My wrist came up the color of a storm overnight, and Mom was already at the table with the wrap.
Ellen: Tell me if it's broken.
Josie: It's not broken. It's just sulking.
Dad went up to the yard anyway, and I walked with him, because my hands don't sit still when something's coming.
Dane was at the truck shed with two of his fighters, like he'd been waiting on the light.
Dane: Tom. You're off the road crew. Clean out your box tonight.
Tom: I've run that crew twelve years.
Dane: Twelve years, and the feed still doesn't get up the hill without your daughter holding the engine together.
The whole yard went quiet in that way where everybody is listening and nobody is looking up.
Dane: I warned you. One word out of your boy's mouth, and I said what would happen.
Benny came through the gate with one boot on, and he planted himself in front of Dane like he was twice his size.
Benny: Take his crew, fine. You don't get to take my training yard too.
Dane: Say one more word to me, and I'll put you on your back in front of every man here.
Two fighters stepped up behind him, easy as a door swinging shut.
Josie: Benny. Stop it. Now.
Dane: Look at that. The no-wolf mutt is the smart one in the family.
One of the fighters laughed and said what my hands were actually good for, and it wasn't engines. The other one laughed harder.
I kept my chin up. It was the only thing in that yard still mine.
Josie: Say it to my face, then.
Dane: She's not worth the diesel it takes to drive her off. Go home.
Dad worked his whole shift out anyway, because he's never walked off a job early in his life. He came home at dark with his hands still dirty and no work on Monday.
Mom put food out and nobody touched it. The house was so quiet I could hear the fridge running.
I sat there and felt what I cost, sitting on that table plain as the plates.
Josie: It's me. All of it is me. He doesn't need a reason anymore if I'm not here.
Ellen: Don't you put that on yourself in my kitchen.
Tom: Nobody is driving my daughter off this mountain. I'll dig ditches with my hands.
Josie: Dad, he'll come for you. He promised the whole pack he would, and he doesn't break a promise when it's a mean one.
Benny: I'd sit off that yard my whole life before I'd let you go.
Josie: I know. That's why I'm going.
He looked at me like I'd hit him.
I packed after they went to bed and it took ten minutes. Twenty-odd years of me, and it all fit in a duffel that didn't even zip straight.
Ellen: I heard the closet. I wasn't going to sleep through that.
She put a folded cloth in my hand with money in it, saved up for nothing I could name.
Ellen: You call me when you land somewhere. You say where.
Dad came out without his coat on and hugged me so hard my wrist complained.
Tom: You're not a thing that got thrown away. You hear me?
Josie: I hear you.
Benny was already by the truck with his boots on and a bag over his shoulder.
Benny: I can carry yours too.
Josie: You stay. Somebody has to be their boy.
I drove down the hill with the three of them standing in the yard light, and I didn't look back until the bend.
Then I looked back a lot.
At the bottom the road splits, and I sat there with my hands on the wheel, lip split, wrist wrapped, no wolf, no pack, no job.
All I had was a stubborn streak and a truck that ran because of me.
I took the coast road and made myself a promise. I would never stand in front of a pack again and wait to be measured.