SERA

I didn't give him an answer that night. I finished my toast, put my plate in the sink, and walked past him back to my room without speaking, and the sound he made as I passed, a low, involuntary exhale that was halfway to a growl, followed me up the stairs like something alive.

By morning I'd made a decision. Not about Cora, not about the settlement, not about any of the impossible choices piling up around me. A smaller, more immediate decision: I was done being passive in this pack. ...