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So much reckless impulsivity. It really should have been trained out of him when he was younger. “I don’t threaten. I state facts. Fulfill your duties, or I’ll be forced to see you out of town myself.”

“I’ll help him,” Leo promises.

“You’re all unhinged,” Sasha snaps before turning on his heel and heading back toward the fields. I watch him go, eyeing the short T-shirt that offers zero protection against someone gutting his tender stomach.

I’ve lived in Wilde’s End long enough to know that I don’t like change. I like the predictable. I like what’s safe.

Too much lately, the outside world has tried to push its way in. First with those brothers who bought the town and now with this stranded rabbit. My natural instinct is to panic. To gather my cubs close and not let them out of my sight.

“What are you thinking about?” Leo asks.

I hand him back his knife, the number one rule from my childhood in Appalachia coming back to me. “We don’t talk about it.”

Giving voice to the grim feeling in my gut will give life to whatever is causing it.

“We don’t talk about it,” he echoes.

All I want is for Sasha to be gone, and I should have let Wilde send him back to Wayward. During our town meeting where we decided though, I picked up something in Sasha’s tone that pinged my danger senses, and stranger or not, I couldn’t willingly send him somewhere that wasn’t safe for him.

So now he stays. Until we find a mechanic to fix his car. And I hope that Wilde has other tasks ready for him so that he’s not my problem the entire time.

CHAPTER

TWO

SASHA

How do you get yourself into these messes, Sasha?

The second I’m out of Lynx’s view, my whole body deflates with that thought. It’s not like I do it on purpose—how was I supposed to know that tight bend would result in me crashing my car, finding myself in the company of mountain dwellers, and then being stuck here with no way to escape?

I’m supposed to be in Portland by now. Supposed to be safe. If only fucking up and finding myself in danger was a new thing for me.

When I was first stranded here, I had to steal to survive, because I was too scared to approach any of the people in town. Unfortunately no stealing is one of the very few rules they have in this godforsaken place, and once I was discovered, they had a whole town meeting over what to do with me.

Which is how I ended up here. Working off my apparent debt.

I scuff my hand through my hair, frustration leaking into my already whirling brain. I wish I could blame my entire life on absent-mindedness or a series of bad luck, but I think I’ve passed that point of delusion. I’m working on another theory for why I always feel on the back foot, but I’m not so sure I like the conclusion I’ve come up with.

In fact, even in my mind it sounds fucking insane.

Before I can follow that train of thought to somewhere that’s going to deepen my bad mood further, I remind myself of Portland. All I need to do is survive out here long enough for them to fix my car, and then I can go back to my original plan.

Meet up with my friend.

Change my name.

Disappear into the city.

Start a quiet and boring life.

It’s supposed to be foolproof because I am, in fact, a fool, and I needed to future-proof against my own damn self. Wilde’s End is a … detour.

One that will be over soon enough, and it’ll be like it never happened.

I reach the crop fields, impressed despite myself. Everything is laid out in neat rows and meticulously labeled, which in hindsight is what got me into this manual labor mess in the first place.

Sure, I stole some food. But I still maintain that I only had to steal it because the people who live here are the furthest thing from approachable that I’ve ever met. Maybe if they’d tried being nicer, I would have asked first.