Chapter 2 The Exit
928 Words
Isabela's POV:
I did not stop until I reached the far end of the corridor.
It was only when I turned away that the tears finally fell.
I did not go back to my room.
Instead, I walked all the way to the communications station at the edge of the pack and dialed a number I had not called in five years.
The phone rang for a long time.
"Isabela?" The voice on the other end had aged. It sounded older, rougher, and cautious in a way that made my chest tighten.
"Dad."
The moment I said the word, something seemed to catch in my throat.
"It's me."
Silence stretched across the line for a long time.
"What happened?"
"Dad." I closed my eyes. "I want to come home."
"Okay."
He did not ask me why.
For five years, he had lived alone at the edge of the pack, keeping watch over my mother's grave. He did not ask what had been done to me. The moment I heard his voice, he gave me the only thing I needed from him.
I drew in a deep breath before I forced myself to say the second thing I needed to say.
"I need you to stage a plane crash, a fake one. I'm leaving."
There was a long silence. When my father finally spoke again, his voice was so hoarse it hardly sounded like his at all. "Who hurt you?"
"It doesn't matter who." I clenched my fist. "Dad, will you help me or not?"
"I'll start making arrangements tomorrow."
After I hung up, I sat outside the communications station for a long time.
Night had settled over the pack by then, and the wind cut through me so sharply that I could not stop shivering.
At some point, I lowered my head and looked at my belly.
There was a child inside me, Leon's child.
But Leon did not deserve him.
He did not deserve to be anyone's father, least of all this baby's.
When I finally went back to pack my things, Leon was still in his study drinking with Cameron and the others.
I stepped into the bedroom and stopped when my eyes landed on the safe built into his nightstand.
I did not know the code, but I tried a few numbers he had once accidentally let slip.
None of them worked.
Then, after a moment, I tried Emily's birthday.
The lock clicked open.
I went still.
There was nothing valuable inside.
There was only a dark blue journal.
For a second, I just stared at it.
Tucked inside it was the city defense map I had designed.
Not the copy that had been folded into a paper airplane. This was the original draft, the very first version of the drawing. He had carefully smoothed out the bent corners, and along the margins he had written notes in pencil.
Isabela drew this. She's brilliant.
I turned the page. There was a photo of me.
It had been taken at the pack bonfire festival, and in it, I was smiling so freely that I hardly recognized myself. Beneath it, he had written.
She looks pretty when she smiles.
The third page... The fourth... The fifth...
All of them were photographs of me.
There was one of me in profile while I was bent over my drafting table, lost in concentration. There were surveillance stills of me searching for the bracelet in the pouring rain. He had even kept the images of me at my most miserable, and beside them, he had left notes.
After the first hour, I almost caved. I couldn't. She had to keep going.
At the sixth hour, she fell. I made Cameron shut off the monitor before he noticed I was still watching.
At the tenth hour, her fever hit one hundred and four. I sent Rick to bring her back. She was burning up and talking nonsense. She kept calling my name.
As I turned the pages, the handwriting grew messier and more uneven, as if he had written some of it after drinking.
I lied to her again today. She said it was fine, and there wasn't a trace of blame in her eyes. Why does Isabela never blame me?
Emily asked if I'm starting to fall for her. That's impossible. I just feel guilty.
The eighty-fifth time. I told her I'd forgotten our anniversary, but she'd already started preparing for it a month in advance. When I saw the look in her eyes, something in my chest twisted.
The ninetieth time. Full moon tonight. The way she smells... I don't know how to explain it. I only know I can't sleep when she's not here.
This isn't love, Leon. It's just a habit.
Just habit.
There was only one sentence on the last page.
I stared at that line for a long time.
So long that my eyes blurred, and tears began slipping down onto the paper one by one, spreading the ink until the words softened at the edges.
For one weak, humiliating moment, my heart gave way.
But only for a moment.
Then I put the journal back in the safe, shut the door, and spun the lock closed.
Because I knew that even if some broken, selfish, stunted part of him had called it love when he was alone with his guilt, he had still done every one of those things that broke my heart.
He had felt sorry, and then he had gone right on hurting me anyway.
Ninety-six times, and he never stopped once.
- Writer
