Chapter 005
1132 Words
Mira’s POV
Three hours.
That’s how long it took to reach the city. Three hours of farmland melting into suburbs, suburbs stacking into concrete and noise, the mountains shrinking behind us until they were just a dark smear on the horizon.
Three hours of trying to convince myself that I was free.
The truck finally rolled into a gas station on the city’s edge. Jim pulled in, killed the engine, and looked over at me like he still wasn’t sure this was real.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked.
I climbed down, my ankle screaming the second it touched pavement. I swallowed it down.
“I’m sure. Thank you. Thank you very much for everything.”
He hesitated. “I can take you farther. Wherever you’re going.”
“I know. But no. You’ve done enough.”
He studied my face, then nodded. “Alright. Take care of yourself, girl. And whatever you’re running from… I hope it stays gone.”
“Me too.”
I watched his truck disappear into traffic, the rumble fading into the city’s constant noise. Then it was just me, standing on a corner that smelled like exhaust, grease, and people who didn’t care who I was.
It felt like home.
I caught a bus using the wrinkled bills I’d stuffed into my jacket before the funeral. No one looked at me twice. Everyone wore headphones and were focused on their phones.
God, I missed this.
In the city, no one knew your name. No one knew your bloodline. No one cared if you’d rejected an Alpha and detonated your entire past.
Here, I was just Mira.
My building was still the same six floors of old brick and fire escapes, squeezed between a bodega and a dry cleaner. Five years I’d lived here, five years of quiet survival.
I limped up to the third floor, every step biting into my ankle. My body hurts, my chest hurts. Everything f*****g hurts.
But I’d made it.
Inside, the apartment smelled stale, I dropped my jacket, shuffled to the bathroom, and finally looked at myself.
I looked wrecked.
Scratches down my arms, torn jeans, bloody knees. They were cuts on my hands, and I noticed the hollow eyes and gray skin.
But I was alive, that had to count for something.
I showered until the water went cold, watching blood and dirt spiral down the drain. It didn’t take the ache with it. The mate bond stayed, dull, persistent, like a bruise I couldn’t reach.
I wrapped my ankle, pulled on clean clothes, and collapsed onto my bed for just a minute, but I woke up twelve hours later to sunlight and my phone vibrating itself off the nightstand.
I had to go to work.
Shit.
I called Daniela, already rehearsing an excuse, but she cut me off immediately.
“Your aunt called,” she said softly. “I’m so sorry about your mother.”
Right. Aunt Helen. I had added calling her to the growing list of things I was avoiding.
“Take the week,” Daniela said. “Come back Monday.”
“I can come in tomorrow.”
“You sound awful.”
I felt worse. But being alone with my thoughts was worse still.
“I need the distraction.”
A pause. Then a sigh. “Alright. But if you change your mind, say the word.”
“I’ll be there at nine.”
The next few days blurred. I did laundry, bought groceries, responded to emails. I pretended to live a normal life, though the ache never left.
By day three, it was obvious I was failing.
I stared at sketches without seeing them. Lines came out wrong. Proportions skewed. Daniela noticed immediately.
“Mira,” she said, pulling up a chair. “You’re not okay.”
“I am.”
“You look like you’re dying.”
“I am just tired.”
She didn’t buy it. “Take tomorrow off.”
I nodded. I didn’t have the energy to argue.
That night was mother's will reading.
We did it over video. My aunt’s face looked drawn. The lawyer was brisk and efficient. The estate was small and everything went to me.
Then—
“There’s a letter,” the lawyer said. “Your mother requested it be delivered after her passing.”
My chest tightened. “What does it say?”
“I don’t know. It’s sealed.”
The call ended. I sat in the dark, staring at the blank screen.
“A letter,” I said to myself. “What could be in there?”
It arrived the next afternoon, in a cream envelope. My name in my mother’s handwriting.
I stared at it for twenty minutes before opening it.
It was short, but it was a well written apology to me asking me to forgive her for letting me go. And it revealed that Asher holds the key to me finding out the real reason why my father was killed.
I couldn't believe it.
My phone sat on the table.
I picked it up. Put it down. Picked it up again.
Finally, I called the one person who wouldn’t lie to me.
Aunt Helen answered on the second ring. “Mira?”
“I need to know the whole truth,” I said. “About my father.”
Silence followed and then she asked: “What did the letter say?”
Of course she knew what it said.
“It said Asher knows and that the proof of everything is in the pack's archives.”
Another pause.
“Don’t go back,” she said quietly. “Please.”
“But I have to.”
“He won’t let you leave again if you go back.”
“I know.”
“And you’re still going.”
“Yes, but not now.”
She exhaled slowly. “The archives are in the old Alpha wing. Only Asher has access.”
“So I must go through him.”
“Yes.” Her voice dropped. “And he’ll want something in return.”
The bond pulsed.
“When are you going?” she asked.
I looked around my apartment, my safe little life that suddenly felt like a waiting room.
“I am thinking a year from now, maybe then this bond would have totally died.”
“Call me when you get there,” she said. “And Mira… being your mate doesn’t mean he’s on your side. He is dangerous.”
The call ended.
I sat in the dark, city lights flickering outside the window, the letter heavy in my hand.
I was going back to Nightmare Pack.
Back to Asher Creed and with any luck he would have found someone else and moved on from me.
- Writer
