~ ROSELLE ~

I’ve made up my mind. I keep telling myself that, over and over, like a mantra I’m trying to drill deep enough into my chest that it stops feeling hollow. I’m leaving, tonight.

It should feel like relief. It should feel like something solid and certain, just the way a decision is supposed to feel once it’s been made. Instead, my chest won’t stop heaving, and my hands won’t stop trembling, and every time I try to breathe through it the air comes out wrong, like there isn’t quite enough of it in the room.

I press my back against the headboard and stare at the ceiling.

Dr. Elias had come in earlier for his evening check. I’d noticed immediately that the nurse beside him was different, not the nurse who had been with him the previous visit. It struck me as odd for a brief moment, but Elias had been his usual calm, methodical self, checking my pulse, asking about pain, reminding me to eat before sleeping. Whatever the reason for the change, it was probably nothing. Maybe it’s a scheduling issue, or a shift change.

I wasn’t going to let myself think too hard about it. I mean, I have enough to think about already.

I inhale deeply and exhale slowly, running my hands through my hair.

You’re doing the right thing, I remind myself. You’re doing the only smart thing.

I shut my eyes closed, intending for those words to sink deep into my brain, but oh well, that is indeed a big mistake, because the darkness only makes it worse.

All I can see is his face, soft and caring, grey eyes peering into my very hazel ones as he asks, "Are you okay?"

The way he’d brushed the hair from my face in the garden without thinking, like it was the most natural thing in the world. The one from last night when I wake up screaming from the nightmare and he gathers me in his arms and says, "You’re safe. Nothing is going to happen to you,"

I blink my eyes open. "Stop it, Roselle"

But my brain doesn’t seem to stop. It’s as if overthinking is its forte. It keeps pulling up memories of the breakfast tray and the way he’d spoon fed me. How he warned his pack members to apologize to me and call me his Luna in his presence.

I press the heels of my palms against my eyes until I see stars.

Am I stupid? Is that what this is? Am I genuinely, irreparably stupid?

’That’s exactly the problem,’ a voice in my head whispers back. ’That’s exactly what Mara said.’

And she’s right. This is how the trap closes, you feel cared for, you feel seen. You feel chosen. And then the crush comes and you’re already too far inside to escape.

That’s what happened to the other women. That’s what’s happening to me right now.

He’s feeding on my brain. This is precisely the trap... Mara voice rings over my head again, ’He gets under your skin so deeply, and patiently that by the time you realize what’s happening, leaving feels impossible. He doesn’t cage you with bars or chains or locked doors. He cages you with grey eyes and warm hands and the kind of gentleness that makes you forget every reason you had to be afraid. And then the curse takes you anyway.’

I think about that, forcing myself to sit with it, and let it sink deep into my brain, the exact way I used to force myself to stay awake during the worst nights in Warren’s cell because sleeping meant being caught off guard.

I try a different approach this time, closing my eyes again, and trying to drown it all out, trying to focus on the plan, on Mara’s words, on the address hidden in the fabric of my dress.

It isn’t working. It fucking isn’t.

My eyes fly open. I press my fist against my mouth to keep from making a sound that I can’t make anyway.

What part of this is hard to sink in Roselle?

’He’s going to kill you eventually, Roselle. That’s what happens. That’s what the pattern is.’

I repeat it like a mantra. Over and over. Flowers. Library. Piano. Six dead women. Flowers. Library. Piano. Six dead women.

The sudden knock on my door jerks me out of my thoughts, my eyes shooting toward it. My head snaps in its direction, my pulse lurching. For one terrible second, I think it’s him.

The door opens, and as expected, Mara walks in, camouflaged as Celeste just like before, much to my relief.

"Are you ready?" she asks without preamble.

I look at her.

My chest is heaving like I’ve been running. My hands are trembling. Every part of me is screaming that this is wrong, that I shouldn’t be doing this, that I should call out for him even though I can’t make sound and he’d probably never hear me anyway and...

I force myself to focus.

"What if he finds out?" I sign. The question comes out before I can stop it. "What if he realizes I’m gone before I make it far enough?"

Mara walks to the window. Looks out at the pack grounds as if she’s calculating distances. "He’ll search," she says simply. "That much is certain. But the first place he’ll look is Warren’s territory. That’s where you came from. That’s where his instincts will tell him you’d run to."

She turns back to me.

"By the time he figures out you’re not there, you’ll already be in neutral territory. Sena will hide you, and Nobody comes into her house without her permission, and she doesn’t grant permission easily." Mara pauses. "You’ll be safe."

Safe. The one word reverberates through my head, bringing with it several questions.

Safe from what? Safe from the man who carried me? Safe from the man who asked if I was okay?

"How long will it take to get there?" I ask.

"Three hours if we stay off the main roads. Longer if we have to hide." She holds my gaze. "But we won’t get caught, Roselle. I’ve done this before."

Have you? I want to ask. Have you helped women escape before or are you just, what? Why are you really doing this?

But those are questions I can’t afford to ask because if I start asking questions I might start thinking and if I start thinking I might remember things I’m not supposed to and then I’ll never leave.

I have to leave. I have to. Because the alternative is staying and waiting and being one more name on a list of women in the ground.

I take a deep breath, and then another.

My hands come up slowly.

’I’m ready,’ I sign.

Mara moves toward the window. "We go out this way," she says, and I cock a brow at her, silently asking if she’s sure, because the last time I checked, this same window seemed as though it was impenetrable.

"I’ve already handled the guards on this side of the building. There’s a vehicle waiting at the tree line."

She looks back at me.

"Can you climb?"

I look at the window. Did she really say we’re going out the window? Same window i thought was impenetrable? My wrists are still healing. My body is still recovering. But survival has never been about easy.

I nod. Mara opens the window quietly, I’m amazed by her strength, I was half expecting some creaking sound or something to alert the guards or Ronan about our secret mission.

The evening air comes through, cool and sharp, slapping against my skin and sending a cold chill racing down my spine as I’m suddenly aware that I’m about to embark on something very dangerous.

I move toward her, and just before I reach the window, I pause.

I look back at the room. At the bed where he sat beside me. At the chair where he waited while I slept. At the space by the door where he stood when he said ’You don’t have to be scared of me’

’I’m sorry,’ I want to sign.

But I don’t. Instead, I climb through the window and follow Mara down into the darkness, and I don’t let myself look back even though every cell in my body is screaming that I should.

Even though every part of me that isn’t terrified is heartbroken about it.

My heart is thrumming endlessly as I run through the quiet pack alongside Mara. My pulse pounds heavily, and my body feels too dizzy. Questions ring through my head.

What exactly am I doing? What—

I almost feel as though the breath is knocked out of my lungs when Mara hurls me over and ducks right under a nearby bush of flowers. My heart beats heavily as the sound of heavy boots keeps getting closer.

Thrum. Thrum. Thrum.

Is this it? Are we finally caught? Is this where the girl who thought she could outrun her fate gets dragged right back to it?