Marked By Silence

The Last Drive Out Briar "Get up. Now. Don't turn on the light." My father's voice in the dark yanks me out of sleep faster than any alarm. I don't ask why. I've been trained since I was six years old to move first and question later, so I'm already pulling on jeans before my brain catches up to what's happening. "Dad?" I whisper. "Bag's already in the car. Grab what you can't leave behind. Two minutes." I grab my mother's necklace off the dresser, the one thing of hers I still have, and shove my feet into boots without socks. My hands are shaking, but they don't stop moving. That's the difference training makes. Fear doesn't get to run the show. Downstairs, Colt is standing by the door with a duffel bag over his shoulder and a look on his face I've never seen on my brother before. Not fear exactly. Something colder. "What's going on?" I ask him. "Later," he says. "Car. Now." We pile in, Dad in the driver's seat, Colt riding shotgun, me in the back with my knees pulled to my chest like I'm still eight years old and hiding from a thunderstorm. Dad doesn't turn on the headlights until we clear the last row of houses. My chest is so tight I can barely breathe. "Someone needs to tell me why we're running," I say, and my voice comes out sharper than I mean it to. Dad's eyes flick to me in the rearview mirror. "Alpha Voss," he says, like that's an entire sentence. It is. I feel my stomach drop straight through the floor of the car. I've spent two years pretending I don't notice the way our Alpha looks at me. Pretending I don't feel sick every time he finds a reason to stand too close, to touch my shoulder during pack gatherings, to tell my father what a fine young woman I've grown into like I'm livestock he's evaluating. I thought I was hiding how much it scared me. I guess I wasn't hiding it well enough. "He asked Dad for you," Colt says, and the words land like a slap. "Offered him Head Warrior. Like you're a bargaining chip." "I'm not eighteen for another month," I say, stupidly, like that fact has ever mattered to a man like Voss. "I know, baby girl," Dad says, and his voice cracks on those words in a way that scares me more than anything else has tonight. "That's why we're not waiting to find out what he does when you are." We reach the border an hour later. Two patrol wolves and a man I recognize — Emrys, the Alpha's son — step out of the tree line. My whole body goes rigid until I see Emrys raise both hands, palms out. Peace, not pursuit. "Mr. Calloway. You made good time," Emrys says quietly, leaning down to Dad's window. "Thank you, Alpha." Dad's voice is thick with something I've never heard from him before. Gratitude, maybe. Relief. "Not Alpha yet," Emrys says, glancing past him into the car — at me, just for a second, something apologetic in his face. "Safe travels. I'm sorry it came to this." They shake hands, and then we're moving again, and I watch the only home I've ever known shrink into darkness behind us. Dad pulls over four hours later to fill the tank. When he gets back in the car, he turns around fully in his seat to look at me, and I brace myself. "We have to cut our pack ties," he says. "All three of us. It has to happen before we cross into the next territory, or Voss can still track us through the bond." "Denounce the pack," I say slowly, and the words taste like poison in my mouth. "That's — Dad, that's permanent." "I know." His jaw is tight. "It's the only way to keep you safe." I think about arguing. I think about every friend I'm leaving, every corner of the only home I've ever had. Then I think about Voss's hand on my shoulder, his eyes doing that slow, assessing thing they do, and I nod. We do it one at a time. Dad first, his voice steady even though I can see his hands trembling on the wheel. Then Colt, quick and clipped like he's ripping off a bandage. Then me. "I, Briar Calloway, daughter of Desmond and Wren Calloway, denounce my place in the Widowmere Pack and choose to become a rogue." The pain hits before I finish the sentence — a hollow, ripping ache in my chest like something essential just got torn loose. I gasp, and Dad reaches back to grip my knee. "I know it hurts," he says. "It won't last." We drive through the rest of the night in silence, the ache in my chest slowly fading into something duller. Around dawn, the landscape changes — thicker trees, taller mountains rising blue and jagged on the horizon. I roll my window down and breathe in air that smells like pine and rain. That's when I see it. A shape moving between the trees, fast enough to be a blur, gone before I can make sense of what I saw. Something huge. "Dad," I say, sitting up straight. "Did you see that?" He doesn't answer. He's already slowing the car, his eyes fixed on the tree line ahead, where four shapes are stepping out onto the road to block our path.