Chapter 1 Charl puppy
CHAPTER 001
CHARLOTTE
The truck's engine rattled beneath me, a sound I'd grown used to over the past four hours.
The road stretched ahead, endless and grey, swallowed by thick woods on either side.
"Charlotte," Mum's voice echoed in my head for the hundredth time. "We need to talk about who you're going to stay with."
I'd been standing in the kitchen when she said it, watching her twist her wedding ring — the one she'd be taking off soon enough.
Dad had already moved out by then, hadn't even bothered to say goodbye properly. Just packed his things whilst I was at school and left a note on the kitchen table.
A note. Twenty-seven years of marriage, twenty years of being my father, and all I got was a bloody note.
"I'm going to Zade's," I'd told her, my voice sharper than I'd intended.
Mum's face had crumpled. "Charlotte, sweetheart, he lives so far away. You've barely seen him in years—"
"Exactly. He got out and made his own life, and now I'm doing the same."
That had been three days ago. Three days of throwing my life into boxes, of ignoring Mum's attempts to talk me out of it, of pretending I didn't see her crying in the hallway. Three days of telling myself I was making the right choice.
I was still telling myself that when the bus pulled into Hartwick station.
It wasn't much of a station. A single platform, a narrow shelter with a cracked roof, and a car park that looked like it hadn't been repaved since the nineties.
I climbed down the steps with my two bags and stood on the pavement, blinking in the afternoon light.
Hartwick didn't look like much either. It'd ow buildings, wide roads, thick forest pressing in from every direction like the town had been dropped into the middle of it and the trees hadn't quite forgiven the intrusion.
I pulled out my phone. Zade had messaged twenty minutes ago: Look for the placard with your name. You can't miss it.
I pushed through the small crowd spilling out of the bus behind me and scanned the people waiting beyond the barrier.
Most were ordinary — couples, a few families, someone holding flowers. Then I saw the placards.
Three of them, held by drivers in dark uniforms.
And one held by a very tall man in a leather jacket, with a grin so wide it was practically its own announcement.
The placard said: CHARL PUPPY.
I groaned out loud.
His arm shot up and he waved like he was trying to flag down a plane. I shook my head, but I was already moving, weaving through the crowd, my bags bumping against my legs.
Zade came running towards me. He looked exactly like he did on FaceTime but somehow more real.
He was taller than I remembered, broader in the shoulders, his dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. He wore black jeans and a leather jacket with patches sewn onto it.
"Charlie!" he shouted, his face splitting into a grin.
Zade caught me easily, lifting me clear off the ground and spinning me around like I weighed nothing at all.
"Zade!" I laughed, and it felt good to laugh after everything. Good to feel safe.
He set me down but immediately pulled me into another hug, this one tighter and longer.
Then he kissed my cheek and ruffled my hair with his knuckles, messing it up completely.
"Charl puppy is now a big girl," he hummed, that stupid sing-song voice he used to use when I was little.
I pulled back, frowning. "Don't call me that."
"Why not? You'll always be Charl puppy to me."
"I'm twenty, not seven. It's embarrassing."
"Don't care," he said cheerfully, pulling me in for another hug. This one lasted even longer, and I felt his arms tighten around me.
"God, I missed you so much, Charlie. So bloody much."
My throat went tight. "I missed you too," I whispered into his shoulder.
When he finally let me go, his eyes were suspiciously bright.
He cleared his throat, grabbed both my bags before I could protest, and gestured toward a car parked just outside the station entrance.
The drive didn't take long. Hartwick wasn't big enough for anything to take long.
Zade talked the whole way about the town, his work, a bar he said was the best place for miles.
I listened and watched the streets through the window. It was rough around the edges, this place. Cracked pavements, faded shop fronts, roads that narrowed without warning.
But there was something alive about it too. Loud motorcycles rumbling past.
I was still taking it in when Zade turned off the main road and pulled up in front of a small house sitting right at the edge of town.
It was modest, a single storey, pale walls, a wooden front door that had been painted dark green at some point and was beginning to peel at the corners.
But the garden running along the front was something else entirely. Neat little flowerbeds, a climbing plant working its way up the left side of the wall, patches of color everywhere you looked.
A motorbike was parked on the right side, black and heavy-looking, taking up most of the path.
"Welcome to my humble home." Zade spread his arms wide as he climbed out.
"You have a garden," I said, surprised.
"Don't sound so shocked."
"You once killed a cactus, Zade."
"I've grown as a person." He picked up my bags again and nudged the front gate open with his knee. "Come on."
Inside was warm and simple. A small sitting room, a narrow kitchen just beyond it, a corridor leading to what I assumed were the bedrooms.
He'd made an effort — the cushions on the sofa were arranged, there was a candle on the windowsill that smelled of cedar, and the kitchen was tidy.
He filled a glass from the tap and held it out. "Sit. Drink. You look like you haven't slept properly in days."
"I haven't."
"I know." He sat down on the sofa and patted the space next to him. "Come here, Charlie. Talk to me. How are you really feeling?"
I sank down beside him, and suddenly all the energy drained out of me. My shoulders slumped, and I stared at my hands in my lap.
"I'm overwhelmed," I admitted. "With everything that's happened and is still happening."
"The divorce?"
I nodded. "I tried, Zade. I really tried. I begged Mum not to go through with it. I told her she could punish Dad, make him stay away physically but still support us financially. Anything but divorce but she wouldn't listen. She just kept saying she couldn't stay married to someone who'd betrayed her like that."
"Dad's the one who betrayed her, Charlie, not you."
"I know that. But it feels like everything's falling apart, and I can't stop it." My voice cracked. "He slept with her best friend, Zade. Mum's best friend. Jessica, who used to come over for Sunday dinner, who went on holiday with us last summer. How could he do that? How could he throw away twenty-seven years of marriage, throw away our family, for her?"
"Because he's a selfish bastard," Zade said quietly.
"And he didn't even seem sorry about it. When I confronted him before he moved out, he just said sometimes these things happen."
The tears came then, fast and unstoppable. I'd been holding them in for days, maybe weeks, but now they poured out and I couldn't make them stop.
I pressed my hands to my face, but it didn't help. My whole body shook with sobs, and I hated it, hated feeling this weak, this broken.
Zade pulled me against his chest and wrapped his arms around me. "It's alright," he murmured. "Let it out, Charlie. Just let it all out."
"I hate him," I choked out between sobs. "I hate him so much, Zade. And I hate Mum too for giving up, for not fighting harder. I hate them both for doing this to us."
"I know. I know you do."
"How could they just stop loving each other? Stop being a family?"
Zade didn't answer. He just held me tighter, one hand stroking my hair the way he used to when I was little and had nightmares.
I cried until my throat was raw and my eyes burned, until there were no more tears left.
Even then, I stayed pressed against his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart.
"You're safe now," he whispered finally. "I've got you, Charlie. I'll take care of you. I promise."
I wanted to believe him.
An hour later I was still sitting on that sofa, but the tears were gone and I felt hollow in the way you do after crying too much. Zade had made tea. I was holding the mug with both hands just for something warm to hold.
"I think I need some air," I said eventually.
Zade looked up from his phone. "Yeah?"
"Just a short walk to clear my head a bit."
He nodded slowly, "Stay close to the house. Don't wander too far, yeah? The woods aren't exactly a park."
"I'm not going into the woods." I set the mug down and stood up, stretching. "Just around the house. Five minutes."
"Charlie."
"Five minutes, Zade."
He looked at me for a moment longer than felt necessary. "Fine. But stay where I can hear you."
I grabbed my jacket off the arm of the sofa and headed for the back door.
The air outside was cool carrying the smell of pine and damp earth. The back of the house opened onto a stretch of grass that ran maybe twenty metres before the treeline started.
The trees were enormous, old and dense, their branches knotted together overhead so tightly that even in daylight the forest beyond looked dark.
I kept to the grass.
I walked slowly, hands in my pockets, letting the quiet settle around me. After four hours on a bus and an hour of crying, the stillness felt like a gift. I tipped my head back and looked at the sky. Pale blue, a few thin clouds.
I breathed out slowly.
I didn't know what I was expecting from Hartwick, but whatever it was, I had time to figure it out. I wasn't going anywhere. Zade was here. That was enough for now.
I had walked further than I intended — not into the trees, but along the edge of the treeline where the grass thinned and the roots began to push up through the ground.
I stopped and turned to look back at the house.
It wasn't far. I could still see the back door.
I turned back around.
And nearly walked straight into it.
The wolf stood three meters in front of me.
It was enormous. Nothing like the wolves I had seen in documentaries or zoo enclosures.
This animal was the size of a large calf, its shoulders level with my chest, its coat a dark, mottled grey. It stood completely still, watching me with amber eyes.
My body stopped working. Every single thought I had dissolved. There was just the wolf, and those eyes, and the absolute certainty that I should not move.
Then something snapped behind me.
I spun around.
A second wolf stepped out of the trees to my left. Same size and darker coat. It moved in a slow, unhurried arc, cutting off the path back to the house without any rush, like it had all the time in the world.
My heart was slamming so hard I could feel it in my throat.
A third emerged to my right.
A fourth appeared directly behind me, completing the circle.
I turned slowly, looking at each of them in turn. They weren't growling or snarling, just watching.
I opened my mouth, though I had no idea what I was going to say.
And then, as one, they began to advance.