19. Cash
Cash
There was a frantic energy in the pack that I hadn’t felt since Grant had killed his brother and taken command as alpha.
I still wasn’t sure how he’d done it. It’d only been a year since Jax and the others had left, and Reeve had long since recovered from his injuries, but still, he’d seemed more hollowed out by the day. Disinterested. Distant.
When Grant had challenged him, nobody had believed it. Even when Reeve was dead on the ground, it hadn’t made any goddamn sense.
Grant wasn’t a fighter or a strongman. He was clever, but Reeve shouldn’t have been lost enough for that to win out over brute strength.
But it had, and Grant had immediately turned his attention to making Reeve’s loyalists happy, bringing them into his inner circle and making sure they wanted to stay there.
Something about seeing Jax and his mate sent the pack into a frenzy. Janice still talked to Maia on occasion, who’d left with Jax and Jill when she was months younger than me. Back then, she’d been braver than I was. Still was, probably.
Now, everybody wanted to hear what Janice had to say, what Jax’s mate was like, how the pack lived. They were in San Francisco, the middle of a big urban area, and I couldn’t imagine it, but I was glad.
They could’ve gone off and starved. Gotten put down by some other pack when they wandered through the wrong territory.
Instead, they’d thrived.
But our pack was buzzing. There was a lot to do, and nobody seemed to know where to start. One afternoon, I heard Grant going on about what he was owed. Some of the others spoke in hushed tones, obviously curious about the rich city pack in a way that was more than just speculation.
I was just grateful it’d taken the heat off Evie, and I liked that I could leave the settlement proper to work on the new big house, because that was something for me to focus on for years, maybe.
I was getting better at working fast, and Viktor and Leo had learned so much that they hadn’t needed a lot of guidance in years. We just made steady progress, together.
Still, it was the kind of project I could keep chipping away at for a long time while I tried to get my thoughts in order.
I just didn’t know what we were going to do. The stalemate between Viktor and Grant was a short-lived thing, and Uncle Tommy had told Pa in a hushed tone that it was going to come to a fight.
I’d never been more scared than I was hearing that, because everyone I loved would be on one side of it, and I knew what the people on the other side were capable of.
I didn’t like our pack a lot of the time, but I didn’t want to see it ripped apart or innocent people get hurt. I didn’t want anyone I loved to suffer anymore.
What if Aleks challenged Grant and lost? He’d lose everything. His family would lose everything. Katya wouldn’t be safe anymore, and Aleks—
I didn’t think Grant was fool enough to let a wolf live who was willing to challenge him like that.
So I hated the idea of them fighting, and as much as I wanted things to change, I was terrified of what it’d cost all of us.
And fucking worried when one night, I came home to find Pa sitting at the table, his hands folded seriously, simple sandwiches on plates before his spot, Evie’s, and mine.
Evie hadn’t touched hers, and there was a purple backpack leaning against the leg of her chair.
He nodded at mine, the candlelight flickering off his serious scowl. “Eat.”
Feeling like a kid about to get in trouble, I sat and did as I was told, but my mouth was dry. What was this about? He wasn’t going to say we were handing Evie over. I knew that, but I didn’t know what else could make him like this.
“You’re leaving tonight,” Pa said. “Grant’s going after Jax and the Crescent pack. Said they have something we need.”
“Money?” Sure, it’d help us out to have more of it, but frankly, I knew Jax. If we asked for it, I thought he’d help, even if he hated Grant. There was no sense in anybody getting hurt for something we could get for free.
Pa shrugged. “Not sure. Tommy said he’s been talking to the witches a lot.”
“Aleks might’ve picked something up.”
I hadn’t told Pa about Aleks and me, because I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t sure what we were to each other, except that I sometimes made him smile, and I liked that, so I wasn’t going to question it.
But Pa would. He’d want to know if Aleks was my mate, or if that was the direction we were headed, and I didn’t know. He’d be happy for me, and I wasn’t sure there was any cause to be.
Still, he knew I got on with Katya’s family, and that Aleks was at Grant’s side.
“Maybe, but for you and Evie, it doesn’t matter,” Pa said.
“At some point or another, things are going to turn violent, and the only way to keep you safe and clear of it is for you to go. You and Jax were friends, once. Warn him, and he’ll take the two of you in.
Grant doesn’t have the means to go after a man like Jax if they’re prepared. ”
“We can’t just leave everybody. I mean, if Grant’s attention is turned west—”
We had a chance to figure things out here. I wouldn’t have to leave Aleks.
I didn’t want to leave any of his family, but he was . . . I just . . .
I got a swell of guilt in my chest, same as I’d felt when Jax and the others had left, but this was worse.
If we ran away, Aleks and Viktor would think I didn’t believe in them, and that wasn’t true, I just didn’t want them to get hurt, and fighting?
That didn’t come naturally to me. I could run and hide and bury myself in work, but I wasn’t a fighter.
I glanced at Evie across the table, and took in the firm set of her lips. She wasn’t scared; she was determined. And the idea that she wanted to leave?
Well, I wasn’t sending her out into the world on her own.
I sucked in a sharp breath, turning to Pa. Did he really mean this? He’d send us away to keep us safe, because the pack wasn’t anymore.
It’d never been. Not for us and not for him either.
“If things get better, you come back,” Pa said gently, the way he spoke when my world started spinning too fast. “If they don’t, you’re safe. It’s a good trade, and neither one of you are built for a fight the likes of which Grant’s looking for.”
Knowing Grant, he’d make Evie a prize for the most brutal fighter out there. I shivered.
Maybe Pa was right. Even if I’d been too scared to go before, hadn’t wanted to break from the pack when I’d apprenticed with the humans, to keep Evie safe, I’d do anything.
Pa scrubbed his hand over his stubble. “They’re having a planning session tonight—working out routes and who’s going to go.
They’ll be busy for hours. I doubt they’ll even notice you’re gone till morning at the earliest.” He slid something across the table and when he pulled his hand back, I recognized the keys. I arched a brow at him.
“I lifted them off Tommy,” he said.
“You stole them?”
“So he doesn’t know we’re leaving?” Evie asked at the same time. Her voice was sharp, her brow furrowed. She was pissed at her father, and it was beyond justified.
Pa shrugged. “It’s what he’d want.”
“Then he could say so,” she snapped. “He could do something instead of stick his thumbs up his ass.”
Okay, she wasn’t wrong, but there was no way Evie learned language like that except by hanging around adults all the time. Even when she was hiding, how often had it been while she was listening to the rest of us run our mouths?
My pa smiled sadly. “Tommy’s a bit of a coward, but not you, clever girl.”
“Not me,” she agreed.
He tucked his finger under her chin and smiled proudly down at her.
My heart twisted. “Not to cut Tommy too much slack here, but he—he knows the stakes of standing up to the alpha. He saw what happened to you.”
Pa met my eye, and I could tell he wanted to say that it wasn’t my fault, but this wasn’t the time for that. I looked at Evie across the table.
“It’s not something you want to live with—if something happened to your dad. I know you’re mad at him, and I’m mad at him too. He should do the right thing, no matter what, but . . . I don’t want you to have to live with that either.”
Pa swallowed, but he didn’t say anything right then.
In the end, all this just meant he was right. If Tommy couldn’t change anything, and staying meant risking everything and everyone I cared about, we had to go and hope it really was the safest option.
I turned back to him. “So where’s your bag?”
It wasn’t lost on me that he’d said “you’re” leaving, not “we’re” leaving.
He sighed through his nose. “I’d just slow you down.”
“Dad—” I never called him that. It felt formal and odd, but his eyes softened and he shook his head.
“I’ll be fine. Nobody even thinks about me here.”
“We can’t just leave you,” I insisted.
He didn’t promise he’d be fine again, or swear he wouldn’t get hurt. He leaned across the table and squeezed my hand, shaky around half a sandwich. “I need you to do this, kid. You gotta go.”
I hated this, hated leaving him. But Evie looked like she was about to come out of her skin, so I grabbed the keys. For her, I had to hold it together.
“Take the most direct path through the woods.” Pa got up and plucked a coffee can from the pantry shelf. He opened it and pulled out a bunch of folded bills. “You’ll need gas and lodgings, take this.”
I shook my head. “I can make my own money once we’re out of here.”
Pa frowned. “Not till you’re safe. And what the heck would I do with this here anyway?”
He smiled, and something about it made me want to cry.
I took the money and stuffed it in my pocket.
“Finish your sandwich,” Pa said, “then pack a bag and get out of here, okay? Janice wrote down Jax’s phone number.” He handed over another slip of paper. “Reach out when you can. I’m sure he’ll give you a place to land.”
I nodded. He would, and I knew it.
I just didn’t like leaving this way.
“And the others? You’ll”—I swallowed—“tell them I’m . . . would you . . . ” I looked up into Pa’s mossy green eyes. “Would you tell them how grateful I am for how much they’ve helped? And that I—”
I didn’t know what to say. There wasn’t enough, and nothing I could say to Pa that’d make this any better for any of them.
Shit.
“I’ve got it, kid,” Pa promised.
Eyes stinging, I nodded and shoved my sandwich in my mouth.
Minutes later, I was packed and ready to go.
I had an old phone from when I’d apprenticed outside, but it’d died years ago and I didn’t even know if it worked anymore, but I’d stuffed it in my bag too. Maybe I could get a new card for it, or one of those prepaid phones so I could get in contact with Jax.
I wasn’t sure, but we’d figure it out.
The first step was getting away.
Evie and I were silent as we made our way through the woods. There was nowhere nearby where cars fit, and few enough pack members had one. Tommy had inherited my grandfather’s old truck. It was ancient and light blue, a little rusty around the edges, but it still ran fine.
My license was expired, but I still had it, and if we found trouble I’d—I’d say I must’ve picked up the wrong one.
We got to the truck without issue, but even when we were inside and the thing started up, we were silent and tense, waiting for the howl that said we’d been found out.
It wasn’t until I merged onto the highway proper that Evie broke the quiet.
“You know this Fyse guy?”
I nodded. “We were friends for a long time before he and the others left. They wanted me to go with them, but—”
“Family?”
I swallowed hard. Ma had left Pa, and I couldn’t do it to him too. Even if he’d have told me to run for the hills, I couldn’t do it. Not until it meant keeping Evie safe.
I sighed. “Family.”
More than a minute passed in silence before Evie whispered. “I’m glad you stayed.”
My lips twitched. As hard had things had been, as much as we’d all had taken from us . . . “Me too, kiddo.”
If I hadn’t stayed, I wouldn’t have Evie. I never would’ve met Aleks or his brothers. I wouldn’t know how Pa was doing except through secondhand information passed back and forth between Janice and Maia.
However shit my life was sometimes, there were people I loved in it, and I wasn’t ever going to be sorry for keeping them.
Overcome with feelings that were sometimes too hard to voice in Wildwood, I huffed through my nose and admitted, “I love you, Evie.”
She snorted. “I know, nerd.”
But when I glanced over at her, she was searching my face. I didn’t know what she was looking for, but a moment later, she sighed and looked out the front windshield. “I love you too, and I’m sorry.”
I took one hand off the steering wheel, only to reach over and grasp hers tightly.
“You don’t ever have to be, Evie. Not for this, okay?
None of this is your fault. None of it. I hate that they’ve taken so much from you, and I fucking hate that they want—” They wanted to take more, but there was no sense saying it, scaring her more than she already was.
I swallowed my bitterness and shook my head. “We just have to get to California, okay? Then we’ll figure it out from there. One way or another, things will be better. They’ll be good.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
I had to believe that, because if I was wrong, it might just break us both.