Chasing Freedom

VI

Sleep evaded Mira. It had for hours. Hours, which she had spent, perched on the windowsill, watching darkness turn to light and the trees shift shadows onto the open grass below. As beautiful as the backdrop was with the changing hues of the sun, her mood remained soured.

Each time she closed her eyes, it was a series of nightmares on repeat, interwoven into each other, even when the order varied. The hunters. Their voices. Their laughter. The smell. The blood. Her father's anguish. His yelps. His weakening snarls.

Her own cried and cowardice as she ran—as she left him to die. Guilt clawed deep in her gut, pooling into nausea. She couldn't throw up, however, despite the amount of times she had tried to do so. Maybe if she wasn't functioning on an empty stomach, she would be able to.

Even awake, she couldn't escape the torment, hard as she tried to distract herself from it. Which, she had, in several different ways. Counting to a hundred. Humming to herself. Tracking the patterns of any leaf litter that flew by. Combing out her hair with fingers, near-obsessively. Picking her nails to the point of pain.

Mira was spiralling with self-pity—into nowhere. Combined with the exhaustion, in spite of the fact that she had slept through a majority of the day before, she was overwhelmed.

What she needed was a plan to move forward.

Rationally, she knew it. Emotionally, she was a wreck, buried so deeply she'd never find her way to the surface.

In the situation, she had no control over what happened. She remained at the mercy of the Alpha and his pack. Simply to get by, she would have to remain a step ahead, adapting her lies to hide what she was. The thought of it was daunting. Shifters cold smell deceit, and she wasn't sure how convincing she could be.

As a knock came at the closed door, she jumped, despite herself. Then, she drew in a breath, forcing herself to calm down. She could guess who was knocking. After breaking down in front of Kiva, it wouldn't be a worst-case scenario for her to be aware of Mira's nerves. Still, she had to learn to mask her emotions, with shifter senses so heightened.

"Mira." Another rap against the door. "Honey, are you awake? I've just finished making breakfast, if you'd like some."

"I'm awake," Mira called back, loathing how raw her voice still sounded. "The door is open."

Kiva seemed to hesitate, and Mira made no further attempt to communicate. Likely it could be a simple check-in, as she was one of Kiva's patients. The decision was not on Mira, so she waited, continuing to watch outside. She did so, even when the door opened.

"How are you feeling?"

"Fine," said Mira. Medically, she technically was. The rest didn't need to be shared. Not that the omission made a difference, given Kiva would smell the now-dried tears on her cheeks.

Why had her father sent her to shifters for help? There was no way she could hide anything from them. Humans, were easy. Humans couldn't smell a lie. Humans couldn't hear the jump in her pulse.

Humans—hunters—had killed her father, and would have killed her.

Each option was as dangerous as the other.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Shaking her head was automatic reflex. Talking wouldn't fix anything. Talking wouldn't bring him back. Words had never meant so little as they did now.

"I'm here if you change your mind," said Kiva.

She sounded so sincere that Mira had a passing thought of what if? Nothing would change, but the burden would no longer be hers to carry alone.