ROGUE'S CLAIM

LILA’S POV

The forest is darker than I imagined, the kind of dark that swallows sound and light. My backpack digs into my shoulders, heavy with the few clothes and cash I grabbed before slipping out my bedroom window three nights ago. Eighteen years under my parents’ strict rules, church every Sunday, no boys, no parties, curfew at nine even in senior year, and I finally snapped. I hitchhiked as far as the money allowed, then started walking, drawn to these woods by some stupid romantic notion of freedom.

Now, freedom feels like terror.

Branches snag my jeans, the roots trip me in the moonlight filtering through the...