Chapter 8
Chapter eight
Seraphina
Running with the Wolves – AURORA
The church is dark when I slip out of my room.
A single candle flickers on the bedside table, guttering like it’s struggling to stay alive.
Shadows stretch across the walls, folding me into their corners, making me feel like part of the gloom.
Father is asleep. I creep down the hallway, each step measured, silent, my breath held tight in my chest. I edge closer to his door and lean just enough to see inside.
He’s sprawled in his chair, Bible slack in one hand, belt discarded on the floor.
His snoring is low, even. Wine lingers on the air, sharp, bitter.
I do not cry. I do not shake. I do not falter.
The monster sleeps, and I feel… nothing. That is the scariest part.
I press Trey’s paper to my chest. My lifeline.
My single shard of hope. I fold it carefully, slip it into the pocket of my cardigan.
I move. The floorboards protest under my feet—each creak lands like a gunshot in the hollow quiet—and still I keep going.
Night wraps around me. Nothing good belongs here, not even memories, except one that won’t let me be.
The soaked-to-the-bone man in jeans, ink and metal braided across his skin and fingers, should have driven me away the moment I saw him.
Instead, his face lingers, and the scrap of paper folded in my pocket feels like wings.
I hope one day I can tell him thank you—for the courage to leave, for a promise that somewhere else might exist. The side door waits.
My fingers fumble with the lock. Cold metal bites my palms. Outside, the air is sharp.
It smacks against my face, my arms, my slipper clad feet.
I shiver, and for the first time in my life, I feel alive.
The night stretches before me—immense, dangerous, and breathtakingly free.
The streets of Portland are unfamiliar, a maze of alleys, puddles, flickering lamplight, and shadows that could hide anything.
A dog barks somewhere close. I press myself against the side of a building, heart thundering.
A car passes. Headlights slice the darkness.
I flatten against a hedge, wet leaves pressing cold into my back.
Every sound is a threat. Every shadow a memory of chains and punishment.
I clutch the paper tighter. Trey’s address. A beacon, a promise, a door I’ve never dared dream could open. I repeat it like a mantra. Memories claw at me—Gideon’s voice, smooth, sinister.
I look forward to breaking your body, right before I brutally rip away the innocence you cling to.
Father’s sermon.
Blessed is the man who tames the wild woman into obedience. I swallow bile. I will not let them claim me. I will not let them claim my body, my mind, my life.
Cobblestones slip beneath my feet. My thinning slipper soles sting.
I stumble, but I do not stop. Each step carries me further from the chains, further from the wine-scented threats, further from the men who would state they own me.
I pass shuttered windows, locked doors, dead streets.
My chest rises and falls so violently I am certain someone can hear it.
The night smells like wet asphalt and freedom.
I remember the quiet mornings when I hid my sketches under floorboards, the fear in my chest, the knowledge that no one would ever care.
And now… some man cared. Trey. He searched for me.
He saw me. I swallow a sob and push it down.
I step into an alley, the shadows swallowing me, and feel the city breathing around me.
I pause to let the moment soak in—the taste of rain on my tongue, the ache in my muscles, the wild, terrifying beauty of the night.
I am alone. I am free. I am real. Each step brings the address closer.
“I am not theirs,” I whisper into the wind. “I am my own.”
The cold puddles soak through to my bones, sharp as knives, but I don’t stop.
I won’t slow down. Movement is the only thing that warms me now, and whatever pain I carry—I’ve survived worse.
I will not be broken. I will not be tamed.
The first faint outline of the house emerges.
Warm light spills into the dark. I breathe it in.
A life beyond punishment, beyond fear, beyond control.
I am trembling, soaked, exhausted—but I am alive.
I take a deep breath. One more step. My hand tightens around the paper.
Every face I have ever been—obedient child, punished daughter, girl who never belonged—melts away.
And I see the girl I am becoming—the one who walks toward life, who claims it, who chooses it despite fear, despite scars, despite the voices that say I am not allowed.
The world is terrifying. Yet it offers safe harbor.