Chapter 004
1273 Words
Mira’s POV
The door exploded inward.
I didn’t freeze or scream. My body moved before my brain could catch up.
I snatched the duffel and ran for the back bedroom, my old room. It was too small, too quiet, still smelling faintly of dust and the past. The posters I never bothered taking down sagged on the walls like tired ghosts. I hit the window and shoved myself through it.
But I couldn't get through it, the frame stuck to me, swollen and stubborn, like it was determined to keep me here.
“Miss Kenwood, please don’t—”
I didn’t let him finish.
I drove my elbow straight through the glass.
It shattered with a sharp, ugly sound, pieces raining down into the mess of weeds and thorny bushes outside. Pain flickered, then vanished under the rush pounding through my veins. Adrenaline stripped everything else away.
“She’s running!” Cain’s voice thundered through the cottage. “Marcus, Trent back way. Now!”
I hurled the duffel out first, then climbed onto the sill. Glass bit into my hands. Warm blood slicked my palms, but I barely noticed it.
I jumped.
Six feet doesn’t sound like much. It feels like a lifetime when you land the wrong way.
My ankle twisted the second my feet hit dirt. Pain shot up my leg, bright and blinding. I swallowed the scream that clawed up my throat and forced myself forward.
Run. Just f*****g run.
The tree line was right there, close enough to see the shadows between trunks, far enough to feel impossible.
Behind me, boots slammed through the cottage, woods cracked and shouts collided with each other.
I had seconds, just seconds.
Shift, I begged silently. Please. Please help me now.
My wolf stirred like something half-asleep and half-dead. Still bruised and broken, whilst refusing to answer.
I stayed human, slow, fragile and bleeding.
But I kept running anyway.
The garden vanished under my feet, replaced by wild grass and tangled brush that ripped at my jeans and burned my skin. My lungs felt too small. My ankle screamed every time it hit the ground.
Fifty yards turned into a nightmare.
“There!” I heard someone yell.
I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. I slammed into the trees just as something sliced past my ear and thudded into a pine trunk beside me, it was a dart.
They weren’t trying to kill me.
They wanted me alive.
That thought made my stomach twist harder than fear ever had.
The forest closed around me, dark and thick and unforgiving. I zigzagged through trees without thinking, branches snapping back into my face, roots grabbing at my feet like hands. My breathing was loud, too loud, ragged and wild in the quiet morning.
They were behind me. I could hear it now and smell it.
“Miss Kenwood!” Cain yelled, getting closer to me. “You’re only making this harder!”
I veered left, then right. Anything to mess with their trail.
Nine years away had ruined me. I used to own these woods. I used to know every hollow, every hiding place. I used to run here for fun.
Now it all blurred together, green and shadow and panic.
My wolf whimpered inside me, small and terrified.
I kept going.
Time stopped making sense. Minutes stretched. Maybe hours. Everything narrowed down to breath and pain and movement. My ears rang. My vision tunneled.
The border.
That was the thought that kept me upright.
The old highway marked the edge of Nightmare Pack territory. Cross it and they’d have to think twice before following. They were consequences for doing such things.
I just needed to reach it.
A howl ripped through the trees behind me, then another. It dawned on me that they have shifted.
Now this is real hunting.
I forced more speed out of my body, teeth clenched against the fire in my lungs and the grinding agony in my ankle. The ground dipped beneath my feet.
I reached downhill. That meant the ravine. And past that, the trees thinned out and sunlight flashed through branches, and then I saw it.
Cracked asphalt. A faded yellow line. A road cutting through the wilderness like a scar. I was close to the highway.
I burst out of the trees and stumbled down the embankment, sliding on loose gravel, barely staying upright. I hit my knees hard, denim tearing, skin burning, blood smearing the pavement, but I got back up.
The road was empty, there was no cars, no trucks. Nothing.
My chest caved in.
Behind me, branches snapped. I could smell them now, four distinct scents, sharp and familiar. The Alpha's enforcers who’d been trained to hunt since before I was born were closing in on me.
I stood in the middle of the highway, shaking, exposed, out of options.
But then a low distant sound of an engine filled my ears.
I spun toward it, squinting into the sun. A semi-truck came barreling around the curve, chrome flashing, massive and real and moving too fast.
Hope slammed into me so hard it hurt.
I ran into the road, waving my arms like a lunatic. “Stop! Please—stop!”
It didn’t slow down.
“STOP!”
I jumped, screamed, waved harder, ready to throw myself in front of it if I had to.
The air brakes hissed.
The truck slowed.
It rolled to a stop twenty feet away. The driver’s door swung open, and a middle-aged man in a battered cap leaned out, irritation written all over his face.
“Lady, what the hell—”
“Please,” I gasped, already scrambling for the passenger door. “I need a ride. Please. It’s an emergency.”
“I don’t pick up hitchhikers—”
“Please!” I grabbed the handle and looked up at him. I didn’t need to fake anything, the fear, the blood, the desperation were all too real. “I’ll pay. I’ll do anything. Just get me out of here.”
He hesitated for a moment and studied me.
Then sighed. “Get in. Now.”
I didn’t hesitate.
I hauled myself into the truck, pain screaming in protest as I collapsed into the seat. It smelled like coffee, grease, and cigarettes. It smelled like normal life.
“My bag—” I twisted around.
“Leave it,” he said, already pulling forward. “Ain’t worth dying over.”
He was right, I had the bare essentials, my phone, means of identification on me.
The truck gained speed.
I looked back through the window.
And saw him.
Asher stood at the edge of the trees, exactly where the forest met the road, in his human form again. He wore the same clothes from the cemetery. Four wolves flanked him, chests heaving from the chase.
He wasn’t moving, just watching.
Our eyes met, and the mate bond flared, sharp and cruel, like it wanted to remind me of everything I’d lost.
Asher smiled and I couldn't detect anger.
He looked like a man who knew this wasn’t over.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.
Cold spread through my veins.
“Drive faster,” I whispered. “Please.”
“I am doing seventy already,” the driver said. “You wanna tell me what you’re running from?”
I watched Asher lift the phone to his ear as the road curved and the trees swallowed him from view.
“No,” I said quietly. “I really don’t.”
The truck kept moving.
And behind us, I knew—
this wasn’t finished.
- Writer
