Ryder listened to his rock music during the drive. I played with my hair that was still wet from my shower. Milo greeted us at the door, swinging it open before we even had a chance to knock. Though there was still tension between the three of us, showcased by Milo's mistrustful gaze running over Ryder, we still embraced with a hug for me and a brief handshake for the men.

Milo prepped us all drinks. Despite the summer weather that was on its way, I was delighted with my white-hot chocolate chia. Milo always had a great taste for good drinks. Ryder settled for an iced coffee – something so simple that I thought Milo rolled his eyes at the request. We migrated into the living room as we had before.

"Any signs of the royals trailing you guys?" Milo asked almost immediately.

"No, nothing," Ryder answered.

"Georgia," Milo prompted. A simple handshake clearly didn't mean that Milo and Ryder were the best of pals.

"I haven't noticed anything unusual," I agreed. "But, in fairness, I don't know what their cars look like or what many of their people look like. Aside from the king and queen and the guy who ripped out my nails, I didn't see many people. Still, I haven't seen anything out of the norm recently. No new cars on my street, no one tailing me."

Ryder's hand tightened on my knee. He didn't understand why I was putting even a pinch of doubt in Milo's mind. But Milo knew me damn well. He knew the hunter side of me that survived by being wary and by noticing overturned rocks. If I had just shrugged and brushed it off, he would have known that something was off.

"You've stayed out of the woods, right?" Milo pressed.

"I'm not an idiot." But I was, because I had gone hiking in the woods I knew were infested with wolves. It's just that I now had a wolf at my side most of the time.

"Since you left last time, it's all I could think about," he confessed. For the tiniest second, I saw the weight on him, his body unable to carry the load so silently all the time. "I know that the whole Cassey situation was a shock to you, but seeing you alive, then finding out that all of the royals were alive, that was insane for me to even consider. I have no real way to contact you so all I could think about was that they had gotten to you. I don't know how you managed to get away the first time, but I am almost certain they will not let you escape if they ever find you again. In a town this size, it's only a matter of time before they find you."

Hearing the genuine concern in voice, watching the way he stared at the floor instead of me, my heart ached. The mysterious and distant Milo that I had once crushed on must have spent sleepless nights staring at the ceiling, worried. About me. While I would have swooned two years ago, now I was only burdened with guilt. While he had been worried about me dying – again – I had been galivanting around with Ryder, stealing away tiny moments of bliss.

"I'm alright. I would have come right to you if I saw something out of the ordinary," I assured. Another lie.

"So when do you plan on making your next move then?"

I blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Well, the royals are alive, Georgia. You are the best person for the job. You are the Huntress after all. I mean, they've already seen your face, it would be dangerous to put someone else in the line of fire now. You know more about them than any of the rest of us."

"She's not going back to hunting." Ryder was tense beside me, his voice stern and cool.

"I understand that you might want to keep her safe as her boyfriend or whatever, but this is our life. This is what we do. A single relationship won't change that."

"This is what I do," I corrected a little too sharply. "As I recall, you dropped out right before the royals were to be hunted."

Milo didn't falter until my anger. "I knew what was going to be asked of me and I knew that I couldn't get through it. You wanted to do it. I know that you were afraid, but I also know that you considered being asked like some kind of honor. You thought you were doing the right thing so strongly that you were willing to shoot a child."

"Things changed," Ryder snapped.

"What changed?" Milo pushed back. "Because she knew you when she was ready to die. Get off your high horse."

Ryder's mouth parted, ready to tear Milo's head from his shoulders or ready to defend me once more. But I just dropped my head into my hands, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes. Finally, there was a second of stillness between the men, between the two worlds that I was trying to exist in.

"I could never kill the kid. Killing a wolf is easy." My nightmares said otherwise now, but I pressed on. "Looking at a man and killing him is hard. Impossible. Maybe not for everyone, but for me. And saying that you're not scared to die is easy when you don't have a knife to your throat. Every time I thought of being killed, I thought of all the reasons I wanted to stay. And when I manage to make it out alive, the one thing I expected to be taken care of, wasn't. Forgive me for not wanting to throw my life on the line again."

When I was able to lift my head again, I found Milo studying me. I couldn't read him now, but to be fair, I seldom could. Then, he gave me a slow, curt nod.

"Alright, I understand." Like he was trying to extend an olive branch, he added, "Refill Ryder?"

"Uh, sure."

We talked amicably for a while. Light conversation that wouldn't rile anyone up. But if Milo was trying to keep us calm, I figured he would have had better luck if he stopped offering Ryder refills of iced coffee. I think we were on drink four by the time we got round to the information we needed.

"I was hoping you would have some contact information on Cassey," I prompted. The words felt wrong in my mouth. I was deceiving a man that had carried me when I felt that no one else could, the man who did his best to make sure I came out the royal grounds. But, if we didn't go to Ajax and Keiko with Cassey, would they come after Milo anyway?

"Cassey has wolf-drain," Milo said flatly. "She's not going to be one for inspiring conversation."

I winced. "I know, but I still want to see her. It's what we do. I went to see her family sometimes; she came to mine. Dawn and Armond visited all of our family members regularly. We're a family ourselves." Before the 'family' decided to just stop paying for my parents' care.

"She's in the Yukon," Milo sighed.

"The Yukon?" I repeated.

"Her family doctor thought that this might be a stress-related thing, some kind of episode. They wanted to get her out, like far away from busy cities," he explained.

The twinge in my chest was not for dear Cassey for once. It was for the family. Because I knew that feeling, knew the panic and the crippling need to do what was right. If a doctor told me that my parents might get better if I had run through a busy mall naked, I would have done it. I wouldn't have even blinked. They would sit out there in the middle of nowhere, hoping for a change, but none would come because wolf-drain didn't work like that.

Milo gave me the address of her new home. Ryder put it into his phone and groaned. "Twenty two hours of driving?"

"Yup, and there's not flights that will cut off enough time to make them worthwhile. Her family took the advisement seriously. You don't get farther from city life than Watson Lake."

"Well, are you up for a road trip?" I asked Ryder gently. For the sake of show, of course. Ajax make it clear that I was not to leave his sight.

"If you really want to see this girl..."

"I do."

Ryder just shrugged. "Then I guess I'm going with you."

We were about to leave when Ryder finally declined a final coffee and bowed out to the use the washroom. It was then that Milo cornered me and I began to see that all of the olive branches were just a shitty trick to get Ryder away from me, even just for a bathroom break.

"You're angry," Milo whispered as I placed our mugs in the sink.

"What?"

"You're angry at Armond and Dawn. Because of your parents. That's why you don't want to go back."

He could not have been further from the truth. "Milo, I was left to die. I know that I accepted that, but when I was on those lands, when I was getting my nails pulled out, all I could think about was how we should have planned it better. You can't tell me that the task needed to be completed as soon as it was. You can't tell me that another six weeks of training and research would have hurt my chances of getting out of there."

"So, you are angry," he repeated.

I let out a little huff. "Fine, maybe a little."

"Here." He pressed a small piece of paper into my hand. "When you get yourself a new phone, call Dawn. She was thrilled to hear that you're okay. I'm not saying that you need to go back to hunting werewolves, I'm just saying that a little conversation might make you feel better about the whole situation."

I shoved the paper in my pocket just as Ryder reappeared. I doubted anything that anyone said would make me feel better about the disaster that I had landed myself in.

"You guys drive safe now," Milo said. then he pulled me in for a hug that lasted just a little bit too long. 

~~~Update!!!~~~

Hello friends!

I apologize for my inconsistency so I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge it. I've had a couple personal things going on, but I will not bore you with the details. On top of that, the girl who has attempted to plagiarize me before is back at it, to the extent of creating fake emails and pretending to be me. She's called me everything from a thief to a ghostwriter (as if I would ever write for anyone other than myself) and has gotten belligerent when she has been caught.

Because of this, I have decided to take some time for me. I want to craft little worlds filled with love and wonder for you all and to do that, I need to be filled with at least a little of both lol. This will be my last update for December so I can take some time to be with my family this holiday season and do some things I love so I can continue to create the worlds I love and avoid burn out.

Have such a beautiful holiday season! I will see you on January first!