “service” the new generation. What I hadn’t known at the time was that Sophie had negotiated with the head alpha; I was off-limits until I turned eighteen.
But what if they could get the off-limits omega into bed before then?
What if they could make her break the rules herself? That was the wager, and Stuart won.
Stuart’s head snaps in my direction. His eyes meet mine across the market. He holds my eye for a beat. Then he smiles.
The ground tilts beneath my feet. My wolf whimpers and retreats somewhere deep inside me.
I need to get out of here. Need to turn around and walk away before he looks in this direction. My brain knows this. My legs don’t cooperate.
“Blue?” Lily’s voice comes from somewhere beside me. “Blue, what’s wrong? You’re completely white.”
“Nothing.” The word comes out thin. I force my eyes away from him and look at Lily. My face must be bad because her expression goes from curious to alarmed in a second.
“I need to go,” I say. “I’ve got to get out of here. Now.”
“Okay,” Lily says, not arguing, not asking why, just taking my arm and turning me around. “Okay, let me take you to the truck.”
We walk. I keep my head down, resisting the urge to bolt. One foot in front of the other. I concentrate on breathing, on moving, on not looking back. Lily stays close, her hand on my elbow, steering me through the crowd.
I’m almost to the edge of the market when I make the mistake of glancing up.
Pam is watching me.
She’s standing near another stall with Maren, staring right at me. Our eyes meet, and for one long second, neither of us blinks. Then Pam looks at her phone, her head turning back towards it as if nothing had happened.
But she was watching. I know she saw my reaction.
I turn to run and slam into someone solid. Hands catch my shoulders to steady me.
“Whoa there, Blue. What’s the rush?” I hear Elias say.
I look up at him, and for a terrifying second, I see Stuart’s face superimposed over his. Another handsome alpha with an easy smile. Another liar waiting to happen.
“Don’t touch me,” I snarl, jerking away from his grip.
His hands fall away immediately. “Hey, what’s wrong? Did something happen?”
“Nothing,” I say. “I just want to go to the truck.”
Lily gets me to the truck, and I climb into the back and sit there with my hands pressed between my knees to stop them shaking.
“Blue,” Lily says gently, climbing in beside me. “Talk to me. Who was that?”
“No one.”
“You don’t turn that colour over nothing.”
I look down at my hands. Still shaking. I can’t make them stop.
“Someone from before,” I say finally. “From my old life. Someone who can’t know I’m here.”
Lily nods. She doesn’t push. She just sits beside me and puts her hand over both of mine. She stays with me, and eventually the shaking slowly fades.
When we get home, I tell the guys I’m tired, and I skip dinner. It isn’t fully a lie, but they give me my space. I go to my room, closing the door. Sitting on the floor with my back against the bed, I pull Charly and Rocky into my lap.
“It’s fine,” I tell them. “He didn’t see me. It doesn’t matter.”
But it does. Seeing Stuart reminded me of everything I’ve been trying to forget since I got here.
That the world outside of this compound is still the same world that broke me.
That the alphas I ran from are still out there.
The alpha who killed Sophie, and the alphas who sold and bought me, are still alive.
And the boy who used me is still standing in front of a diner laughing while I sit on a bedroom floor talking to a stick and a rock.
Everything that happened to me with the wires traces back to a boy who smiled at me and told me I was beautiful.
Stuart saw me, and it’s only a matter of time before he tells the head alpha. I pull my knees to my chest and rest my forehead against them.
People who hurt you don’t disappear just because you find somewhere warm to sleep.
There’s a soft knock at the door. I don’t answer.
After a minute, I hear a plate being set on the floor outside. Footsteps retreating.
Silas.
I wait until the footsteps are gone, then open the door—a plate of mashed potatoes and a Diet Coke.
I grab them, sit back on the floor, and eat. The potatoes are perfect. Creamy, salted, exactly the way Darius makes them. Except Darius isn’t here. Someone made them exactly the way he does.
I eat until the plate is clean. Then crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head.