The forest had no walls, but it measured her without mercy.
Every root, every cold stream, every unblinking eye in the underbrush asked the same question: *Can you survive without being owned?*
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The first night, she found a shallow cave and made a bed from leaves. Nick slept curled against her side, his breaths quick and even. Every noise in the dark—the snap of a twig, the slow drag of claws over bark—kept her half-awake, one hand on the knife she'd taken from the assassin.
By dawn, hunger gnawed. She followed the crows, remembering Nancy's voice teaching her that scavengers always know where the water is.
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She caught her first meal by chance: a fish trapped in a low pool after the river receded.
Nick gurgled as she cleaned it, the sound pulling a smile she didn't expect.
“Y
