22. Annabella
Chapter twenty-two
Annabella
Ididn’t sleep.
After I kicked Sam out, I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at my hands until the sparks died.
Except they didn’t die. Not completely.
They flickered along my knuckles, chasing each other like tiny electric fish under my skin. Silver-green. The color of my magic when it decided to make itself known. I turned my hands over, watching the light pulse in time with my heartbeat.
Something had changed. Something Esme had woken up when she’d guided me through Sam’s broken mind, when she’d told me Sam was right, I was twice as whole, not half and half. When I’d let my wolf and my witch exist in the same space for the first time instead of caging one.
Fur and flames. What the hell was happening to me?
At some point the sky turned gray through the window. Then pink. Then gold. Birds started up. Somewhere in the house, a coffee machine gurgled to life.
I didn’t move.
He’s only interested in what you can do for him. When you stop being useful, he’ll throw you away.
Sam’s words kept replaying, each one a blade finding the gap between my ribs. Not because they were cruel. Because part of me recognized them.
I’d built my entire identity on my father loving me.
On believing that the secrecy was sacrifice.
That keeping me and Ellie hidden wasn’t cowardice but protection.
That every mission, every risk, every time his coven called me names, looked down on me as an unintelligent tool for them to use and he said nothing, there was a reason.
A bigger picture. A father’s impossible choice.
Sam had looked me in the eye and called it what it was.
And I’d thrown him out because the alternative was admitting he might be right.
I failed him. That’s what I’d said. About myself. Out loud. To another person.
Witch’s fangs, the shame of that. Hearing my own voice say those words and watching Sam’s face go white with fury—not at me, for me—had been worse than any blow Lucas ever landed.
A knock at the door. Not Sam’s knock. Lighter. Careful.
“Annabella?” Sofia’s voice, muffled through the wood. “I’m leaving coffee outside your door. And a muffin. If you want company later, I’ll be at the Bottley.” A pause. “No pressure. Seriously.”
Footsteps retreating down the stairs.
I waited until the front door opened and closed. Then I opened my door.
Coffee. A blueberry muffin wrapped in a napkin. And Sam, sitting on the floor across the hall with his back against the wall, legs stretched across the narrow space, looking like he’d been there all night.
He looked up at me. Dark circles under his eyes. His shirt was creased, slept-in. If you could call what he’d done sleeping.
Neither of us spoke.
I picked up the coffee. Went back inside. Closed the door.
But I didn’t lock it.
I sat on the edge of the bed and picked up the phone Sam had gotten for me. I dialed Lucas and listened to it ring.
Four times. Five.
“This better be fucking good.”
Charming as always.
“It’s me.”
“Well, well.” His voice came through easy, unhurried. “Annabella McGrath, my favorite little witch-bitch. You know, I was just thinking about you.”
“I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I’m not in the Kennel. Our arrangement stands. I’ll be there with the next payment on schedule.”
“That’s funny. Because the Council bulletin said you were looking at twenty-five to life. Terrorism charges. Big news around here. You should’ve seen the Pack meeting. Tara had to tell everyone to calm down. Very dramatic.”
“The charges didn’t stick. I’m out, and I can keep paying.”
“Hmm.” I could hear him settling into something—a chair, a couch.
Getting comfortable. “See, the thing is, ‘didn’t stick’ covers a lot of ground.
Could mean a legal miracle. Could mean someone pulled strings.
Could mean you’re calling me from a ditch somewhere, making promises you can’t keep.
” A beat. “Where are you calling from, McGrath?”
“That is not relevant to our arrangement.”
“Everything’s relevant to our arrangement given I take on risk, you compensate me for it. And my risk just went up considerably.”
“Bullshit. Your risk is the same as it’s always been. No one knows Mom and Ellie are there.”
“Maybe. But harboring the family of a known fugitive is a complication. The Council showing up at my door is a complication. I’ve got eighty-six wolves in this Pack, Annabella.
Eighty-six people whose safety is my responsibility.
And when the Council starts asking questions about your history, that puts my Pack at risk. You understand that, don’t you?”
There it was. The reasonable Alpha. The leader burdened by duty, forced into difficult decisions by circumstances beyond his control.
“So the rate goes up. Thirty percent.”
Thirty percent was fucking outrageous. “Are you kidding me?”
“I’m sure the Council would be very interested to know where Emma and your witch-bitch sister are, Annabella.”
My teeth ground together. He had me. He could ask whatever he wanted, and I’d give it to keep my family safe.
“Fine.”
“See? That’s my girl.” His voice was light. Fond, almost. The way you’d talk to something you’d trained well.
My side flared—a sharp, ugly reminder from ribs that were still knitting together—and I realized I’d been holding my body rigid, locked tight, every muscle braced the way I used to brace when I heard his boots on the gravel behind the school building.
Years later and my body still remembered before my brain caught up.
“Well. I’m glad we had this chat. Don’t leave it so long next time, McGrath. I get nervous when I don’t hear from people. And when I get nervous…” He let the sentence trail. Didn’t need to finish it. “You take care of yourself. Really.”
The line went dead.
I set the phone on the nightstand, screen down, and pulled my knees to my chest—ribs screaming, wrist burns catching against my leggings—and pressed my forehead against them.
By starlight and shadow, by silver streaks and moonspell, I would get my mom and Ellie out of Ashridge and away from Lucas Fallow.
By mid-morning, the walls were closing in.
I’d paced the room until I knew the exact number of steps from window to door—fourteen—and the precise creak pattern of every floorboard.
I’d started about six of Sofia’s romance novels without absorbing a single word.
I’d done my breathing exercises until I was dizzy from oxygen and no calmer for it.
The problem wasn’t the room. The problem was my own head, and I couldn’t pace my way out of that.
I needed air. I needed to move. I needed to think somewhere that didn’t smell like Sam Shaw.
I opened the door.
He was still there. Same spot. Back against the wall, legs stretched across the narrow hallway, head tipped back against the plaster. He hadn’t moved. Eight hours on a hardwood floor because he’d said he’d be right here, and apparently Sam Shaw was the kind of idiot who meant that literally.
His eyes opened the second the door moved; immediately alert.
We looked at each other.
He didn’t speak. Didn’t ask if I was okay, didn’t push, didn’t try to pick up where he’d left off. Just watched me with those beautiful eyes.
“I’m going for a walk,” I said. Flat. Not asking permission.
He nodded once. Drew his legs in so I could pass.
That was it. No argument. No attempt to follow. He just moved aside and let me go.
Which was somehow worse than if he’d fought me on it.
I opened the front door and nearly walked straight into Esme Parker.
She stood on the porch, one hand raised as if she’d been about to knock, wearing a green cardigan over a sundress, bare feet on the weathered wood. Jem was two steps behind her, arms crossed, expression resigned.
“Good morning!” Esme beamed at me. “I felt your tangles moving. All stretchy and restless. Like a cat wanting out.” She tilted her head. “We’ll walk with you.”
She linked her arm through mine before I could object, already steering me off the porch and onto the path. “The trees are awake, and the bear claws will be warm. Come, come.”
I glanced back at Jem.
He shrugged. “She woke up twenty minutes ago, said you needed walking, and here we are.” His tone was dry. “I’ve learned not to argue.”
I could have said no. Could have pulled my arm free and walked alone. But Esme’s hand was warm, and her magic hummed faintly where our skin touched, and the truth was I didn’t want to be alone with my own head anymore.
“Your tangles are different today,” Esme said as we fell into step. Her bare feet made no sound on the pine needles. “Looser in some places. Tighter in others. Like someone pulled one thread and the whole pattern shifted.”
One way to describe having your worldview demolished at two in the morning.
“Bad night,” I said.
“Mmm.” She didn’t push. Just walked, occasionally reaching out to brush her fingers against a tree trunk, the way you’d trail your hand along a railing.
“The trees are happy today,” she said, then glanced at Jem and smiled. “I mean…it’s a nice day.”
Jem snorted.
“Jem is teaching me how other people interpret the world.”
“Trying to, anyway,” Jem said, his tone still dry but affectionate. “Though I think the trees actually do talk to you.”
“They do,” Esme said simply.
“I know.” He shot her a quick smile. “That’s why I stopped arguing about it with you six months ago.”
The compound moved around us like a living thing.
A woman jogged past with a wave. Two teenagers carried lumber toward a half-built fence.
An old man sat on his porch whittling something, a gray wolf at his feet.
Kids, both in human and wolf forms, chased each other between the cabins, their laughter carrying through the streets.
Shifters and humans, mixed together. No separation. No visible hierarchy dictating who walked where, who spoke to whom, who was allowed to exist in which spaces.
Simon had told me this was impossible. He’d told me wolves were territorial by nature, that like Ashridge Pack, structures were built on dominance and fear, that any human or witch inside Pack territory was either a servant or a hostage.
He’d told me the Council ensured it stayed that way, keeping the species afraid of each other.
He told you a lot of things, said a voice in my head that sounded uncomfortably like Sam Shaw.
A human woman jogged toward us on the path. “Esme, Mom wants to know if you’ll check her garden again.”
“I’ll be there tomorrow,” Esme promised.
The woman waved and kept running.
I said nothing. Watched everything.
A human asking a witch for help. Inside a werewolf Pack. Like it was nothing. Like it was normal.
Either this whole town was in on the performance, or Simon had lied about what Packs were.
And if he’d lied about that—
I shut the thought down. Hard. I wasn’t doing this. Not yet.