Chance
I didn't turnon the radio. I didn't say a word for the first mile. The only thing sharper than the headlights was the tension sitting between us. Me in the driver's seat, Tash buckled up beside me.
The road out to her rental was pitch dark. Gravel spat up under the tires, hitting the undercarriage hard enough to shake loose every dumb thought.
I gripped the wheel until my fingers hurt. The silence was a living thing.
Fuck it. Might as well rip the band-aid. "I'm guessing you'd like to know why you couldn't find me? Why my whole family went off the grid?"
She blinked but didn't look at me, just wiped her hands on her jeans. "Yes." Her mouth was set, but therewas a crack in the armor. "I never understood. One day you're there, and then, nothing. Not even a forwarding address. I thought, I don't know, maybe you changed your names. Got tired of this place. Or I screwed up so bad you couldn't risk seeing me."
The way she said it gutted me. "It's not that simple," I muttered. "Never that simple."
The trees flew by in the beam of the headlights. Black, tangled, nothing out there but the old ghosts watching.
I stared straight ahead. "My family has always had to hide. Move every few years. Get new identities if we have to. Not because we're paranoid. Because there's a group of hunters called the Hollow Order. They hunt anything supernatural, and they're damn good at it."
She flinched at the word hunt, just a twitch, but I caught it.
I pressed on. "They started back in Victorian England. Queen Victoria, legend says, got nearly killed by a vampire. She survived, but it changed her. They built the first Hollow Order from her own private guard. Over time, the power drifted. First to the British royals, then to American robber barons. Now, it's a mix of old money, aristocrats, and corporate types. They fund the whole machine."
She stayed silent, staring at me in shock.
I kept talking. "Their hierarchy's fucked. The top tier is guys who make presidents and kings jump. They never get their hands dirty. They write checks, provide cover, pull strings. Middle management watches every news blip, looking for anything weird. Lower levels? That's the real shitshow. They train hunters from birth. Families who specialize, you know? They're fanatics. But they're not stupid, or sloppy. If you make the slightest noise, they find you. Then they kill you."
Tash curled in on herself, arms tight. "How do they know who to go after? Is it, like, magical surveillance? Or just brute force?"
I snorted. "All of it. Human networks, tech, even psychics. If you're a shifter, or witch, or anything loud, you're on someone's list. The only reason the Meyers kept safe all these years is because we learned to be really good at hiding. New names, new jobs, no paper trail. The year after graduation, Mom got a tip we'd been flagged. We did what we do best. We vanished. Every few years, rinse and repeat. Safe over comfortable."
She let that wash over her.
I squeezed the wheel harder.
Caden was in heaven. He stretched, yawned, and practically preened at Tash's nearness. The dragondidn't just hum, he vibrated, sharp and golden inside, like a retriever with a new chew toy in his jaws. I almost laughed. He didn't care about dignity tonight.
She's ours, he whispered.She belongs where we belong. Don't let her go.
I wanted to roll my eyes, but didn't want Tash to see.
Tash worked her jaw. "So all those years I was just chasing a ghost. I thought maybe you moved to Florida or changed your name on a whim. I even set up Google alerts for ‘Chance Meyer.'"
A lump stuck in my throat. "I never would've wanted to leave you in the dark. But there's a reason Mom offered that check, you know? Not because she's evil. Because she figured the less you knew, the safer you'd be. Shit, Tash, have you ever gotten weird mail? Creepy phone calls? Strangers following you down the street?"
I didn't want to think about what might've happened if we hadn't both moved back to Laurel Gap now, before Fifi had her first shift. If she'd shifted in public. If the Order had found her…
She shook her head, but she was pale. "No, but I never thought to look out for anything like that. I never thought I was in danger or the girls."
Silence again. The pain of sixteen years, blooming fresh.
I downshifted for the last stretch. "Now that you're here, I'm not letting anything touch you or the girls. I'll burn down the town first."
Caden purred, smug. He liked that.
Tash ran her hands through her hair. "So what do we do? Go full witness protection? Can you really keep the girls safe?"
I slowed as we turned up the long drive. "The best thing you can do is not get comfortable," I said. "We stay alert. We teach the girls to stay alert. We keep our magic small, our heads down. That's how Meyers have survived for centuries." I didn't tell her about my father and how he'd died. It was too soon to freak her out more.
She didn't look convinced, but she didn't argue, either. I killed the engine. Neither of us moved. Then she popped the latch and stepped out.
