Escape Within

Escape Within
The taxi dropped her off at the bus station just before dawn. The sky was still gray, and the city seemed to be asleep, but Zarah was far too awake to feel tired. She carried only a small suitcase — simple clothes, nothing that would draw attention.
She chose a random bus heading for the coast. She didn’t want the comfort of a plane, didn’t want anything too fast. She needed the journey, the road, the slowness that would force her to think.
During the long hours of travel, she watched the world through the window. The city lights gave way to fields, then to small villages, until everything turned into a blur of green and gray. It was strange how everything seemed so quiet, as if the landscape wanted to remind her that the world did not revolve around her pain.
When she arrived at the coastal village, she rented a simple room in a guesthouse that smelled of wood and sea air. The sound of the waves was constant, like a deep breath.
For the first two days, Zarah did nothing. She walked barefoot along the beach, let the wind tangle her hair and the cold water touch her feet. At night, she sat on the porch with a glass of wine, watching the horizon darken until the sky was filled with stars.
And she thought.
She thought of Callista.
Of the woman she had been, the one who cried in secret after meetings, the one who trembled with fear of making mistakes before the pack.
And she thought of Kael.
Of the man who had watched it all from afar, who was sometimes complicit in the silence, but who now seemed to want to heal every wound he had helped to open.
She sighed.
It had been easier to hate him when he was just the cold soldier.
It had been easier to hate Rhaek when he was just the cruel Alpha.
Now, everything was harder.
Zarah started writing in a notebook she found on the room’s table.
She wrote down memories — the good and the bad.
The day Rhaek gave her the first rose as a sign of commitment.
The day he humiliated her in front of everyone.
The day Kael defended her from a false accusation.
The day he called her weak.
Every word she wrote seemed to pull a weight out of her, but also made room for something else — na unease she couldn’t name.
On the third day, she woke before sunrise and went to the beach. The sea was rough, and the wind blew hard, almost violently. She stood there, letting the salt stick to her skin.
“What do you want, Zarah?” she asked out loud.
She didn’t want war. She didn’t want to see blood on the sand or hear howls of pain at night.
But she didn’t want to run anymore either.
Part of her wanted to hide there forever, change her name again, live as na ordinary human.
But the other part — the part that still burned when she remembered the Vorns destroying what was left of the pack — wanted to fight.
That was what Kael didn’t understand: she didn’t want to lose herself in that fight again. She didn’t want everything to end with her staring at the mirror and seeing only scars.
Back at the inn, she turned on her phone. More messages from Kael.
Some short, direct. Others long, almost confessional.
None pressured her; all asked her to come back when she was ready.
“He really is changing,” she thought.
But was it enough?
Zarah sat on the edge of the bed, phone in hand.
She wrote and deleted the same message three times before finally sending:
“I need more time.”
The reply came minutes later:
“The time is yours. But know that I will keep fighting for you — with you, if you let me.”
She took a deep breath.
Didn’t reply.
Instead, she lay down and let the sound of the sea rock her thoughts.
That night, she dreamed of Callista and Zarah meeting in the same room.
Callista, still in a white dress, with sad eyes.
Zarah, with skin marked by surgeries, but firm.
The two looked at each other for a long moment before Callista smiled, as if finally agreeing to be left behind.
When she woke up, Zarah was crying. But it was a soft cry, without despair.
Maybe she was ready to return — not for Kael, not for revenge, but for herself.
On the last day, she wrote one more line in the notebook:
“If I go back, it will be by choice, not obligation.”
She closed the notebook, packed her suitcase, and left the room before dawn.
While she waited for the bus back, her heart beat fast — not from fear, but from resolve.
She still didn’t know what she would say to Kael.
But she knew that this time, she wouldn’t be
the woman kneeling in the corner of the room.
She would be Zarah.
Whole.