••• Victoria’s POV •••
The morning after should have felt like any other. It didn’t.
I dressed myself in muted steel-gray slacks, a cream blouse, and a tailored blazer that sat on my shoulders like armor. My hair was pulled back in a smooth knot, not a strand out of place. There was no tremble in my hands as I applied liner, no shake in my voice when I asked Oli for the schedule. No crack in the mask I wore.
But it was a mask...
The kind you forge when you have no choice but to keep walking while bleeding inside.
And I hated it. I hated how I now had to always feel like I needed armor to go through each day.
I hadn't returned to the pack house ever since I fled like the pathetic coward I was. I'd like to think I was strong now, but I knew I wasn't. Thus, the mask. The a
