Page 68 of Feral Claimed

---

I get in the van.

***

The door closes.

Through the window I watch Feral Academy get smaller. The building. The yard. The south fence where I sat on the cold ground and held RJ's hand through chain link.

RJ's howl is still in my chest.

I'll carry it to Frosthaven. I'll carry all of it — the bonds and the pack and the unfinished thing with RJ and Dalton already there waiting, and the James case that Lumi is holding for me, and the board that just decided I'm too much for this facility.

Too much.

I press my palm flat against my wrist.

Five mate bonds and RJ.

Not yet,I think, at all of it. At RJ and the fence and the window that faces out and the pack I'm leaving and the one I'm going toward.Not yet. But I'm coming back.

The van turns onto the road.

Feral Academy disappears behind me.

---