They didn't want me there.
No one said it. Not in words. But it was in the way the nurse stopped meeting my eyes. The way they took longer and longer to check on me. The way the tray of food stopped showing up on time.
Eventually, the silence just swallowed me whole.
And then I wasn't there anymore.
The street was colder than I remembered. Maybe it was just me. My coat was thin. My shoes were hospital-issue. I didn't ask where my clothes had gone. Maybe they'd burned them. Maybe I'd imagined ever having them in the first place.
I walked without a direction. One foot. Then the other. Like a spell.
People passed. None of them looked at me. Which was fine. I wouldn't have looked at me either.
I kept waiting for someone to stop me. Ask if I was okay. Ask where I was going. But the world doesn't ask those questions. Not when you're quiet. Not when you're invisible.
The sky was the same dull gray as the sidewalk. It all blended together. Storefronts. Cars. Faces. Noise.
I thought about going back to the pack house.
Just for a second.
Then I laughed. Out loud. Not because it was funny, but because it was so stupid it almost felt like someone else's thought. The kind of thing Rhea-before might have believed. The girl who trusted bonds and fairy tales and Alphas who promised forever.
She wasn't here anymore.
I stopped in front of an old brick building. A laundromat. Open. Warm inside. The machines hummed like lullabies. I didn't go in.
Instead, I sat on the curb. Hugged my knees to my chest. Watched the lights flicker through the glass.
I wasn't sure what I was waiting for.
Maybe a sign. Maybe a miracle. Maybe nothing at all.
Maybe I just didn't want to keep walking.