Chapter 1
Dalvin
The fluorescent lights in the bus station bathroom buzzed with the particular frequency of failure. I knew that sound. Had been living inside it for twelve months now, moving through spaces that hummed with neglect and indifference, places where nobody looked twice at a too-thin omega with shadows under his eyes.
The air hung thick with industrial cleaner and something worse underneath, the sour ghost of a hundred travelers who'd passed through before me. Water dripped from a rusted faucet in the far corner, a metronome counting down the minutes I couldn't afford to waste.
I set my bag on the cracked counter and pulled out the scissors I'd stolen from a dollar store in Memphis.
My reflection didn't look back at me from the scratched metal above the sink. The surface was too warped to show much of anything, just suggestions of shape and movement. That was fine. I didn't need to see what I was doing. I just needed to do it.
The first cut sent nearly three feet of brown hair falling into the grimy basin. The second took another foot. I kept going until the weight I'd been carrying for twenty-six years lay in a tangled pile against the porcelain, until my hair fell just past my shoulders instead of brushing the floor. Vernon had loved my hair. Had wrapped it around his fist when he wanted my attention, had stroked it when he wanted to remind me I washis. Had forbidden me from ever cutting it, insisting that floor-length hair was proper for an omega of my status.
The scissors clattered against the counter. My hands were shaking again.
I gathered the hair, shoved it deep into the trash can, and buried it under wet paper towels. Paranoid, yes. But Vernon had resources I couldn't begin to match, and I'd learned that paranoia kept you breathing when money couldn't.
The burner phone in my pocket vibrated. I fumbled it out, checked the number against the one I'd memorized, and answered.
"It's me."
Rosa's voice came through tinny and flat. "They came to the neighborhood yesterday. Two men in a black SUV, asking questions at the corner store. Showed pictures."
My stomach dropped through the floor. "Did they—"
"They didn't find anything. I moved him to Maria's the day before, remember? He's fine. Asking when Daddy's coming back." A pause. "What do I tell him, Dalvin?"
I pressed my palm flat against the cold tile wall. The chill seeped through my skin and settled somewhere in my chest, right next to the permanent ache that lived there now. Eli's face swam up through my memory. Three years old with Vernon's dark curls and my grandmother's eyes, the only good thing to come out of eight years of hell.
"Tell him soon," I said. "Tell him Daddy's coming soon."
"You keep saying that." Rosa's tone stayed brisk, practical, the same voice she'd used to coordinate nap schedules and smuggle cash into offshore accounts. "Soon isn't a plan. Soon is what people say when they're out of options."
"I have a plan."
"Does this plan involve you finally staying in one place for more than a week?"
"It involves me belonging to someone who isn't him."
Silence stretched across the connection. When Rosa spoke again, her voice had softened by a fraction of a degree. "The Chase."
"Registration closes in forty-eight hours. I'm on my way to Thornhaven now."
"Dalvin." She said my name the way she said everything. Direct, unadorned, stripped of comfort. "You understand what that means. Once you're caught, you can't refuse. Whoever claims you—"
"Owns me. I know." I watched a roach crawl across the floor and disappear under the row of stalls. "But a new bond breaks the old one. That's the law. If another alpha claims me, Vernon loses all legal rights. He can't come after me, can't come after Eli. It's the only way to make this permanent."
"It's also the only way to end up belonging to someone worse."
I didn't have an answer for that. She was right. The Chase was a gamble with stakes I couldn't afford to lose. But the alternative was running forever, watching my son grow up in hiding, waiting for the day Vernon's money finally caught up to us.
"I'm out of time, Rosa. They found your neighborhood. They'll find Maria's eventually. I need this over."
More silence. Then a sharp exhale. "Call me when it's done. Whatever happens."
"I will."
"And Dalvin? Try not to die. That boy needs his father."
