The fire crackled softly between them, the warmth a stark contrast to the chill of the mountain air. Abigale stared into the flames, her expression unreadable as she absently poked the embers with a stick. The shadows of the night seemed to stretch around her like a cloak, heavy with memories.

She didn’t look up when the sound of footsteps crunched through the snow, but she knew who it was.

"Not much to say, is there?" she muttered, her voice rough from days of silence. "The world is full of wolves, but none of them will ever call you ‘pack’ once you’ve been cast out."

There was a bitterness to her words, but beneath it, a sorrow she rarely showed. Abigale wasn’t used to being seen like this—soft, vulnerable.

She finally lifted her gaze, brown eyes meeting theirs, a flicker of something human in the depths. "You’ve seen what I’ve done. What I’ve become. But you don’t know the real fight. The one that’s been waged inside of me for years."

Her hands flexed, and the claws—those damned claws—touched the ground, digging into the earth beneath her. "I’ve spent my life fighting for others, lifting the weak, the broken. But in the end… I couldn’t even save myself."

A heavy silence fell between them. Abigale wasn’t sure what she wanted from this moment—an apology, a promise, maybe just someone to understand. She had walked this road alone for so long, yet here they were, standing beside her, not asking for anything in return.

"You don’t have to follow me," she said quietly, her voice barely above a whisper. "But if you do, know this: I’m not running from what happened. I’m running toward what I still need to prove."

Her gaze softened, just a little. "I may not have a pack anymore, but I still have my claws."