I do not wait this time.
The bond hums and I am already moving, feet hitting the floor before my thoughts fully catch up. There is no careful sitting on the edge of the bed, no pause to weigh consequences or rehearse excuses. Layla surges forward with clean certainty, and I let her. Whatever hesitation existed before has burned itself out, reduced to something useless and distant.
Tonight feels different.
Urgent. Focused.
I pull on clothes, boots, jacket, hands steady even as my pulse quickens. The movements are automatic, muscle memory carrying me through familiar steps. The house is asleep again, heavy with the kind of quiet that pretends nothing has changed. Floors do not creak. Doors do not protest. I slip out the back door without a sound and into the trees, breath fogging faintly
