The kitchen gave me access to things Omegas weren't supposed to notice.

I scrubbed pots at the deep sink and listened to warriors gossip over breakfast. I swept the dining hall and watched Cassidy's schedule unfold with the precision of a woman who had spent months establishing routines. I carried supply crates from the storage cellar and memorized the inventory logs left carelessly open on the Beta's desk.

No one looked at me long enough to wonder what I was doing.

By the second morning, I had the timeline.

Cassidy had arrived at the pack house four days after I disappeared. She'd told Kingston she'd come to help coordinate search efforts. The pack records showed she'd stayed. The records also showed that Kason's collar—standard silver, reinforced at the clasp, designed for adult Omegas who'd proven flight risks—had been requisitioned six weeks after her arrival. The requisition form bore her signature.

I stood in the empty corridor outside the Beta's office, holding a mop I wasn't using, and stared at that signature until the letters blurred.

Six weeks.

She'd waited six weeks before putting a collar on a child.

I set the mop against the wall and pulled out the small notebook I kept hidden in my apron pocket. I wrote the date. The requisition number. The name of the pack smith who'd forged the collar—a man I'd known for years, who'd made the ceremonial blade for my Luna marking.

Then I added a note at the bottom: *Cassidy began "comforting" Kingston two weeks after my disappearance. Collar placed four weeks after that. Timeline suggests establishment of authority before targeting the child.*

I closed the notebook and went back to mopping floors I'd already cleaned.

***

That afternoon, I was sent to the storage cellar to inventory winter provisions.

The cellar was cold and dim, lit by a single overhead bulb that flickered every few seconds. Rows of shelves held canned goods, dried meat, medical supplies, blankets. Standard pack stores.

I was counting blankets when I saw the crate.

It was pushed into the corner behind a stack of empty barrels, half-covered by a tarp. The wood was older than the other crates, weathered in a way that meant it had been outside for a long time. I pulled the tarp back.

The Shadowvale mark was burned into the side. Our pack's territorial sigil, clean and unmistakable.

I knelt and pried the lid open with my fingers.

Inside: dried rations. Medical tape. Wolfsbane powder in sealed glass vials.

I picked up one of the vials and held it to the light. The label was in our pack healer's handwriting. I recognized the slant of the letters.

This wasn't surplus. This was pack supply, logged and distributed through official channels.

I thought about the rogue camp. The silver chains. The wolfsbane they'd mixed into my water every day for a year.

I thought about how well-supplied they'd been. How organized.

I set the vial back in the crate, closed the lid, and pulled the tarp over it again.

Then I went upstairs and added a single line to my notebook: *Rogue camp provisions match Shadowvale supply signatures. Healer's labels. Official distribution.*

I didn't have proof.

But I had the shape of it.

***

That night, I found the hidden food under Kason's sleeping mat.

He was curled on his side, pretending to sleep, when I knelt beside him in the kennel. I didn't say anything. I just reached under the mat and pulled out the three pieces of dried bread he'd saved.

His eyes opened. He looked at me, then at the bread in my hand.

"I wasn't hungry," he whispered.

I set the bread down and touched his face. His cheek was hollow under my palm.

"You don't have to lie to me," I said quietly.

He swallowed. His throat worked against the silver collar, and I saw him wince.

"They watch when I eat," he said. "If I eat too fast, they say I'm greedy. If I eat too slow, they say I'm wasting food. So I just... don't."

I pulled him into my lap. He came willingly, his small body folding against mine like he was trying to disappear into my chest.

I braided his hair in the dim light. My fingers remembered the pattern—over, under, pull tight. I used to do this every morning before he went to training. His hair had been longer then. Healthier.

Now it was brittle and uneven, hacked short in places where someone had cut it without care.

I finished the braid and tied it off with a strip of fabric from my apron.

"We're leaving soon," I said against the top of his head. "Two more days."

He was quiet for a long moment. Then: "Promise?"

I closed my eyes. I thought about the message I'd sent. The reply. The operatives positioning at the frozen lake border.

I thought about all the ways this could go wrong.

"Yes," I said.

It was the only promise I'd made since I came back.

Kason's hands tightened in my shirt. He nodded once, his face still pressed against my shoulder.

I held him until his breathing evened out. Then I laid him back on the mat, pulled the thin blanket over him, and stood.

As I turned to leave, I picked up the three pieces of bread and slipped them into my pocket.

He would need his strength.

We both would.

***

The next morning, Cassidy called me to the central training yard.

The entire pack was there. Warriors running drills. Younger wolves practicing shifts. Elders watching from the stone benches along the perimeter.

Cassidy stood at the center, her posture perfect, her voice carrying across the yard without effort.

"Adaline," she called.

I walked toward her. Slowly. Head down.

She waited until I stopped in front of her. Then she gestured to the training equipment scattered across the dirt—wooden practice weapons, sparring mats, water barrels.

"Clean this," she said. "Immediately."

Her voice was pleasant. Reasonable.

I looked at the equipment. Then at the warriors still training. The session wasn't over. They were still using half of it.

"Yes, Luna," I said.

I knelt and started collecting the nearest weapons.

The yard went quiet.

I didn't look up. I just kept working, stacking the wooden swords, rolling the mats, dragging the water barrels toward the equipment shed.

Some of the warriors moved out of my way. Others stood still and made me walk around them.

I felt their eyes on me. All of them.

Corran—the senior Delta who'd served under me for six years—stood near the sparring ring. I saw him shift his weight. His hand moved, just slightly, like he was going to step forward.

Cassidy's gaze fixed on him.

He went still.

I finished collecting the equipment and carried it to the shed. My arms were shaking by the time I set the last barrel down.

When I turned around, Corran was standing at the corner of the shed, just out of sight of the main yard.

"Luna," he said quietly.

I looked at him. He was older than Kingston, gray threading through his dark hair, his face lined from years of border patrol.

"Some of us remember who you were," he said. Low. Fast. Like he was afraid someone would hear.

I held his gaze for three seconds.

"Remember it quietly," I said.

Then I walked past him, back toward the pack house.

Behind me, I heard him exhale—sharp and frustrated.

I didn't look back.

But I added his name to the list in my notebook that night, right below the supply signature and the requisition form and the timeline that was starting to look less like coincidence and more like conspiracy.

One day and fourteen hours until extraction.

I could survive one more day.

I was carrying a stack of folded linens down the west corridor when Kingston stepped out of the shadows.

I didn't stop walking. I kept my pace steady, my head down, the way Omegas were supposed to move through the pack house—invisible until needed.

"Adaline."

His voice was quieter than I'd heard it in weeks. Not the Alpha tone. Not the cold dismissal from the ceremony. Just my name.

I stopped. I didn't turn around.

"Look at me," he said.

I set the linens on the narrow side table and turned. Slowly.

Kingston stood three feet away, his hands loose at his sides. He wasn't in his formal Alpha stance—shoulders back, chin up, radiating dominance. He looked tired. His wolf's restlessness showed in the tension around his eyes, the way his jaw worked like he was chewing words he didn't know how to say.

"I wanted to speak with you," he said.

I waited.

He shifted his weight. It was a small movement, almost imperceptible, but I'd known this man for years. I knew what it meant when Kingston couldn't hold still.

"You've been... managing your duties," he said carefully. "Cassidy mentioned you've been cooperative."

I didn't respond.

"I think," he continued, "if you continue to demonstrate appropriate acceptance of your position, we could reassign you to lighter work. Kitchen prep instead of floor scrubbing. Something less—" He paused. "—strenuous."

I looked at him.

Really looked at him.

He thought this was generosity. He thought he was offering me something.

I felt the dead mate mark on my neck—the hollow, cold space where our bond used to burn—and felt absolutely nothing.

"I don't need your accommodation, Kingston," I said quietly.

He blinked.

"I need my son's collar removed."

The words landed between us like stones.

Kingston's expression shifted—surprise first, then something harder. His shoulders pulled back. The Alpha stance reasserted itself.

"Cassidy's authority as Luna is final," he said. His voice had gone flat. Defensive. "The collar is a disciplinary measure. It's appropriate for—"

"He's seven years old."

"He's being taught responsibility."

"He's being tortured."

Kingston's jaw tightened. "You don't understand what's required to maintain order in this pack. You've been gone. You don't see what I see."

I held his gaze. I didn't raise my voice. I didn't move.

"I see exactly what you see," I said. "I just don't pretend it's something else."

For three seconds, neither of us moved.

Then I picked up the linens and walked past him.

He didn't stop me. He didn't use his Alpha tone to call me back.

I made it to the end of the corridor before I heard him speak again—low, almost to himself.

"I'm trying to help you."

I didn't turn around.

But I heard the wrongness in his voice. The thing he couldn't name. The wolf inside him that was pulling against the narrative he'd built, restless and confused and starting to fracture.

I kept walking.

Behind me, Kingston stood in the empty corridor, staring at the space I'd occupied.

I didn't look back.

***

The second message came while I was cleaning the Beta's office.

The phone buzzed once in my apron pocket. I was alone—Declan had left for afternoon patrol, and the office was empty except for the steady tick of the wall clock.

I pulled the phone out and read the message.

*Extraction confirmed. Storm front tracking on schedule. Boat positioned far shore. Three-minute window once signal is given. Healer will be on board for immediate medical assessment of the child.*

I read the last line twice.

Johan had accounted for Kason's collar burns. For the malnutrition. For the trauma.

He'd put a healer on the extraction boat before I'd asked.

I pressed my thumb against the screen and watched the message disappear. Then I pulled the SIM card, snapped it in half, and dropped the pieces into the trash bin beneath Declan's desk.

Twenty-four hours.

I could survive twenty-four hours.

I went back to dusting shelves I'd already cleaned.

***

That night, I heard voices from Cassidy's sitting room.

I was carrying dinner trays back to the kitchen when I passed the corridor that led to the Luna's private quarters. The door was closed, but sound carried in the old stone hallways.

I set the trays down silently and moved closer.

"—not what we agreed." The man's voice again. Brock. I recognized the rough, flat tone from the Omega kennels two nights before.

"I'm aware of what we agreed." Cassidy's voice was cold. Precise. Nothing like the soft Luna tone she used in public. "And I'm telling you the terms have changed."

"Double," Brock said. "Double the original sum, or I walk."

A pause.

"Fine," Cassidy said. Her voice had gone quieter. Harder. "Double. But after the banquet, this ends. No more payments. No more contact."

"Because there won't be anything left to pay for?"

Another pause. Longer this time.

"Precisely," Cassidy said.

I heard movement. Footsteps approaching the door.

I grabbed the trays and walked quickly toward the kitchen, my heart pounding in my chest.

Behind me, I heard the sitting room door open. Heard Brock's heavy footsteps in the corridor. Heard Cassidy's voice, low and final: "The lake is deep. The storm will cover everything."

I made it to the kitchen and set the trays in the sink.

My hands were shaking.

I pressed my palm over the dead mate mark on my neck and felt nothing.

Then I pulled out my notebook and wrote in the dim light:

*Cassidy and Brock. Payment finalized. Reference to "the banquet" and "the lake." Cassidy's exact words: "The storm will cover everything."*

I closed the notebook and slid it back into my apron.

Twenty-two hours until the Pack Banquet.

Twenty-two hours until the frozen lake.

Twenty-two hours until Cassidy tried to eliminate the last witness to everything she'd done.

I went to the Omega kennels and sat beside Kason in the dark. He was awake. He always was.

I braided his hair without speaking. My fingers moved through the pattern—over, under, pull tight.

When I finished, I leaned down and whispered against his ear: "Tomorrow night. When I tell you to run, you run. You don't look back. You don't wait for me. You just run."

He nodded.

His small hand found mine in the dark and squeezed once.

I squeezed back.

Then I stood and walked out of the kennels, leaving my son in the cold stone cell for the last time.

Tomorrow, we would both be free.

Or we would both be dead.

Either way, Cassidy Rose would never touch him again.