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“Tully?” He repeated, looking between Walden and me with a frown. When he spotted the bracelet, I let out a groan. He’d never seen my face, but he knew this.

I never took it off.Stupid. I agreed with the voice in my head.

I hefted my duffel bag onto my shoulder and staggered to my feet. The other plastic bags dug into my elbow and I clutched them with all my remaining strength.

“Wait—” Lloyd whispered, like his vocal cords were torn.

I couldn’t. With my name on their tongue, I ran. The sound of it slashed my heels and made me lose my balance. The bags jostled against my hip and I winced as a sharp point prodded deep.

As I spilled out onto the street, and winter slapped me in her unforgiving embrace, I sobbed. My future wasn’t in Starhaven any longer. Watching the documentary only confirmed it for me. I didn’t belong here, and I didn’t deserve the Hartlock name. I didn’t want my past to catch me and realize it as well.

8

Lloyd

“Can you see anything?” I thumbed my fingers down the bullet journal Tully left.

Walden grunted, turning the car down a street we’d already searched, twice. It was dark and empty, unchanged since the thirty minutes since we’d been here. My thoughts drifted back to Tully, and my body ached with bittersweet pain. She’d been in front of me for a moment, and now she was gone. We’d shared something transcendent. More than two bodies finding pleasure. We weaved our souls together in the space of a phone call.

Tully.

The way she spoke her true name burned into my memory. Now I knew what her face looked like and the truth about who she was.

“We have to find her.”

Dark clouds crowded the sky, and outside our car, the wind whistled. Tully hadn’t been wearing a heavy enough jacket.

“You see anything?” Walden muttered, and the leather seat squeaked as he strangled the steering wheel.

“Nothing. Did you call your sisters?” Ajax asked. “They have connections that might help.”

“I sent a text. I doubt it made sense at all, though. I was distracted.”

Walden’s younger sisters ran Three Stars PR and Pan kept them quite busy in the past when he was deep in his struggle with sobriety. Now we were hoping they had any news about Tully Hartlock and why she was spotted, carrying what looked like her entire life, in plastic bags.

“I don’t understand. I thought Tully Hartlock was a rich recluse who never showed her face in public.” Ajax clicked his tongue.

Walden’s shoulders rose. “But somehow Lloyd knows who she is, but notwho she is.”

I rubbed the back of my neck to remove his burning stare. What was Tully Hartlock doing on Only Omegas? If I was part of the most famous pack in Starhaven, she was the most famous omega. Something was wrong, and the way her face drained of color as she ran from us only made me more rabid to find her.

“We’re all entitled to our secrets.”

“Like your cupboard full of noodles?” Ajax joked, and Walden’s lips twitched in a faint smile.

Heat flooded my cheeks. What did they know about my stockpile? My mind grappled with an excuse. Walden’s eucalyptus scent usually calmed me, but now it suffocated. I darted Walden a quick look, cheeks burning at his soft, unspoken understanding. Shame clawed its way down the inside of my stomach.

“What noodles?” I whispered with a sharp edge.

“I saw the boxes a while ago, when you asked me to grab your suit for dry cleaning,” Ajax explained.

I swiped my hand down my face. Tried to smooth out my panicked expression. It didn’t work, and Walden narrowed his gaze at me. My insides squirmed like he could sift through my skin into the dark confines of my hidden scars.

A car rushed past us and its wheels squealed as it braked. It was a welcome distraction.

I didn’t want to talk about the noodles or how I knew Tully. Walden wouldn’t ever understand. I needed to steer the conversation somewhere else, well away from topics that made my chest ache. If we could just see her again and I could assuage the rising panic that there was something wrong.

“It’s nothing.”