Chapter 31 Mo
Mo
Iwait until everyone is asleep before I make my move and grab my backpack from under the bed.
“We’re leaving?” Rocky says from the nightstand.
“Damn right we are,” I mutter, stuffing him into the front pocket of my backpack. “Before I get any stupider.”
Charly makes a disapproving sound as I pick him up. “This is a mistake, Mo. We have a good thing here.”
“Good things don’t last,” I hiss, shoving him in beside Rocky. “You of all people should know that.”
“We’re not people,” Rocky argues. “We’re a stick and a rock.”
I ignore them both and grab the bar of soap from the bathroom. The peach-scented one that makes my skin smell like, well… peaches.
My eyes fall on the comforter. So soft, so warm, and the nights in the forest get cold. Before I can talk myself out of it, I strip it from the bed and roll it up tight, securing it with a belt from Lily. It takes up most of my pack, but I’ll make it work.
“You’re being paranoid,” Charly whispers from inside the backpack. “Nobody here has hurt you.”
“Yet,” I mutter. “Nobody has hurt me yet.” Besides, this isn’t just about the terrifying fact that I’m starting to want things I can’t afford. Stuart saw me, and staying here means waiting for the past to come knocking.
I slip on my boots, sling the pack over one shoulder, and ease the bedroom door open. The hallway is dark, but I know every creaking floorboard by now. I move silently, the way I learned to move in the woods when being heard meant being caught.
“We should at least leave a note,” Rocky suggests.
“For what? I whisper hiss. ‘Thanks for the hospitality, see you never’?”
“How about ‘Thanks for saving my life and giving me a home?’” Charly counters.
I reach the main room and freeze. Archer is standing in the kitchen, his broad back to me as he stares out the window. He’s holding a mug of something steaming.
Shit.
I consider retreating, but his head tilts slightly. He heard me. Of course, he heard me.
I wait for him to turn. To stop me. To wake up the others or to tell me to stay. But he doesn’t move. Doesn’t even look my way.
“The woods are cold this time of year,” he says quietly, still facing the window.
My throat tightens. “I know how to survive out there.”
He nods once, taking a sip from his mug. “I know you do.”
And that’s it. No argument. No attempt to physically stop me. No guilt trip.
I edge toward the door, waiting for the catch, for the moment he changes his mind. My hand closes around the knob. Still nothing.
“Goodbye, Archer,” I say softly.
He doesn’t turn, but his scent turns flat. “Be safe, Blue.”
The night air hits my face as I slip outside, and I take a deep breath of freedom. No chains. No walls. No alphas watching my every move. Just me and the forest and the wide-open spaces I’ve missed so desperately.
I break into a run as soon as I clear the porch, not looking back, heading straight for the trees. This is where I belong. This is what I know.
The farther I get from the cabin, the lighter I feel. Like I’m shedding layers of something I didn’t know was weighing me down. Expectations. Complicated feelings. The terrifying possibility of happiness.
I run until my lungs burn, until the compound is far behind me, until I’m deep in the woods.
When I finally stop, I’m breathing hard and smiling. I made it. I’m free.
“Happy now?” Rocky asks from my backpack.
“Ecstatic,” I reply, but my voice sounds hollow.
Rustling leaves, distant animal calls, the soft hoot of an owl. Familiar sounds that used to comfort me.
Now they just emphasize how alone I am.
Freedom. This is what I wanted, so why do my feet feel heavier with each step?
I make it about two miles further before I stop beside a fallen log and sink down. I bury my face in my hands.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
I’m not even sure who I’m calling stupid—myself for leaving or for wanting to go back.
“This is what you wanted,” I mutter.
But I think of Silas’s gentle eyes. Of Elias’s irritating smirk that somehow makes me want to both punch him and kiss him. Of Lily’s friendship. Of warm food, I didn’t have to hunt. Of Archer letting me go without a fight, like he knew I needed the choice more than he needed me to stay.
Even Darius has been trying.
“Fuck.”
I stand up, slinging the pack back over my shoulder. Rocky and Charly go suspiciously quiet, which is the closest they come to saying I told you so.
I’m trudging back toward the compound, and by the time it comes into view, I’m furious with myself.
Archer is still in the kitchen. Same mug. Same position. Like he knew, I’d come back.
“Forget something?” he asks, his expression neutral.
“Shut up,” I snap, stomping past him.
“Mo,” he calls after me, his voice softer now. “Sometimes staying is the braver choice.”
I don’t answer. I can’t. Because if I open my mouth right now, I might do something truly embarrassing, like thank him for understanding what I needed even when I didn’t understand it myself.
I slam my bedroom door behind me, drop my pack on the floor, and collapse face-first onto the bed.
“We’re not staying,” I tell Charly and Rocky. “Not permanently. Just… for now.”
That’s what infuriates me the most. That they’ve somehow made staying my choice rather than my prison. That somewhere in the tangle of my thoughts, I’ve started thinking of this place as somewhere I might belong.
I pull a pillow over my head and scream into it.