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Chapter Twenty-Eight
Zee hated cities.
Sure, she’d lived in Provincetown for years, but aside from the bustling tourist traffic that flowed into the area during the summer, the town itself was fairly small. There was also the endless expanse of ocean to the east and miles of territory inland where she could run if she felt too hemmed in.
She’d quashed the urges for too long, a fact she was now ashamed to admit.
She’d felt so small for years after she’d run away from Niko, so unlike herself. Even when she’d still been a part of Greylock, she’d protected a tiny kernel of flame that was the core of who she was. But after things went so wrong with Niko...
Part of her still didn’t entirely understand that. One moment, they’d been all but giddy, clinging to each other and stupidly in love.
Then he was burning hot with anger, raging, and she’d been tearing away from him, face hot with humiliation. She hadn’t been able to run fast enough to escape that sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She’d fled, first to Louisiana and when that hadn’t been far enough, she’d tried Texas, then north to the low, gently rolling Ozark Mountains of Missouri before her soul cried out for home.
Not that she’d ever gone back to Greylock.
Staying in Provincetown in the cape area of Massachusetts was the closest she’d gone, but at least she would feel the crisp bite of a New England fall, see the staggering beauty of autumn colors once more, feel the warmth and comfort of a small town where everybody knew everybody, and where they left well enough alone.
P-town might get busy in the summer, but it had never felt suffocating.
Not like the sprawling city outside her window.
In Durham-Starfell, even with the lush green of trees and plants making the city so incredibly beautiful, Zee still felt... hemmed in. Trapped.
The hospital where Shale had been transported was on the outskirts of Durham-Starfell, but it was still several miles from the city limits. Beyond the bright lights of the city lay several small neighborhoods—yet one more obstacle between her and some semblance of freedom.
Her claws pricked inside her skin as she stared at the vague outline of rolling hills barely visible in the morning fog.
It was stupid to feel so trapped. Zee knew it was, but in the years since she’d fled Durham-Starfell, she’d developed an odd phobia. It wasn’t true claustrophobia. Neither elevators nor small rooms set her anxiety off.
She’d subconsciously caged herself during her formative years, quashing the instincts that urged her to run free, to play wild. She’d learned so much once she’d gotten away from Greylock, how even the youngest wolves loved to explore and play, first with a parent looking on and then on their own or with friends as they grew.
The young of Greylock hadn’t been given such a luxury. They were kept close to the pack’s heart, the repression of their natural wildness killing something within. The highly dominant males had been allowed to flex those instincts, but no one else.
Zee’s instincts had been ferocious but she’d been forced to smother it, her father’s incessant warnings, paired with a deep, inner awareness telling her that to let her true self show was to court death. So she’d buried herself, kept the small flame of who she truly was hidden.
By the time she came to Durham-Starfell, her inner wildness had been stunted and malformed.
It had taken Niko to coax some of it to the surface.
She’d all but curled up and died after he threw her aside, and the urges that were part of her nature had become... twisted. Tainted. The pity, rage and self-loathing she’d felt in the months and years that followed had nearly destroyed her.
That fiery inner strength had been dormant for so long, it had practically felt dead by the time she found her way to the Cape.
Years with Meri and the other Atargarians in the Cape had started the wakening process.
The turmoil of the past few days had stripped away the lingering mental chains she’d imposed on herself and it hadn’t been a gentle thing, either.
The fire in her soul, the pieces of herself she’d buried now roiled just under the surface.
She’d been so close to becoming that angry, sad, broken thing Royal Graves had believed her to be.
Now, looking back, Zee wanted to grab her younger self, shake her, even as she wanted to crush the broken girl she’d been into a tight embrace. For surviving. For almost breaking. For not breaking. For fighting.
Her own strength and that caged ferocity now raged within, a wildfire threatening to storm out of control as she paced within the confines of her hotel suite.
She wanted out.
She knew this wasn’t intended to be any sort of prison, but it felt like one. She understood that Niko wanted her safe while he took care of Shale and tried to make sense of what had happened, while his top men and women hunted down those responsible.
