Morning comes gently, the weight of the knife still beneath my pillow and the imprint of its handle pressed into my palm.

For a second, I don't remember. I just lie there, staring at the ceiling. The late morning light, soft and golden, filters in through the curtains. My neck aches from how I sleep, half-curled, ready to fight. There's a soreness in my jaw, like I clenched my teeth all night.

And then it comes back in brutal, unrelenting flashes: the hand around my wrist, around my throat, the teeth, the voice, the smell. I sit up too fast and my vision tilts, my breath hitches. I'm not injured, not really, but it feels like I've run a hundred miles. Everything is aching and tight and miserable, but the bruises on my psyche feel worse than the ones on my wrist, my throat.

I shuffle into the kitchen, dump old ground into the trash, start a fresh pot. My hands shake. Not badly. If I focus, if I breath through clenched teeth, I can make them still.

Everything is peaceful. Bright. Normal.

It makes something sour bloom in my gut.

That guy could have killed me.

I wince when I realize I'm rubbing the bruises at my wrist. So I stop. Breathe. I go through the motions. Shower. Brush teeth. Hair up. Skin care. I don't look in the mirror too long.

When I sit at my kitchen table with coffee and piece of toast I don't want, I make a list on the back of a junk mail envelope in neat letters.

Things I can do alone:

1. Survive attempted break ins

2. Do my job

3. Find Crestline's weakness

4. Go back to law school

5. Have sex

6. Be fine

That last one I underline, even though I already hate the sound of it. I want to be more than fine. The little thread of hopefulness in me thrived under the idea of "more," and I deserve more than just settling back into safe survival.

But this is about control. Control over my stubborn heart, control over my life. My security. Because I'm not going to be the type of woman who waits by the phone, clinging to some shadow of possibility. I'm not going to flit from place to place, never satisfied. I remind myself that Beau doesn't owe me anything. We went to a bonfire, we made out by a lake. He doesn't owe me explanations or protection. Or affection.

And I certainly don't owe him my vulnerability.

So. That's it. I'm going to bury this lingering heat under my skin by having a one-night stand with someone flakey and forgettable. I'm going to figure out how to get back to law school. I'm going to figure out how to beat Crestline. I am going to be fine.

I open my laptop. Message Hughes that I won't be in today. Or next week. I'm using my horde of vacation and sick days. An emergency, I write. His little "thumbs up," on the message is all I get in return.

And then I plan.

Firstly, I need to get this restlessness taken care of. I need to soothe the aching and fire under a stranger's hands. It won't mean anything. I just need release. But the thought tastes like ash. The idea of letting someone close right now—letting someone touch me when I still feel a phantom grip around my throat—makes me want to crawl out of my skin. I rub my arms against the shivery goosebumps.

Sex isn't going to work. So maybe structure will.

If I start applying to school now, checking all the prerequisites, I could be back in the classroom by next fall. Maybe sooner, depending on the program. Loans will suck—but I can make it work. If I tap my emergency fund, get back onto an income-driven-repayment program as a student, I could still pay off my debts. Especially if I can find a firm that'll let me work a couple days a week. Because I'm not staying in Jackson. Not staying in Wyoming.

California? New York? I don't know. Anywhere but here.

A clean break.

I start crunching numbers. I have sixteen tabs open. Stanford. Columbia. Chicago. Lewis and Clark. Pace. Boulder... I make a spreadsheet and list the tuitions, the financial aid options, the application deadlines into neat columns. I search for accelerated options. Online programs. Spring start dates.

It feels good. Steadying. It feels like I'm choosing me, like I'm making a compromise with the old Rhea Dawson. She can come back in this safe way, as long as she promises not to reach for the fire again.

I try to imagine myself walking across a campus courtyard, sunny beaches in California, big cities... but the thought of the rugged, snow-touched mountains keeps popping in my head. I shake it away. I'm determined to shed this whole life like old snakeskin. It served its purpose. And now it's time to move on.

My stomach cramps uncomfortably. A part of the reason I've been hesitant to leave is because I know this is where my mom wanted her ashes spread. She grew up in a small farming community, but spent her youth traveling the country, doing odd jobs, sleeping on couches. Terra Dawson always liked to say that she missed her decade: she was born to be a flower person, no real home except the wild places she found. No true family except the kind strangers she met along the way. But if there was one place she loved more than any other, it was the Tetons.

No matter where we went, how far our paths took us, we always circled back.

I know that I can't keep carrying her around with me. I can't deny her that final resting place, her true home. And so I add it to my list: spread mom's ashes. And I know where she'd want to be: one of those flower-painted meadows in the Teton Wilderness. So she could spend eternity with the wild things, in the shadow of the mountains she'd loved.

The decision is bittersweet, but it eases a weight I didn't realize I'd been carrying. My mom would want to be laid to rest. She'd want me to move on. I smile as I start planning trips to some of the schools, researching flights and hotels. It starts to feel tangible.

The phone rings just before noon.

I don't look, because I already know. It's too early for the cops to call. They've already taken my statement, and I know they're not going to find the guy. And I know because there's a little, pleading tug behind my heart.

The part of me that isn't still shaking, the part that got a full night's sleep dreaming about wolves—that part is strong enough to ignore it. The other part, the one with bruises and scratches, the one that flinches when it hears footsteps outside the door, that one very much wants to answer the call, to lean into someone else's strength.

Beau doesn't leave a voicemail.

Not at first.

Then the phone buzzes again. And I let it ring.

I glance at the cracked screen when it buzzes with a voicemail.

I could open it.

Could listen.

But opening that door, even just an inch, seems too much like slipping back into his arms. I know if I do, it'll be impossible to leave, and I gave Beau his chance. I fell for the reliable, steady narrative written across his handsome face. My stupid, shallow heart is too ready to do it again.

I delete the voicemail.

Just like that.

I block his number too. Clean. No drama. No ceremony.

Because he somehow knew that I was in trouble, or at least suspected enough to warn me. I gave him space to deal with his shit, but when I needed him, he wasn't there. I don't care what's got him so tied up: we live half-glued to our phones. There's no where in the world he could be that he didn't see my text. That he didn't get my call. If he wanted to be here, he'd be here.

The ache behind my ribs doesn't go away. Not as I send off a barrage of emails to admissions offices. Not as I schedule some phone interviews. Not as I book flights to Chicago. It lingers like an old bruise. I rub at it, trying to bleed warmth into the strange chill that's taken up residence where the tug normally lives.

Before my flight out, I'm spreading my mom's ashes. The first step in leaving the past behind.

I set the ceramic urn gently on the passenger seat, buckling it into place. My mom never wanted anything too fancy. She'd asked to be planted under a tree, scattered to the wind, given to the ocean... but it'd taken me too long to decide. I hadn't been ready to say goodbye.

I'm still not ready, not really, but it's time.

I've marked the spot on the trail map: a steep, mostly empty trail that left us breathless. I remember my mom's eyes lighting up when we'd reach the top, gasping and laughing at our wobbly legs, and then the quiet that would settle over us. The view stretched out, endless and wild. It was a trek I always begged to avoid for its intensity, its brutal incline. It was her favorite.

I lace up the dark brown boots Beau had given me. They fit perfectly, molded to my feet like second skin. I tell myself that I'm only wearing them because they're good boots. Part of me hesitates, considers trading them out for my mom's worn-out, ill-fitting pair, but it dissolves quickly. I need a solid boot if my ankles are going to survive this hike. I'm just being practical. It doesn't mean anything more than that. They're just good boots.

As I drive up 191 north, the road set against the vast expanse of pine and open sky, I talk to my mom. About nothing. About everything. I point out that there's still snow on the peaks, that the sky is full of cloudless promise. I stop to watch a coyote cross the highway, to finish my coffee and tell my mom about the different birds I hear. As I near the trailhead, determination is coursing through my blood as potent and reckless as anything I've ever felt. I pull to the side of the road, grateful for the new tires on the dust and gravel.

I cary the urn in my backpack. The plan is simple: hike until I reach that promised meadow, scatter her ashes. Let the wind carry her away. Let her become a part of the magic in the wild places she always loved.

Despite the summer crush of tourists, the trail is lonely and quiet. I walk for miles, my boots crunching against pine needles and gravel. The forest is a cathedral of towering trees, their branches stretching overhead in a leafy canopy that scatters sunbeams against the forest floor. I pause occasionally to catch my breath and check the map.

I try to imagine my mom hiking next to me. I try to remember her voice, the type of things she might have pointed out: the chatter of squirrels and what they might be saying, the secret hiding places of deer, the lives of insects buzzing around me. The solitude is both a comfort and a torment.

Every shadow seems to whisper warnings, every rustle of leaves louder than my sawing breath seems like an omen. I tell myself that it's the wind, that I'm the only one out here, but, even as I reassure myself, there's a part of me that won't settle. It's as if there's something just beyond my perception that my intuition can't shake off.

As the day wears on, the Teton Wilderness reveals both its beauty and its remoteness. I finally reach the meadow at the top of the trail, a quiet clearing sheltered by ancient trees and even older mountain. In the late sun, the wildflowers dance with the breeze. It feels like I am completely alone at the top of the world.

I sit, watching the sky, holding onto the urn, and I talk to her. I tell her about my regrets, about the schools I'm thinking of. About how I'm scared. About how I maybe waited too long. About how I let myself become someone I don't think she'd like.

I tell her about Beau. About how he made me feel alive and wanted. About his Boy Scout over-preparedness. About how he wasn't there when I needed him. About how I'm still mad. About how I'm scared.

A breeze rustles the branches over me, soft as a whisper. I close my eyes and try to take it as a sign.

Slowly I pry off the lid, my hands a little tremulous. I stand in the meadow, the sky endless above me. I try to imagine my mom's face. I imagine her whispering, It's okay, baby girl. Let me go.

Before I can, a noise makes my blood run cold.

A low growl, rippling through the silence.

From the tree line, a shadow moves with a slinking, predatory grace. It emerges, crouched low, teeth bared. A wolf with fur as dark as midnight. Its eyes glow sickly yellow, filled with an intensity that sends shivers racing down my spine.

Panic surges. I fumble the urn and it shatters as it hits the ground, scattering my mother's ashes remains across the soil. Without a second to think or grieve, I break into a run, my boots pounding on the rugged trail. The wolf snarls behind me, dogging my heels as I scramble down the unstable slope I'd taken such care ascending.

I run blindly. Branches claw at my arms. My heart screams to flee. The shale and stone are unsteady, sending me sliding down the path. A stitch forms in my side. My arm throbs. But I don't stop. The growls get ever closer, the heavy, predatory rhythm of the creature in pursuit. Fear becomes a raw, bleeding instinct.

That instinct turns into something demanding in my chest, begging to me released. Terror is so thick in my blood, I want to surrender to whatever this dark, primal thing inside of me is, but I don't know how. I don't know how to release it, how to escape. So I keep running.

I misstep. My leg screams in agony as I fall, sliding and tumbling down the rocky slope, the world disoriented and fragmented into nothing more than glimpses of trees and the sound of my ragged breath, my slamming heart. There's something warm and wet dripping down my face. I touch my forehead and my fingers come away with blood. I don't feel the pain of it over the throbbing in my right leg. I try to right myself, to stand, but the limb won't bear weight.

Already at its limit, my heart tries to beat a little faster with the growing panic. I can't run. I can hear the wolf crashing through the forest, its heavy paws nimble where I'd been clumsy. My ribs are on fire. I can't run. Fuck. I can't run.

There's nothing I can grab to defend myself. No tree branch. No perfectly jagged stone. The wolf, froth dripping from his curled lips, descends slowly, as if it knows there's all the time in the world. The thing is massive. All coarse hair and corded muscle, fangs and claws.

I wonder if I should scream. If there's any point. I vaguely realize that there's tears on my face, mixing with my bleeding head. I wonder if there's a way I could offer my throat so that I'll at least die quickly. The dark thing in my chest balks at the thought, demands that I release it. So I try. I try to dissociate, to mediate, to somehow let this growing sentience in me take control.

Before I figure it out, there's a blur of gray from above me. A second wolf slams into the black one, snarling, a vicious whirlwind of fur and teeth. The snarls and sounds that rise from the pair are nearly enough to make me forget the pulsing pain in my leg, almost enough to drive me to keep running, but I'm motionless as I watch the two creatures. Tufts of hair, pained snarls, yips and barks and rustling branches fill the air. The black wolf seems larger, but the gray is fast, unrelenting in its attack. There's something almost calculating in the way the gray moves. It's patient in a way I don't expect from an animal under stress. I suppress a shriek when the black gets the gray's leg in its mouth, but I realize the gray was baiting its enemy. With the sudden proximity, the black wolf's mouth occupied, the gray twists until its fangs are positioned at the larger wolf's throat.

I want to turn away as the gray wolf sinks its teeth into the black's neck, shaking its head with ruthless brutality. But I can't. Something inside of me won't let me escape this, won't let me hide.

With a final, agonizing snarl, the black wolf retreats, shooting off into the forest as a chorus of howls echoes around us. My eyes dart to the gray wolf as it turns to me.

Time seems to slow, my senses blur. Its eyes are golden, burning. And—my heart pounds so hard against my chest that I can't breathe—I've seen this wolf. The wolf at the creek's edge. The wolf I'd chased into the underbrush.

It limps toward me, cautious. Those intelligent, and familiar, eyes never leave mine.

The air grows tight and charged around us, its form begins to ripple. Fur recedes, muscles and sinew shift. There's a pained growl that turns to human groaning, panting. Gold eyes fade to stormy gray.

"Beau?" I whisper, but my mouth is so dry, my lungs so starved for air that it's barely audible.

Bare-chested, bloodied, Beau is at my side before I can process what's happening. His hand is at my forehead, checking the wound there, at my thigh, probing for injuries. I whimper when he presses at the muscle. He stops immediately, presses my face into his chest. He says something that I don't process, because my brain has stopped functioning.

"You're naked."

There's something that almost sounds like a laugh, but nothing makes sense. Beau is speaking, something about getting me safe, about reassurances, about fixing things. But I don't understand the words.

There was a wolf.

Two wolves.

And now there's Beau.

Beau is the wolf.