Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
AVA
The moment the cabin door swung open, I ran.
I didn't think. Didn't plan. Didn't do anything but react, pure, primal survival instinct overriding the fog of arousal and the weakness in my legs.
Caleb's grip on my arm loosened for just a second as he reached for the door handle, his attention shifting away from me for one critical heartbeat, and I moved.
I wrenched free with a strength I didn't know I had, my sneakers scraping against the wooden porch as I twisted my body sideways.
Leo was blocking the stairs, his lean frame lounging against the railing like he had all the time in the world, that infuriating smirk still playing on his lips.
I shoved past him so hard he stumbled, his shoulder cracking against the wooden post, a grunt of surprise escaping his throat.
Then I was flying down the steps, my feet barely touching wood before I hit the gravel driveway, loose stones scattering under my desperate sprint.
My lungs burned with cold mountain air. My heart slammed against my ribs hard enough to bruise.
The late afternoon sun was already dipping behind the peaks, casting long shadows across the snow-dusted ground, and I ran through them like they could hide me.
Behind me, someone shouted. Caleb or Leo, I couldn't tell, didn't care. The sound was swallowed by the thunder of blood in my ears, by the ragged gasps of my own breathing, by the singular thought pounding through my skull like a drumbeat.
Get away. Get away. GET AWAY.
The rental car sat near the black SUV, its silver paint gleaming dully in the fading light. The keys—were the keys still there? I'd seen Leo toss them somewhere when he grabbed my bags, hadn't I? Hadn't I seen—
There.
Through the windshield, sitting on the dashboard like an offering. The keys, still attached to the rental company's plastic tag, right where Leo must have thrown them when he got my luggage from the trunk.
Careless. Sloppy. Unlike them.
Some distant part of my brain whispered that this was too easy, that they didn't make mistakes like this, that I was missing something important.
But the rest of me didn't care. Couldn't care.
Not when freedom was twenty feet away. My fingers closed around the cold metal of the door handle.
Yanked. The door swung open with a screech of hinges, and I threw myself inside, my hip cracking painfully against the center console as I scrambled across the driver's seat.
I slammed the door shut behind me, the sound echoing like a gunshot, and jammed down the lock with shaking fingers.
The keys. Where were the—there. Right there on the dashboard. I grabbed them, my hands trembling so badly I nearly dropped them twice, and shoved them into the ignition.
Please start. Please please please—
The engine roared to life.
A sob of relief tore from my throat.
"AVA!" Caleb's roar shook the windows, so loud and furious it seemed to vibrate through the metal frame of the car itself. I looked up, my eyes finding him through the windshield, and for one frozen moment I couldn't move.
He was sprinting toward me across the gravel, his massive body eating up the distance with terrifying speed.
His face was twisted with rage, not just anger but something deeper, something primal.
Alpha fury. The look of a predator watching his prey escape.
His ice-blue eyes blazed in the fading light, and even from inside the car, even with glass and metal between us, I could feel the weight of his dominance pressing against me.
My Omega wanted to submit. Wanted to unlock the door, crawl out, bare my throat and beg forgiveness for running. My survival instinct told my Omega to go fuck itself. I slammed my foot on the gas.
The tires screamed against gravel, spinning wildly before finding traction. The car lurched forward so hard my head snapped back against the headrest. I barely had time to yank the wheel to the left, avoiding the black SUV by inches, the side mirror clipping a branch as I tore past.
Then I was flying down the driveway, gravel spraying behind me like shrapnel, the cabin shrinking in my rearview mirror.
Go. Go. GO.
I risked one glance back. Caleb had stopped running, standing in the dust cloud I'd left behind like a statue carved from rage.
His massive fists were clenched at his sides, his chest heaving, his whole body rigid with barely contained violence.
Leo was beside him now, one hand on his brother's shoulder, holding him back or holding him up, I couldn't tell.
Even from this distance, I could see the shock on Leo's face. The disbelief.
They hadn't expected me to run. Not like this. Not so fast, not so recklessly, not with such desperate determination.
Good, I thought viciously, my fingers white-knuckled on the steering wheel. Underestimate me. See where it gets you.
The driveway stretched ahead of me, longer than I'd expected—winding through dense forest like a snake through grass.
Pine trees pressed in on both sides, their branches heavy with snow, creating a tunnel of green and white that seemed to go on forever.
Gravel crunched under my tires, the car bouncing over ruts and potholes I couldn't see in the growing shadows.
I didn't slow down. Couldn't slow down. Every second I wasted was a second they could use to catch up, a second for them to get in that SUV and come after me. I pushed the accelerator harder, felt the engine whine in protest, watched the speedometer climb.
Forty. Fifty. Sixty on a driveway that probably shouldn't have seen anything over twenty-five.
The trees blurred past. The shadows deepened. My heart hammered so hard I could feel it in my throat, in my temples, in the tips of my fingers.
Finally, finally, the driveway spilled onto a paved road.
Actual asphalt, cracked and weathered but solid, stretching in both directions through the mountain wilderness.
A faded sign pointed left toward something called "Miller's Creek" and right toward "Summit Pass.
" I didn't know which direction led to civilization.
Didn't know if either of them did. For all I knew, both roads led deeper into the wilderness, into more mountains and more isolation and more distance from anyone who could help me.
I picked right and floored it. The speedometer climbed again.
Sixty. Seventy. Eighty. The car shuddered beneath me, not built for this kind of speed on these kinds of roads, but I didn't ease off the gas.
I couldn't. The road twisted through the mountains like a wounded snake, all sharp curves and steep drop-offs that fell away into shadowy valleys hundreds of feet below.
No guardrails. No streetlights. Just crumbling asphalt and darkness and the distant gleam of snow-capped peaks against the darkening sky.
I took the curves too fast, felt the tires skid on patches of black ice, heard the engine groan as I pushed it harder than it was meant to go.
Part of me knew I was being reckless. Knew that one wrong move would send me careening over the edge, tumbling down the mountainside in a twisted heap of metal and broken glass.
I didn't care.
I'd rather drive off a cliff than go back to that cabin. Rather die than let them touch me. Rather end everything than spend another minute surrounded by their scents, their hands, their voices whispering promises my body craved even as my mind screamed in protest.
Liar, whispered that traitorous voice in my head.
The one that built nests and craved knots.
The one that had been getting louder every day, every hour, every minute since my suppressants started failing.
You wanted them to touch you. You've been dreaming about it for three years.
Every night, you dream about their hands and their mouths and their—
"Shut up," I snarled at nothing, at myself, at the voice I couldn't escape. "Shut up."
I drove for ten minutes. Fifteen. The road stayed empty behind me—no headlights in the mirror, no sign of pursuit. The sun had fully set now, plunging the mountains into a darkness broken only by my headlights and the faint silver glow of stars beginning to emerge overhead.
Maybe they didn't have another vehicle. Maybe they couldn't follow. Maybe— A black SUV appeared around the curve ahead of me.
Not behind me. Ahead.
My brain stuttered, trying to process what I was seeing. That wasn't possible. They'd been behind me at the cabin. They couldn't have gotten ahead of me, couldn't have known which way I'd go, couldn't have—
There it was. Black and gleaming in my headlights, growing larger by the second as it barreled toward me on the narrow mountain road.
How?
How?
I slammed on the brakes. The car fishtailed wildly, the back end swinging out toward the drop-off, tires screaming against asphalt.
I wrenched the wheel, overcorrected, felt the whole vehicle shudder as I fought to keep it on the road.
For one horrible moment I was certain I was going over the edge—could already feel the sickening lurch of gravity, the endless fall, the impact that would end everything.
Then the tires caught. The car straightened. I came to a stop sideways across the road, my headlights illuminating the wall of rock on one side and empty darkness on the other.
The black SUV didn't slow down. It kept coming, engine growling, headlights blazing, eating up the distance between us with predatory patience. And through the windshield, illuminated by my own headlights, I could see faces.