Eden POV
Eden ran.
Not away. Forward. She didn't think about direction or destination. She thought about speed. About moving her legs faster than Viktor could catch her. About the knife in her hand and the two thousand dollars in her pocket and the fact that stopping meant dying.
She'd cut him.
Not bad. Not deep enough to really hurt. Just enough to surprise him. Just enough to make him flinch for half a second. That half second was all she needed.
She crashed through the forest like something wild. Branches tore at her face. Her feet found roots and rocks and things that shouldn't be stepped on. Pain shot up through her legs but she ignored it. Pain was useful. Pain meant she was still moving.
Viktor's voice faded behind her. He was too big to chase her through the thick trees. Too built for power instead of speed. She had an advantage and she used it until her lungs burned and her legs screamed and she couldn't hear him anymore.
That's when she realized something worse. She was deep in the forest with no clear path out. No roads. No landmarks. Just trees and darkness and the terrifying knowledge that she had no idea where she was going.
She walked instead of running. Tried to think. Tried to remember anything useful about navigation or survival. But her mind was too loud with fear. Too full of Viktor's face and the pack's plans and the image of Cole waiting in his territory to claim her.
By the time the sun came up, her feet were already bleeding.
She could see the dark stains in her shoes. Could feel the blisters forming and popping and forming again. She didn't have proper supplies. No water bottle. No map. No shoes made for long distance. Just the thin ones she'd grabbed from her room that were falling apart with every step.
She kept walking.
A woman in the pack once told her that the best way to survive was to keep moving forward. Don't think about the destination. Don't think about how far you have to go. Just think about the next step. And then the step after that. One foot in front of the other until you arrive somewhere that isn't where you started.
Eden followed that advice. One step. Then another. Her feet bled but they moved. Her body screamed but it obeyed. Hunger twisted her stomach but she ignored it. There was nothing to eat out here anyway. Just survival and motion and the desperate hope that if she walked long enough, far enough, she could outrun a entire pack's reach.
Night came again and she hadn't found a road.
She slept in a cave she found. Just a small opening in the rocks but it had a roof and walls and felt like shelter. She sat with her back against stone and forced herself to stay awake because wolves hunted at night and she couldn't afford to be sleeping if they found her.
The second day was worse than the first.
Her feet had stopped hurting which meant they were damaged in a way that might not come back. Her throat was dry. Her vision was blurry. She was running on nothing but terror and the memory of what would happen if she got caught.
By afternoon, she heard voices.
Not wolf voices. Human voices. Talking about pizza and work shifts and something about a truck breaking down. She followed the sound like it was a lifeline. Found a dirt road. Found a small town just beyond the trees. Found a bus station that looked like it hadn't been cleaned in decades.
That's when she became someone else.
The bus station bathroom was empty. She locked herself in and looked at the girl in the mirror. The girl had blood on her face. Twigs in her hair. Her pack clothes were torn and filthy. Her eyes looked wild. Wrong. Too much like prey.
She couldn't look like that. Couldn't walk into the human world looking hunted.
There was a knife in her pocket. The same one she'd used on Viktor. She used it to hack off her hair. Long strands fell into the sink. Her dark hair had been something she was known for in the pack. One of the few things about her that was noticeable. She cut it all off until she looked like someone completely different. Until she looked like nobody.
She changed into the clothes from her backpack. Plain jeans. A gray shirt. Nothing that would stand out. Nothing that would be remembered.
The fake ID in her sock said Eden Wright. Human. No connections. She became that person right then. Decided that was who she would be now.
She walked to the bus station counter with two hundred dollars and asked for a ticket south. The woman behind the glass didn't look at her twice. Just printed a ticket and took the money and went back to her magazine. Eden was already invisible to her.
The bus ride took twelve hours. She got off in a small Washington town that looked like a hundred other small towns. One main street. A few shops. A diner with a help wanted sign in the window.
She got the job without an interview. Just walked in, showed her fake ID, and said she needed work. The owner was a tired man in his fifties who was desperate enough to hire someone on the spot. He didn't ask questions. Didn't check references. Just handed her an apron and said she started the next morning.
She rented a room above a laundromat from a landlord who took cash and didn't require anything but a first month's payment. The room was small and cold and had a window that overlooked an alley. It was the most beautiful place Eden had ever seen because it was hers. Actually hers. She'd paid for it with her own money.
She worked the morning shift at the diner. Four AM to noon. She poured coffee and took orders and cleared plates. She kept her head down. Didn't talk to the other waitresses. Didn't make friends. Just moved through her hours like a ghost and collected her paychecks and paid her rent.
Four months passed.
Time moved differently when you weren't thinking about tomorrow. When your only goal was to be so invisible that nobody remembered your face. She saved her tips. Stretched her cash. Created a routine so boring and predictable that she became part of the furniture.
She was safe here. She was nobody. That was the point.
That was the whole thing.
Nobody hunted nobodies. Packs didn't spend resources on omega girls who'd become human girls. The pack would move on. Would find another omega to breed. Would forget she'd ever existed.
That's what she kept telling herself as the seasons changed and the diner got busier and the other waitresses started saying hi to her even though she never said hi back.
She was invisible.
She was free.
She was making a real life in a small town where nothing bad could find her and nobody from her past could reach her.
And then on a Tuesday morning in late winter, when she was pouring coffee at Table Seven, the bell above the diner door chimed.
A man walked in.
Tall. Dark hair. Eyes like something that hunted. He wore human clothes but moved like an animal. Like the world was his territory and everyone in it was either food or threat.
He found a booth. Sat down. And when he looked up at her, his entire face changed. His pupils dilated. His jaw tightened. His whole body went still like a predator who'd caught a scent it recognized.
He smiled.
And Eden's blood turned to ice because she knew that smile. Had felt that smile in the mate bond the night Cole Brennan had found her scent in this exact town.
The hunt had found her.
And she was running out of places to hide.