Page 97 of Before the Bond
I kept walking.
The fog thickened as the estate lights fell away behind me and the open ground stretched ahead, wet grass cold through the soles of my boots. The shapes kept coming out of the dark, spreading across the cleared ground with that same unhurried patience, and the one that had stepped out ahead of the rest simply stood and watched me approach, which was worse than a charge would have been.
My left knee buckled.
The ground came up fast. I caught myself on one hand, palm flat in the wet grass, cane skidding sideways. The world greyed out.
Behind me, Jake gasped.
I found the cane. I pushed my weight under it. The grass was slick and the effort ran all the way up through my shoulder before my legs found the ground and held. I stood.
I looked at the shape waiting ahead. I looked at the fog behind it, and the dark shapes still coming forward out of it, slow and steady and patient as something that had waited twenty years and could wait another ten seconds.
I thought about Olivia leaving. I thought about my mother and the quiet way she made herself smaller and smaller until there was almost nothing left. I thought: if this is where it ends, at least I didn't make it her problem.
That was enough.
I walked forward.
Chapter 21
Olivia
Iwas already reaching for my keys before I understood why. That’s how real decisions worked. You’re already moving.
The motel room was still dark. Dawn was just around the corner, with most of the light still coming from the outdoor fixtures. I checked my essentials — quick.
The sluggishness I'd carried since I checked in was nowhere to be found. My body had already decided. Two minutes later, I was out the door.
This time, there was only one thing I wanted to focus on.
I took a sharp breath.
The sun started to creep through the treeline when I exited the motel properly. It smelled like it had recently rained. Two lanes of wet asphalt going straight through the dark toward a horizon I couldn't see. I thought about every road I’d left. Every apartment I never stayed in long enough to matter.
I used to tell myself the motion was the point. That the freedom was in the leaving. I believed it for long enough that it became the whole story I had about myself.
Standing in a wet motel parking lot at five in the morning, I was done pretending I believed any of it. Every road I ever wenton was to a new destination. I never returned to a place or ever called it home. But this time was different.
I tossed my bags into the car. I set my phone's GPS coordinates.
Without missing a beat, I reversed out of the parking space and went back the way I came.
I was so scared of making choices before that it never occurred to me that every decision leading up to this moment wasn't fate.
I brought myself here of my own volition.
I chose Caleb when I saw him on the wet grass and tried to revive him. I chose Jake, Donovan, and the rest of the Ashwood estate because I wanted to make a difference there. I chose to open myself to Stella as a friend I could rely on.
I chose Caleb in the kitchen the night after the attack — both the truth of his origins and the kiss I gave him. And later on, every evening at the fireplace, and our second kiss on the porch.
Every moment with Caleb was something I wanted for myself, whether I admitted it at the time. Out of curiosity. Out of admiration. I wanted to see him smile, crack whatever he was holding back. I wanted to be with him because it made me happy, and I wanted him to be happy too.
The bond didn't make those choices.
I did.
I let that sit for a moment. Let it be true without qualifying it. I'd spent a long time being very skilled at finding the asterisk in things — the catch, the reason not to trust what something looked like on the surface. The bond. The pack. The estate andeveryone in it. I'd held all of it at arm's length and called it discernment.
