Estella POV:
I packed. It didn't take long. I had nothing. A few threadbare tunics and pants provided by the institute. That was the sum of my worldly possessions after three years.
From beneath the thin mattress, I retrieved my only treasure. A single, folded photograph. It was worn at the creases, the colors slightly faded, but the image was still clear. It was me and Caleb, my twin brother, taken the summer before everything fell apart. We were sixteen, sitting on the dock by the lake, his arm slung around my shoulders. He was laughing, his head thrown back, the sun catching the gold in his hair.
The sight of his smile sent a sharp, stabbing pain through my chest. Three years. Three years without seeing him, without hearing his voice. In the darkest moments, when the silver prods scorched my skin and the drugs tried to steal my mind, the thought of Caleb had been the only thing keeping my wolf alive.
My thumb traced the outline of his smiling face. This picture, this memory, was the only thing that had kept my inner wolf from shattering completely. I carefully folded it and tucked it into the pocket of the worn jeans I was about to put on.
A guard entered without knocking, a rough-looking man with a permanent scowl. He tossed a brown paper bag onto the floor. "Your clothes," he grunted.
Inside were the clothes I had been wearing the night they brought me here. A simple cotton dress and a thin cardigan. They had been washed so many times they were nearly white, stripped of their original color, just as this place had tried to strip me of myself.
I changed quickly, the familiar fabric a strange comfort. It was a symbol. I was shedding the identity of 'patient'.
I walked out of my room for the last time. The hallway was silent, the doors to the other rooms all tightly shut. But I could feel their eyes on me through the small peepholes. Whispers of the crazy Blackwood girl who was finally being released.
Let them whisper. They didn't know that the girl leaving was not the same one who had arrived.
A guard escorted me to the admissions lobby. Declan was already there, waiting near the glass doors. His arms were crossed, and his finger tapped an impatient rhythm on his bicep. Dr. Price, my primary physician, stood beside him—a slender man with thin, gold-rimmed glasses and a neatly trimmed beard. He looked like a benevolent academic, but I knew the cold, dead emptiness in his eyes.
The sight of him made my skin crawl. Dr. Price. The man who had personally administered more "treatments" than I could count. The man who watched me scream under silver-laced electricity with the detached curiosity of a scientist studying a lab rat.
As I approached, Declan turned a small, unlabeled pharmacy bottle over in his long fingers before slipping it into his jacket pocket. Plain white pills. No markings. No prescription label. He must have finished the discharge paperwork while I packed.
Dr. Price stepped forward, his lips stretched into a professional, meaningless smile.
He adjusted his glasses. "Well, Estella. I do hope we won't be seeing you again." He paused, his smile tightening just a fraction. "But you know, of course, that Crestwood will always have a room waiting for you."
The words were a silken threat. A chill, colder than the Aspen air, slithered up my spine. My stomach clenched as I remembered the feel of the silver-laced prods against my skin, the acrid smell of burning flesh, the way my bones had screamed.
I wanted to snarl at him. I wanted to tell him that I would die before I ever let them drag me back here. But I did none of that. Instead, I filed his face away in the dark corner of my mind where I kept my list of debts to be collected.
I dropped my gaze to the floor, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a reaction.
Declan saw my silence, my slight tremor, and misinterpreted it as a sign of my instability. It confirmed everything he already believed about me.
"Let's go," he said, his voice sharp. He turned and strode toward the heavy glass doors.
I followed, my legs feeling unsteady. Each step was a victory, a movement away from the suffocating scent of antiseptic and despair.
When I stepped outside, the sunlight was blinding. It was a physical blow, and I staggered, raising a hand to shield my eyes. For the first time in three years, the air didn't taste of bleach. It was crisp, clean, and filled with the scent of pine. It tasted like freedom.
I stood there for a heartbeat, letting the sun warm my skin, letting the wind touch my face. Three years of artificial light and recycled air. This—this was what living felt like. And I had almost forgotten.
A gleaming black Bentley was parked at the curb, a silent testament to the Blackwood family's wealth and power.
Declan walked to the driver's side and got in, not even glancing back. He didn't hold the door for me. I didn't expect him to.
I hesitated for a second before reaching for the handle of the front passenger door.
"In the back."
His voice was like a whip crack in the cold air.
My hand froze, hovering over the handle. Humiliation, hot and sharp, washed over me. I wasn't his sister. I was cargo. A problem to be transported.
Slowly, I retracted my hand, my cheeks burning. I walked around the car, opened the rear door, and slid onto the plush leather seat.
The door clicked shut with a heavy, final sound.
I stared out the window as the car pulled away, the imposing facade of the Crestwood Institute shrinking in the distance.
I had escaped one prison, only to be delivered to another. A much prettier one, but a cage all the same.
