Chapter 2
Two
Brea
Why the fuck hadn’t we thought to pack a go-bag?
We’d filled the car with water bottles and food and blankets and pillows, fucking dirty laundry for Taryn’s makeshift nest, yet none of us had thought to pack a backpack in the event of a hasty retreat.
Stupid. Fucking stupid amateurs.
Taryn slept the whole day. I was glad of it. If she was asleep, she wasn’t cold or hungry or frightened. The fever had left her skin sometime in the night; her heat was well and truly finished now.
I dozed on and off. Even when I woke, though, I didn’t move. Neither of us did. For body warmth. For comfort. For being so sore and exhausted that the mere thought of standing up made me want to cry.
Taryn stirred once at dusk, turning to burrow her head beneath my chin, fists bent and clenched between our bodies. I didn’t even realize she was awake until she whispered, “Are you okay?” against my throat.
My eyes burned with tears, and I kissed her temple. “Yes, Teacup. I’m okay.”
If only we had a fucking plan.
She slipped back into sleep. Her heat having passed was good. Necessary. A tiny part of me yearned for the warmth of her fevered skin, though. I wrapped myself around her as best I could, thinking warm thoughts.
All of our plans had ended here.
Run.
Hide.
Wait.
Which had been fine—or some version of fine—when that meant moving into the apartment upstairs and driving to the Greysmoke Cabin.
Now, we sat starving and shivering in a secluded cave, hostile forces moving ever closer outside these jagged walls. Already a day had passed with no sign of the guys. Every heartbeat that passed without their appearance killed the hope that it would happen.
We were on our own.
The rain started again that night. Taryn slept through the whole thing. I didn’t. My mind and body, minimally rested, were now tuned to the goal of figuring out a plan.
No money, no IDs, not even enough clothing to keep us decent walking down the street. Which would be fine if we could go into a police station or hospital and ask for help. But we couldn’t.
The cabin was a lost cause. Surely the assholes who’d come for Taryn were still there, using their superior manpower and firepower to track us—two woefully unprepared women who’d fled on foot.
Bare fucking foot.
They had the high ground, metaphorically at least. They wouldn’t cede it.
Which meant we couldn’t just stay here. Healthy men, properly outfitted for the woods, expanding in circles around the cabin would make their way here eventually.
There was no forward. No backward. And no pause button.
So we had to go…downward?
The direction of hell. Assuming it was there, not here.
Focus, Brea.
We’d passed other cabins on the drive up here. Few and far between, but they existed. Ones that had been built, like Caine’s family’s, before the state established the national park. Maybe we could find one. Find food, clothes, a vehicle if we were lucky.
My heart settled, halfway satisfied now that a feasible plan had come to light. Taryn breathed deep and even, curled up in a tight ball against the chill of the cave. I curled myself around her, lending her my body heat.
When she woke, we’d head out.
Everything ached as I faded back to consciousness. My head, my hips, my arms. My stomach growled with hunger, and Taryn’s answered it like a call and response.
“When I say guuuuuurrrrrr, you say ggglllleeeeeee,” Taryn murmured like she’d read my damn mind.
I chuckled, lips turning up for the first time in days, and hugged my omega close. “You’re my favorite,” I whispered against her neck before dropping a kiss there.
“Hey, now,” she grumbled as she looked up at me, “you can’t be saying stuff like that anymore. The boys will get jealous.”
A pang of grief stabbed through me to think of them.
Twenty-four hours. Not a peep. From them. From anyone.
The longer we waited, the higher the chance we would hear a peep. But no guarantee who’d be making it.
I sat up, tucking my tangled hair behind my ears. “Teacup, we need to leave.”
Her nerves were like static in the bond. I spoke over it, telling her about my plan to find another cabin and, from there, figure out our next steps.
Worry lined her brow as she listened, and when I fell silent, she bit her lip. “Well?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “I’m so tired. I just…I don’t know if I can even stand, let alone wander through the mountainside hoping we stumble upon a new plan.”
An unexpected sting sliced through my heart. It felt too close to rejection, and I didn’t like that coming from my Teacup.
I took a breath, and then a hard look at my omega. Already she was so thin she looked frail, her eyes dull and cheeks hollow. She leaned against the cave wall, as though too weak to hold herself up.
Fuck. All this on the back end of her heat. Shame washed through me that I’d made her struggles about me. There was no time for self-flagellation, though. Only time for solutions.
Willing as I was to carry her on my back, with my own waning stamina, I didn’t know if I could for very long. If I collapsed with both of us somewhere out in the woods, we’d be sitting ducks, ripe for the hunting.
Here, Taryn was sheltered, and her location was known. The thought of leaving her behind had the alpha in me howling with displeasure, but it was the least atrocious of the possible choices.
“Okay,” I said, looking to Taryn. “I’ll go.”
She blanched even further. “Brea, no—”
“We can’t sit and wait forever, Taryn,” I said as gently as I could manage through my fear and exhaustion. “We need food and water, clothes and better shelter.” I cupped her cheek and leaned my forehead against hers. “I’ll find help, and then I’ll come back and get you.”
Silent tears slipped down her cheeks. “You can’t go alone.”
I forced a smirk onto my lips. “You don’t tell me what to do.
That’s my job, remember?” I kissed her forehead, pushing aside the hot blade of fear trying to choke me.
“And my job is also to protect you. Right now, that includes doing whatever I have to do to get you out of this forest and away from those men.” Her lip trembled, and my heart shattered.
I looked to the cave entrance. “I need to go now.”
“What? No!”
I held my omega, who cried on my shoulder. I wanted to whisper comfort in her ear. It’ll be okay. I’ll be back soon. We’ll find the others. Everything’s fine.
But I couldn’t say any of that in good conscience. The future was a smoggy expanse of nothing. Like a misty forest full of danger. What was coming was unknown; all that was clear was what we needed.
So I whispered the only truth I knew still existed.
“You are our light, Teacup.”
And no matter how deep in the darkness I plummeted, I’d never stop reaching for her saving light.