The Alpha's Silence

"Get up. Now." My father's hand is over my mouth before my eyes are even open, his voice a rough whisper in the dark of my room. I don't ask why. I've been waiting for this night since I was fourteen years old, since the first time Alpha Marek Thorne looked at me like I was something he already owned. "Five minutes," he says. "Bag. Only what you can carry." I'm moving before he finishes the sentence. Jeans, boots, the knife my father gave me for my sixteenth birthday, the one photo I have of my mother. My hands don't shake. I trained them not to. Finn is already in the hallway when I step out, seventeen and pale, clutching his backpack like it might be taken from him. "Is it happening," he says. Not a question. His voice already knows. "Yes," I say. "Truck. Go." We don't turn on lights. We don't run. Running draws eyes, even in the dark, even at this hour. We walk fast and low along the tree line behind our house, the way our father taught us both since we could stand. I can smell woodsmoke from the Thorne compound half a mile off, and under it, something sharper. Wolves, awake, moving. "They know," Finn whispers. "They don't," my father says. "They will in ten minutes. That's why we have ten minutes." The truck is where he left it, backed into the old hunting trail behind the Doyle place, engine already ticking with heat like he's been running it to keep the battery warm. He must have planned this for days. Weeks, maybe. I think of every strange look he's given me since Thorne started coming around, since Thorne started finding reasons to stand too close, to touch my shoulder like it was nothing, to tell my father, in that easy, terrible voice of his, that a girl like me shouldn't stay unclaimed much longer. I climb into the passenger seat. Finn takes the back. My father slides in last, and for one second his hands are steady on the wheel and his eyes are not. "Phones," he says. I already have mine out. He has three lined up on the dash, his, mine, Finn's, and he brings the truck's tire iron down on all three without slowing his breathing once. Plastic and glass scatter across the floor mat. My screen, cracked into a spider's web, goes dark forever. "They can't be tracked if they don't exist," he says, like he's said it to himself a hundred times already tonight. We pull out without headlights until we hit the county road, gravel crunching under the tires loud enough to make my heart climb into my throat. Behind us, through the back window, I watch the lights of Thornridge territory glow orange against the tree line, steady, unaware. For now. "Dad." Finn's voice cracks. "What did he do. Why tonight." My father's jaw goes tight. "He asked me for her. Tonight. At the gathering. Said it wasn't a request." I already knew. I think some part of me has known for months, the way you know weather is coming before the sky changes, a pressure behind your ribs that has no name. But hearing it said out loud in my father's voice, flat and furious and scared all at once, makes it real in a way the look on Thorne's face never quite managed. "I told him no," my father says. "I told him she's not property to be handed over." "And?" I ask. "And he smiled." My father's hands tighten on the wheel. "That's when I knew we were done there." We drive in silence after that. The headlights come on once we're past the last Thornridge marker, and the road stretches long and black in front of us, cutting through hills I've never had reason to cross before. My mother grew up somewhere out here, past the old county line, in a pack called Emberline that she left behind before I was born and never once talked about. I know almost nothing about it. I know it's the only place left that isn't Thornridge. "Do they even know we're coming?" I ask. "No," my father admits. "But your mother's parents are still there. If they remember her, if they remember anything, it'll be enough to get us through the gate." If. I hold onto the word and don't let it show on my face. Finn is watching me in the rearview mirror, waiting for me to be scared so he has permission to be scared too. I don't give it to him. I never do. The hours crawl by in dark fields and empty road signs. Somewhere around three in the morning, Finn finally falls asleep against the window, his breathing evening out despite everything. My father drives with both hands locked on the wheel, eyes flicking to the mirrors every few seconds like Thorne's wolves might materialize out of the dark behind us. "You should sleep," he says, without looking at me. "So should you." He almost smiles. Almost. "Someone has to watch the road." I watch it with him instead. Somewhere past four, fog starts rolling in low across the fields, thick and grey, swallowing the headlights ten feet out. My father slows the truck without being asked, easing off the gas the way you do when you can feel something changing in the air even before you understand why. "We're close," he says quietly. "Emberline border should be just past this ridge." I sit up straighter. My whole body feels strange, tight, like something under my skin is waking up after being asleep a long time. Nerves, probably. Fear, probably. I tell myself that's all it is. The fog thins just enough to show a wooden sign at the tree line, weathered but readable: EMBERLINE TERRITORY. NO ENTRY WITHOUT ESCORT. My father exhales like he's been holding his breath since Thornridge. That's when a pair of eyes catches the headlights from the tree line, low and gold and utterly still, watching us the way something watches prey it hasn't decided yet whether to let pass. My father slams the brakes so hard I throw my hand against the dash to keep from hitting the windshield. The truck skids to a stop ten feet from the border sign, engine idling, fog curling against the glass, and whatever is out there in the trees doesn't move. It just watches us. Waiting.