Chapter 241: The Part Where She Starts Breathing

They left the road and took the trees, single file at first, then spreading out when there was no clear path forward.

Elias slipped ahead, quiet and exact.

Alexei drifted left to make sure that all sides and angles were covered and that no one could catch them by surprise.

Lachlan cut right with that lazy walk that always made people underestimate him, and Zubair stayed just off Sera’s shoulder.

He was close enough to act like a wall for any stray bullet, but far enough not to touch unless she wanted it.

Luci’s paws ate up the forest as he took point, circling around every so often to make sure that the rest were keeping up. His tail was level, his ears forward, ready, willing, and able to take down anything in his path.

There were no tire tracks, no trash anywhere, no sign that anyone had cared about this stretch of trees in a very long time.

There wasn’t even a game trail to pack down some of the ground beneath their feet.

But that was good.

The last thing that Sera wanted was company right now.

She was holding onto everything by the skin on her teeth, and all she wanted was for just a few minutes of peace and quiet. Just enough to push everything that had happened to her into a small box and then throw it away.

She didn’t like how she was for the past... God only knew how long.

It was like she was in survival mode, and her creature had more power over their body than even she knew.

But the threats were gone. The need to be the perfect daughter had literally gone up in smoke. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

That Chapter of her life was closed.

And now the only thing she wanted to do was move forward to what really mattered.

Killing Adam Jardin.

Luci let out a quick bark, one that was almost soft enough to be overheard, but not by them.

He had found something.

Pushing though the over-grown vegetation, Sera looked at what he had discovered.

At first glance, it looked like a low shape tucked behind thorny bushes. Half of the roof covering the structure was gone, and the rest didn’t look all that far off from disappearing. She could still see the red paint on the wood, desperately clinging to the life it once knew.

A barn then, before the world happened to it.

Looking around the ground, she couldn’t see any type of prints near the door. No fresh droppings to tell them that there had been an animal using it as a home. There wasn’t even sighs of humans using it as a temporary shelter.

Just a rusted tractor fossilized in waist-high grass and a scatter of straw across broken concrete like a memory.

Elias went in first. His rifle up, even if he kept the muzzle low. He checked corners, rafters, the dark behind the collapsed hay bales. A short nod said clear.

Alexei paced the back wall and sighted through the gaps to the fields beyond. "Wind and weeds," he called softly. "Nothing else."

Lachlan toed a rotten plank until it fell apart in a puff of dust. "I know the website said that this was five-star accommodations, but I think I need to leave them a bad review anyways. Sure, it has real rustic charm, but what about the king sized bed that was promised to me?"

Zubair made a slow lap around the perimeter. Heat rolled under his skin as he assessed the threats to his team and Sera. A thistle that had gotten too close to his boot started to smoke, but he simply ignored it.

Reappearing at the door he gave Sera a look and a nod that meant the perimeter would behave.

She stepped inside.

The temperature dipped just slightly. Not enough to matter to any of them, but just enough to feel the crisp autumn air.

It was weird, seeing something other than ice and snow. But Sera wasn’t going to argue. After all, the fall had always been her favorite time of the year.

Luci brushed her leg on the way past and then flopped by the open doorway, his massive head on his paws, his eyes on the gap to the field.

Guarding while resting. Typical Luci.

The men fell into their post-fight habits without talking about them.

Elias laid out what they had like a clinic tray. Magazines full of bullets in a neat stack, a water jug looped with cloth, tape, cord, a dented tin cup.

He ran a thumb along the rifle’s rear sight and then checked it again, not because it needed it, but because order calmed him. Routine calmed him. And he hadn’t had his routine in what seemed like years but wasn’t.

Alexei picked a post where he could see two directions at once and leaned like he had time to waste and nothing ever got past him.

Lachlan stretched his shoulders until something popped and grinned like relief hurt good.

Zubair settled where he could intercept anything stupid enough to try the door.

Sera stood in the middle of it for a breath and let the coil between her shoulder blades ease. Not much, but it was enough for everyone to notice.

The lab was ash. The needles and lights and lies were over.

The people who called themselves her family had died, her father by her own hand. She had eaten a man and the sky didn’t fall.

The world hadn’t punished her for doing something that was considered wrong.

It just kept on doing what it did.

A month ago, or a week ago, or yesterday, or an hour... she had been moving on autopilot.

The creature had run the body while her head tried to process that her father wasn’t a father and never had been.

That the daughter she’d been working so hard to be was an answer to a question nobody asked.

She’d killed and bled and smiled at cameras because there wasn’t room in her for anything except "keep going."

Now there was room.

The creature purred low under her ribs, not a separate thing anymore, just a warm engine wired into her breathing.

Proud, it told her without words. You did what we do. You lived. You protected ours.

She hated that the approval mattered. She liked that it did.

"Clear on the north side," Elias said, his voice normal again now that he had done his inventory. "Part of the roof promises to collapse in the loft. Don’t stand under it."

"Noted," Alexei said. "I would hate to die under farm decor."

Lachlan glanced at Sera like he was trying to read the set of her mouth. "We calling it for a breather, peaches, or do we keep strolling until we find something with more holes in the roof?"

"This works," Sera said. She meant it. It wasn’t much, but it was theirs for a short time.

Elias put the tin cup on a bale near her boot. He didn’t hand it to her. He put it where she could take it if she wanted. "Water. It’s not much, but it is something."

"Thanks."

He nodded and moved on.

Zubair didn’t say anything, but his gaze tracked the line of every board that could be a door if someone kicked it hard enough.

Heat sat around him like a low hum, a reminder that if the wind misbehaved, he could teach it different.

Sera took a sip of the drink before handing it back to Elias. He had given her something so important like water without a second thought, not even taking as sip himself first.

She could do no less.

Letting out a soft sigh, Sera pulled one of the not-so-frozen steaks of bear from her space.

They didn’t hesitate to follow her, even after the lab. She wouldn’t hesitate either.

Without warning, she threw the steak to Alexei, a grin on her face as if she was somewhat hoping it would smack him in the face.