2. Kaia
Chapter Two
Kaia
Istood in the center of my room and looked around at the life that had never really been mine. The expensive desk. The tailored blazers. The framed diplomas. The books on finance, corporate strategy, negotiation, and leadership. All of it a reflection of the girl they'd wanted me to be.
I didn't give myself time to think about what I was about to do. Thinking would slow me down. Thinking would get me caught.
I moved through the room how I'd been trained to.
Efficient. Controlled. Practical. The words from the gym wall surfaced.
I didn't waste my actions. I didn't second-guess.
I just moved. My hands shook as I pulled a duffel from the back of my closet.
I packed underwear, jeans, sweaters, two pairs of shoes, every bottle of suppressants I could find, and the cash I'd hidden in the false bottom of my jewelry box.
Not enough. Not nearly enough. But it didn't matter.
Then I stopped.
On the shelf above my bed sat an older sweater—cream-colored, hand-knit, the stitches slightly uneven in places. My mother had made it for me years ago, before everything became about performance and designation. Before she became silent.
My hand hovered. Just hung there in the air.
My breath caught.
I could leave it. I should leave it. It was impractical. It took up space. It was a liability—a connection to the life I was running from.
But my hand moved anyway. I reached for it, pulled it down, and shoved it into the duffel without letting myself think about why, without letting myself feel what that meant.
I grabbed my laptop, birth certificate, passport, social security card, and the small emergency binder I'd made years ago for exactly this kind of moment. I always liked being prepared. Alphas were prepared. Daughters of powerful packs didn't fall apart.
A sob nearly escaped me. I pressed both hands against the edge of my dresser and bowed my head.
For one second—one dangerous second I couldn't afford to lose—I wanted my mom.
Not that woman sitting in that office, silent beside my father.
The mom from before. The mom who would brush my hair and tell me how proud she was.
The one who kissed my scraped knees and told me to get back up.
The mom who said to me that no daughter of hers would have to beg for a place in the world.
I closed my eyes and gave myself one more second. That mom was gone; or maybe she'd never existed outside of my need for her and her need for me. The grief didn't get time to settle. A door closed downstairs and my head snapped up. Shit. I had no more time.
I zipped the duffel, pulled on my sneakers, and gave myself one last glance around the room.
The four walls and a roof under which I'd spent an entire life trying to earn love from the two people closest to me.
I gave my stuffed bunny a final pat and straightened the bow on a crocheted turtle.
I'd realized today that love was never what I was fighting for—no, my parents were only capable of approval.
I opened the window, and cold, damp night air rushed in. Pine, wet stone, and distant smoke from the pack's fire pits—the scent of where I'd grown up. Of home. No—not anymore. My chest tightened so hard I could barely breathe. I didn't have a home anymore.
I swung the duffel over my shoulder and crossed the room in seven strides.
The door handle was cool beneath my palm.
I closed my eyes, and let the familiar scents from outside and my childhood bedroom wash over me.
And for just a second, I hesitated. Not because I wanted to stay, but because leaving like this meant it was final.
No explanations, no arguments, no chance to make them understand.
I breathed out slowly and let myself hear the truth I didn't want to face.
They already understood. They just didn't care.
I opened the door. The hallway I'd walked through a million times now looked unfamiliar.
It stretched out long and empty, with too many shadows.
The lights were dimmed for the night cycle, casting everything in a soft gold glow that made the house look warmer than it was—kinder than it was.
I closed the door behind me without a sound.
I kept my footsteps silent against the polished floors as I crept down the hallway, past the rooms I knew by heart but had never really lived in.
The library. The formal sitting room. The conference suite.
All spaces built for power, for image, for control.
Not built for me. Maybe once I'd thought they were, but not anymore.
When I reached the main staircase, I paused to listen upon the landing.
My father was still speaking in that calm, measured tone.
They weren't looking for me. They hadn’t even left the office.
The only reason they were talking about me at all was because of my designation—and the trouble it would cause their carefully laid plans.
Relief hit me first—a rush of it, so intense my shoulders dropped and my chest loosened. They weren't coming after me. I could leave. I could actually escape.
But then the hurt crashed in, sharp and suffocating, stealing my breath.
They weren't coming after me because they didn't care.
Not really. Not enough to check on me. Not enough to notice I was gone.
I was a problem to be solved, not a daughter to be loved.
My throat tightened, and suddenly, I couldn't breathe properly—caught between the lightness of freedom and the crushing weight of indifference.
I stood there on the landing, trembling slightly, feeling both lighter and heavier at once. Relief and devastation tangled together so tightly I couldn't separate them. This was what I wanted—to escape unnoticed. This was also exactly what broke me.
I turned from the stairs; the front door was too exposed.
Instead, I slipped down the side hall, the one used for staff and deliveries.
The hallway "no one important" used, my parents would say.
I'd memorized it years ago. I'd thought it was out of curiosity, but maybe it was instinct.
I opened the back door with a quiet click, and the night air wrapped me in its frigid embrace.
I loved the cold—it felt like a hug. The only honest thing that had ever held me.
The cold didn't lie. It didn't wrap me in false promises or tell me I was loved while secretly planning to sell me to the highest bidder.
It didn't smile at me over breakfast and then discuss my worth like I was livestock.
When the cold held me, there was no deception—just the simple, unchanging truth of its bite.
It was reliable in a way my own family had never been.
It wouldn't betray me. It wouldn't pretend to care while sharpening knives behind closed doors.
My family's love had always been conditional, measured, weaponized.
Efficient. Controlled. Practical. Words they used to justify their cruelty, to make my suffering sound like discipline.
But the cold asked nothing of me. It demanded nothing.
It simply was—honest and certain in a way that made my chest ache with a desperate, dark gratitude.
I was so alone that I was choosing trust in the cold over my own blood. That realization should have broken me further—instead, it felt like the first true thing I'd ever known.
I pulled the door shut behind me without a sound. Standing there in the dark, the weight of the duffel digging into my shoulder, the silence became deafening. I waited for the other shoe to drop. For someone to call my name, for a light to flick on, for running footsteps.
But nothing happened. Of course nothing happened. No one cared. My chest tightened at the reminder, and suddenly, I couldn't breathe. I pressed my palm against the cold stone of the house, my other hand gripping the duffel strap so hard my knuckles went white.
I waited. God, I actually waited—standing there in the dark like an idiot, hoping. Hoping that someone would notice. That my mother would check on me. That my father would realize I was gone and come looking. That someone—anyone—would care enough to discover my absence.
But the house remained dark. Silent. Indifferent.
I bit down on my lip so hard I tasted blood. The pain was sharp, real, something I could control. Because this—this crushing, suffocating realization that I meant so little to them that my absence went unnoticed—this I couldn't control.
I was relieved. I was devastated. Both at once, and neither made sense.
My legs felt weak, so I sank down onto the cold stone step, the duffel falling beside me.
Tears came then, hot and angry, and I let them because there was no one to see.
No one to judge. No one to tell me that Alphas don't cry, that I should be stronger, that I should want this more than I wanted their love.
But I did want their love. Even now. Even knowing they were selling me like livestock. Even knowing they didn't care enough to notice I was gone.
I sat there for what felt like hours but was probably only minutes, my shoulders shaking, my breath coming in ragged gasps. The cold seeped into my bones, but I didn't move. I couldn't. Not yet.
Finally, when the tears stopped and my breathing steadied, I wiped my face with the back of my hand.
I swallowed hard, adjusted the duffel strap, and set off across the lawn.
Past the hedges trimmed into perfect lines.
Past the fountain where I'd stood for too many photos, always positioned just right for my parents—chin tilted at precisely the angle they preferred, shoulders back, expression carefully arranged into something that looked like pride instead of the hollow obedience I actually felt.
I remembered standing motionless as my mother adjusted my hair, while my father coached me into the "right" smile, while they stepped back to assess whether I fit the frame they'd constructed for me.
Stand straighter. Smile wider. Look more Alpha.
Be more useful. Be more worthy. Every photograph was another mold I had to squeeze myself into, another shape that wasn't mine.
Everything looked the same as I walked away, but it felt different now.
It felt like a graveyard of everything I'd thought I was to them—a carefully posed, perfectly arranged lie.
I trudged through the rose gardens and past the koi pond until I reached the service driveway where I saw my car—the one my parents thought belonged to one of the workers.
I wasn't allowed to have a car. I had a driver.
So with money from odd jobs my parents didn't know about, I'd bought a used Hyundai Elantra.
It was beat up and not the most reliable thing, but I'd bought it with my own money.
It was the first thing in my life no one else had chosen for me.
I opened the gray door, threw my bag onto the passenger seat, and slid behind the wheel.
And that's when it hit me. The reality of what I was doing became suffocating in my small car. I was leaving. Not for a night, not for space, not to make a point. For good. I took a long, deep breath and exhaled slowly.
My hands shook as I reached for the ignition.
"Okay," I said, my voice barely a whisper.
"Okay." I turned the key. The engine sputtered and coughed.
"No..." I could barely turn the key again with how hard my hands shook.
Then it caught. Relief hit so hard it hurt, and I almost sobbed right there.
I let out a shaky breath and gripped the steering wheel, staring straight ahead at the dark stretch of road beyond the gates.
No goodbye. No looking back. Just go. I shifted into drive and dug my tires into the gravel.
The gates at the end of the road were locked, but I knew the code.
My fingers trembled so badly I entered it wrong the first time.
On the second try, a shrill, mechanical beep emitted from the keypad and the gate clicked open.
I drove through without looking back. Not until I reached the ridge above town.
I peered down into the valley. From this high up, the town looked peaceful.
Rows of warm lights dotted the lands, while chimney smoke drifted up into the night.
For a moment, I could pretend I was just leaving for a business trip.
That I could come back. That someone would miss me for the right reasons.
The moment was peaceful. Then my phone buzzed in the cupholder.
I stared at the screen. Mom. I let it ring all the way through, unsure what to do.
Then it buzzed again. Father. Before I could think about what I was doing, I rolled down the window—it had a crank, one of the many imperfections I loved about this car—and hurled the phone as hard as I could into the trees.
The silence that followed was enormous. I gripped the steering wheel and drove.
Away from the valley, away from the pack, away from the life where my value was tied to their expectations.
By dawn, the mountains were behind me. I crossed state lines.
Drove through forests and fields and over rivers and ravines.
And by the time I caught the first hint of sea salt in the air days later, I had no plan left.
Only a dying car, three bottles of suppressants, a duffel full of wrinkled clothes…
and a desperate, impossible hope that somewhere in the world, there was a place where no one knew what I was supposed to be. Only what I was.