The night Darren packed up everything he owned and loaded it into the back of the car he’d bought that very afternoon with what little money he’d managed to scrimp and save from his job without Greg noticing happened to fall a few days before the 7th. Even though the timing was a coincidence, the irony was not lost on him. It was a date that would be forever in his mind as the dying day of what should have been, and the anniversary of every regret, every mistake, every betrayal that became the tapestry of his life.

On that day, he’d made the hardest decision of his life, and even though it had brought him nothing but pain ever since, he couldn’t bring himself to regret it entirely. For one thing, even though every day since leaving Sawyers had been nothing but a curse to him, he knew the Alpha he’d left behind was better off for it. Maybe Zander hadn’t seen it then, or maybe he’d immediately realized that he’d dodged a bullet when he’d found the letter explaining that his mate had left him for his best friend and that he shouldn’t bother looking, because neither of them were coming back. Either way, Darren could occasionally assuage his guilty conscience with the knowledge that Zander’s life without him was so much better than the one they could have made together.

Then, there was Bobby. Darren never had and never would regret the life he’d created with Greg, even if he regretted everything else about their relationship.

The Alpha had changed considerably in the first few months they’d spent on the road after leaving Sawyers. He’d been so full of promises about all the paradises that lay just beyond the horizon, all the adventures waiting for them if they could just get the courage to leave together. He’d been so gentle in those days.

And then, he wasn’t. The first time Greg had hit Darren, he’d been eight months pregnant. Darren had stared at the Alpha in shock, standing in the middle of the shitty little apartment Greg had promised was just a stepping stone to bigger and better things. To the happily ever after that was supposed to fix all their problems and answer every growing doubt in Darren’s mind. The shock had sent him into early labor, and Greg had done a one-eighty in the months following Bobby’s birth.

He’d been the attentive, kind, loving Alpha who had seduced Darren during that heat so long ago, on the night where a simple, drunken mistake had unwound every good thing he’d managed to build in his life. The night he’d betrayed the Alpha he truly loved, and fulfilled the prophecy that had been written on the wall of his heart from the very beginning.

Darren had always known he would end up hurting Zander. He’d told the Alpha as much, but Zander refused to believe him. It was his stubborn devotion, his insistent naïveté that had once allowed Darren to feel justified in his actions. To tell himself that Zander had known what he was getting into when he’d gotten mixed up with an omega like Darren, that you didn’t step into the eye of the hurricane and ask yourself why it swept you off your feet and razed everything around you.

On some level, Darren had known that the change in Greg’s disposition was only temporary, just as he’d told himself that Zander should have known what would happen when he fell in love with a hurricane, but that second blow had still taken him by surprise. He could still hear Bobby crying from his highchair, the phone ringing and joining the tinnitus in his ears as he lay sprawled on the kitchen floor, feeling separated from his own body for hours.

He’d still been shocked when the change happened. That shock had worn off into acceptance the third and fourth and fifth times, and now he’d lost track, both of the number of times Greg had hit him and the number of times it had taken for him to stop caring.

Until the night before. Greg had come home in an especially bad mood, and it was rarely good when he got home from work already drunk. Darren still couldn’t remember what had started the fight. He blamed himself for calling Greg out on driving home drunk, but the Alpha had been even more irritated when their son kept trying to show him a drawing from school. He’d shoved Bobby to keep him away and something in Darren had snapped.

As much as they fought, Greg had always kept it behind closed doors since Bobby had gotten old enough to realize what was going on. Darren still felt like the world’s worst parent knowing how many times their son had probably heard them arguing through the walls, but Greg hadn’t actually hit Darren in front of their child since that night and he’d never actually laid a hand on Bobby.

Darren still didn’t fully remember coming at Greg, but he remembered the blow that had sent him back into the wall. He remembered Bobby shielding him as his vision blurred, and the Alpha storming out the door. He remembered the promise he’d made to himself, to his son as he’d stroked his hair and soothed him while struggling to stay conscious.

Never again. This is never going to happen again.

It became his mantra as he made his plans all throughout the night and implemented them as soon as Greg had left that morning for work. He’d been stashing money aside for months in a tin can he kept in the back of the hall closet with the cleaning supplies, the one place he could guarantee Greg would never look for anything. He’d bought a small car the neighbor was selling for five-hundred dollars. It was old, but it ran well enough and it would get them out west to the one place he could think to run to, even though he’d burned every bridge six years earlier. The neighbor had agreed to let him keep it there until Greg left that night to go drinking with his buddies from the factory, as usual.

By the time Darren had everything packed and ready to go, Bobby was asleep on the couch. Darren put on the boy’s shoes and his jacket before gathering him into his arms and leaving the apartment for the last time.

“Where are we going?” Bobby asked groggily as Darren buckled him into his carseat in the back. One of the worst fights he’d had with Greg had started when the Alpha had found the receipt for the carseat and blown up because Darren had lied about choosing the cheapest one. Evidently, having money for beer was more important than their son’s safety.

As terrified as Darren was of the six-hundred-mile stretch that lay in front of them, he was even more afraid of looking in the mirror everyday and not recognizing the person he’d become. He’d left Sawyers a selfish, reckless child willing to turn his back on every good thing in his life because he’d thought it was better to throw it all away than to stick around and wait for it to be taken from him, but the old him never would have stood for half the things that had become normal. The night before had been a wakeup call, a realization of just how much he’d lied to himself, just how much he’d accepted in order to keep the peace.

But there was no turning back now. He wished he’d left the first time Greg had hit him, but the idea of returning home with his tail between his legs and admitting how badly he’d fucked up had seemed unfathomable then. It was no less daunting now, but if it meant getting Bobby away from this life, it was worth it.

“We’re just going on a little trip,” he said, smoothing down the boy’s curly hair. “You can sleep on the way, alright?”

Bobby nodded and Darren kissed his forehead before getting into the driver’s seat. He cast one look back at the dull gray apartment building and took off. Greg usually didn’t stumble through the front door until two, maybe three in the morning, so that gave him five hours to put as much road between them as he could.

There was part of Darren that had been afraid he would get cold feet and change his mind about running just like he’d changed his mind about the mating ceremony six years earlier, but he didn’t. The moment his hands gripped the steering wheel, he felt free for the first time since he’d left to chase his freedom.