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Catherine drives out of Green Creek, the place she'd come to and never really left.
Well, here she is, finally leaving. Gordo's on the seat next to her, a son, a child, and she loves him so much. She knows he's scared, that he's grown up in the secret world of witches and werewolves. The tattoos on his arms wrap around his skin like birthmarks, and though they're not finished yet, the tattoos are potent enough already. Hard to hide, even harder to control.
She keeps driving. Gordo still stunned, she's guessing. He's not spoken yet.
She knows he's scared, but Catherine's doing what's best. Leaving.
It hadn't been that bad in the beginning. Robert had seen her when she was in the diner, and he'd been charming, so charming. She'd been smart enough not to trust 'charming' back then, but there'd been something else about him, too. Something magic. She. didn't why she'd stayed, but she had.
And then they'd gotten married, and Catherine realised that, oh, it really was 'magic.' Magic was real, and so were witches, and the benefactors of the run-down, gem of an Oregon town were actually a pack of werewolves.
Catherine hadn't left Green Creek since she'd met Robert. It was... she hadn't wanted to. Why hadn't she wanted to? It's a discomfiting feeling, like she's let a parasite grow inside of her and was too stupid to notice. She'd run away from the system for a reason. She hadn't ever planned to settle down, and then one day, waking up with Robert, she just had.
It was magic. The past few months, Robert had gotten sloppy, and she could tell when a thought in her mind wasn't hers. It wasn't too hard to put two and two together, to know that they'd broken the vase while arguing the night before, even though she couldn't remember the argument.
He'd been messing with her mind. Catherine had wanted to scream when she'd found out, to strangle him to death, because how dare he? It was her mind.
She'd never asked for this. She'd never asked for 'charming' and for 'settling down' in a fucking hick town in the middle of nowhere, Oregon.
After she'd realised what was happening, Catherine could feel Robert in her mind. Tiny tendrils of slithering magic, giving her a headache. She knew exactly when he was doing it, and she wanted nothing more than to get away.
But Catherine wasn't stupid. She had Gordo.
She'd never wanted children, really. Running away from the foster system when she was seventeen guaranteed that she wouldn't have any nieces or nephews to play with. Her parents weren't ever in the picture, and she wasn't too keen of having her own wains crawling around near her feet.
But fuck the world if Catherine doesn't love her own son.
Gordo was her. She can see the best of herself in him. He wasn't Robert's, he would never be just a tool for them to use, in the name of their pack, to cast wards and help mutts during full moons. Gordo is hers to protect, and she'll do that until Robert pries him from her cold, dead hands.
She keeps driving. She knows driving. Catherine knows how to be a nomad, even though it's been fifteen years since she's been on the road. All forms of their trackable identification are back at Robert's house, and the only thing in their car is Gordo's birth certificates, school report cards and medical records.
"Mom," Gordo says. "Why did we leave?"
They're on the highway, now, so she looks over to him. He's got a wooden figurine clutched in his hand. She remembers one of the Bennett teens giving it to him. Mark? Probably.
He's scared. Not of her, but in a general sense. Time to channel that motherly energy, Catherine.
"Gordo." You can't trust the wolves, she wants to say. They don't love you, they need you, they use you. But Gordo loves them, and she can't bring herself to be that cruel. She's not that desperate yet.
Because she knows, like anyone does, that the wolves do love her son. Gordo is their witch. While not tied permanently to Green Creek yet, they sing for him.
"Gordo, your father is not a good man."