This time, no one tried to stop me.
Rafe’s voice called out behind me, faint and unsure.
“Why didn’t you make a fuss this time?”
I didn’t answer. There was nothing left to fight for.
Back at the Outpost, I shut everything out—my phone on airplane mode, my focus locked on the border. For thirteen days, I trained hard and took extra shifts on patrol, keeping my head down and my thoughts quiet. The work was brutal, but steady. By the end of it, something inside me had settled.
The next day, I turned on my phone.
It vibrated nonstop—messages crashing in from the pack, from Tristan, from people I’d once thought of as friends.
I opened my friend’s messages first.
Dozens of them. All furious, all aimed squarely at Sera and Tristan. And then one photo that made my blood still.
A family ph
