Just a Rogue

Corinne

I’m so relieved that he came back, and that we have the chance to talk. I’m especially glad that I am able to give his shirt back to him directly, rather than trying to leave it on the floor in front of his room like I did last time. I watch him pull it over his head, and knowing that I was just wearing it, my arms were there where his arms are now, makes it seem almost like I’m holding him.

I’m sorry we can’t really touch any more, but maybe when I come back….

No. I can’t think that far ahead. I have to focus on what I am doing right now, and if I am daydreaming about Evan it will just distract me. I have to focus on Xavier, make him think that I am repentant, make him believe that I understand I made a terrible mistake by running away. He has to believe that I love him, and want him, and that we will raise our child together.

It’s the only way I’m going to survive this. If Xavier believes me, he won’t kill me, and I’ll be able to find the chance to warn my sisters.

Evan’s gaze focuses behind me, and I turn to see what he’s looking at. The Lunas are walking towards us. I turn back to him, and his blue eyes are full of pain again.

Darlene says, “It’s time to go, Corinne,” and I can hear the sympathy in her voice.

Evan asks, with a slightly frantic tone, “Are you going straight there afterwards?”

“No,” Janine says, “we’ll be back tonight for dinner. We’ll take Corinne to the shelter in Arcata tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll see you later then, right?” Evan asks me, sounding desperate.

I nod. “See you later,” I tell him, and see his hand reaching for me across the table, grasping the air because he cannot grasp me. I get up quickly, so that I’m not tempted to touch his fingers one last time.

He opens his mouth to say something and then closes it. I think he doesn’t trust his voice not to crack. I get up, lock eyes with him for a moment, then follow Janine and Darlene back to the garage. I refuse to allow myself to look back at Evan. I don’t want to see sadness in his face and be tempted to stay.

Amelia and Dom are waiting in the garage. He indicates an SUV. “This one is all ready to go,” he says, “and it hasn’t been used for a week, so the scent should be diminished.”

“Thank you, Dominic,” Darlene says. “Perfect.”

I see Amelia brush her fingers against Dom’s before she gets in the car, but there is no lingering kiss, no frantic embrace. They seem so comfortable together. I wonder what that’s like.

I sit in the back seat with her, while Janine takes the wheel and Darlene sits in the passenger seat. Before Janine starts the car, she turns around and tells us, “Okay, I’ve called our contacts in Eureka, and there have been no sightings of the rogues there in the past few days. So it should be safe to be there shopping, you won’t be spotted by Xavier or his gang.”

I nod, and Amelia meets my eyes. I’m so touched by how careful everybody is being, how seriously they are all taking this. It is this meticulous planning, this scrupulous attention to detail, that might just see us through this. It is certainly not the way that Xavier does things. He is all instinct and anger.

The drive to Eureka takes us about half an hour, during which I gaze out the window, and listen quietly while the other three continue making plans. Janine will drop us off at a thrift store, then go to another store, then come back to pick us up.

I’ve never been shopping like this. When I was still with the pack I never left the packhouse grounds. Then after I was exiled I only rarely had any chance to go into a convenience store or gas station to grab something, either using money I had managed to get my hands on, or just swiping it and dashing away before I was caught. Since I joined Xavier, he never allowed me to go on any of the supply runs. He would take Grace, and sometimes Ruby, but he never trusted the rest of us.

So it feels incredibly bizarre to follow Amelia and Darlene into a shop, just as though we are any three normal ladies out for a shopping trip. This is a thrift store, I have been told, so the clothes aren’t new, but they look great to me. Everything is hanging tidily on racks, and Darlene and Amelia help me look through the racks to find an outfit. They hang back and don’t touch anything, they just look past me as I push hangers to the side, looking at each item.

Then the weirdest thing, I am sent into a dressing room with an armload of clothes to try everything on and see if it fits. If it fits! Not once before in my life has anyone had the least concern about my comfort.

I’m suddenly so grateful to Evan, again, for stopping me from running away on New Year’s Eve. It would have destroyed this. I feel so accepted, so included, as Amelia and Darlene offer suggestions about what I should get, watch as I try on shoes, help me find a good set of clothes to wear for our purposes.

I end up with a pair of jeans, some new socks and underwear, a t-shirt with a logo on it of some rock band, and a gray sweatshirt. It’s not a big oversized one like Evan’s, because they didn’t think I should be wearing a man’s shirt. It’s a smaller one, for women.

My body hasn’t started changing with the pregnancy yet, but I know it will soon. It’s been just over two months, and I still have seven months to go. Dr. Hughes told me that starting in a month or so I will see my stomach start to stick out, but for now it is still perfectly flat and the jeans and everything fit just fine.

For shoes, Janine left us with very specific instructions. She wanted something that fits me, would be comfortable for running, and that has enough of a sole that she can insert a tracking chip into it. She wants to track me, but I can’t have anything obvious, nothing in my pockets or anything. But nobody believes that Xavier would think of checking my shoes. I just hope that he lets me wear them. Sometimes he punishes us by making us go barefoot, which is painful and cold in the caves.

Janine gets back as we are finishing. “Did you get everything you need?” Darlene asks her.

“Yep!” Janine responds. “You done here?”

Amelia nods. I’m wearing the shoes already, trying to increase the amount of time that my scent will permeate them and overwhelm any lingering scent of prior owners. The clothes will be taken to the shelter tonight so that they can be washed there, by human employees only, so that no wolf scent will be on them at all when I arrive in the morning. There is no way that Xavier will smell anything but me when he finds me.

“One more store,” Janine says as we return to the car, “I have to get some crafting supplies to conceal the devices Corinne will be planting. Then we’ll drop the clothes off in Arcata and head home.”

Home. I wish so much that it was true for me too.