When my bundle was packed, I sat for a moment in the dark, legs folded under me. I recited the poem from memory, each word a slow drip of honey and iron:
No prison built by mortal hands
Could keep the wildness tamed,
No master born of mortal line
Could bind what can’t be named.
It was almost time. The tales said the stones in the wood—ancient, older than the Abbey itself—could open paths if themoon was right. Old Nan used to tell it to us in the nursery, how the circle of oaks could whisk away a girl in the night, if only she was clever and a little bit mad. The grown-ups always laughed, but I’d seen the mossy ring for myself, the stones set in a pattern that made your teeth ache if you looked too long. I’d measured the distance from my window, across the moat by the willow roots, past the frozen tilth, into the shadowed woods. Maybe an hour’s walk if your legs didn’t fail you.
I tied back my hair, tucking every stray wisp under a scarf. My hands had steadied. I listened once more to the silence, perfect and absolute.
The window latch was stubborn, but I’d greased it with tallow earlier in the week. It swung open without protest, the night air biting and full of frost. I eased my bundle onto the ledge, slipped after it, and let myself down onto the tiles below. The drop jarred my knees, but I did not cry out.
I crossed the courtyard with my head down, hugging the shadows. The stables were empty, the grooms off somewhere dicing for pennies. The mud sucked at my slippers, but I kept moving. At the gate, I paused. No one on watch. No dogs, no lights. I slipped through the postern and into the narrow lane that led toward the woods.
The path was as I remembered it, winding, haunted by the last rotten leaves of winter. The moon was a cold eye above me, watching and unmoved. I walked until the manor was a memory, until the only sound was the frantic rush of my own breath.
When the circle of trees came into view, I slowed. They looked like centurions, created by the earth, glistening with frost. I stepped into the circle and dropped my bundle at my feet.
I did not know what would happen next. Maybe the old women were wrong, maybe the trees were just trees. Maybe I would freeze, or be found, or worse. But for the first time in mylife, I was standing somewhere not mapped by any hand but my own.
I raised my face to the sky and waited, a wild thing unbroken.
Moab
The wolves all gathered at the church of bad decisions, otherwise known as the RBMC Lexington, KY Chapter main clubhouse, if you went by the sign stenciled over the bar, which I never did. The meeting room was its own little slice of hell with walls painted the color of oxidized liver, every surface covered in some flavor of testosterone. The air was a stew of cigarette smoke, ancient whiskey, sweat, and something wolf-like. I loved it more than anything else in the world. It was a brotherhood, men among men who understood things like loyalty, brutality, and what it was like to rise from the ashes to be something none of us ever thought possible.
Vin sat at the head of the table, a fist curled loosely on the battered oak, his president’s patch bright in the overhead glare. His eyes never stopped moving across faces, across hands, across the half-empty bottle he nursed with the focus of a man trying to solve a puzzle. Rowan perched at his left, half in theshadow of Vin’s bulk, twitching his fingers on a cheap disposable vape and not even pretending to make eye contact. The rest of the officers fanned out along the sides: Shivs, cold and upright as always, Canon quietly watchful, Bolo nervous as always, and Toolie always with a wrench in his hand.
I slouched in a torn-up recliner that probably predated the club, boot soles grinding old cigarette butts into the carpet. They hadn’t called a meeting for days, not a real one. Which meant something had either gone very right or very, very wrong.
Vin broke the silence with his signature cough, a dry bark that signaled the listening part was over, and the talking part was now mandatory. “We got problems on the perimeter,” he said. “More of those Ghouls MC fucks creeping past the line. A couple of nights ago, they left a calling card in the east woods. Shot up a sign, tagged it with their bullshit. Not real subtle. Looks like Louisiana is moving into our territory.”
Someone muttered “assholes” into their whiskey, which was about as rebellious as anyone got these days.
Vin ignored it. “We’re not running patrols light anymore. Moab—” he jerked his chin at me, “—you take the next shift with Shivs, full gear, tonight. I want them to know we saw the message. You see them, you scare them so hard their grandchildren piss themselves.”
Shivs smirked at me across the table, but his eyes said, try and keep up. I gave him half a nod. There were worse assignments.
Vin leaned back, steepled his hands like some backroom bishop. “Rest of you stay on call. That means no blackouts, no midnight drug runs, and for fuck’s sake, nobody bring any civvies to the clubhouse until this is done.” His gaze landed on Toolie, who raised both hands like a caught thief. “That was one time,” he said. “And the woman was too drunk to remember her own name.”
“See that it stays that way,” Vin shot back, then pointed his bottle at me. “Moab. Got anything to add?”
I let the question dangle. My fingers drummed on my thigh, leftover road energy, or maybe the itch to get out before the walls caved in. “Just say the word if you want something more final than scare tactics,” I said, and for a second, the silence grew teeth.
Vin grinned, all gold crown and canines. “You’ll be the first to know if we go full rabid.”
Canon chose that moment to speak up, voice thin and scratchy. “You, uh, planning on sleeping at all? Or just running off every time you get a text from Prez?” He didn’t look at me, he never did, not unless it was just the two of us and a half-dismantled bike between. “Noticed you’ve been...I dunno. More Moab than usual, lately. Not that it’s a problem.”
Shivs snorted. “Yeah, the world would collapse if Moab Williams ever took a nap.”
I shot Canon a look, but he wouldn’t meet it. Instead, he dug a nail into a raw spot on his thumb, waiting for a reaction. I softened, just barely. “Got my sleep schedule dialed in,” I said. “One REM cycle per felony.”
The room cracked up, everyone except Shivs and Vin. The latter just watched me, deadpan, like he could see through every joke to the wolf chewing up the inside of my skull. Sometimes I wondered if he actually could. Prospects Torch and Axel looked down, each smirking.
Vin let the laughter die. “You take care of it tonight, then come see me,” he said, quieter now, as if this part wasn’t for public consumption. “We got another situation brewing. Club business, not for the table. Understood?”
