The walk to the main facility takes ten minutes, through forest paths I know by heart.
My father leads the way with a flashlight, Nate and I following in silence. The trees press close on either side, their branches heavy with moisture from the sea air, and I can hear the distant crash of waves against the rocky shore.
I know these paths. I ran them every morning and every evening for years, trying to outrun grief, trying to exhaust myself into something like peace. I know every root that could trip you, every turn where the canopy opens to show the stars, every spot where you could hide if you needed to disappear.
I never thought I’d be walking them again, and definitely not with someone like Nate by my side. Someone I can kiss without consequence, such a rare unimaginable thing, and yet haven’t been kissing at all. The almost-kiss from this morning plays over in my mind.
“So, this is where you spent your high school years?” Nate asks quietly, falling into step beside me.
“Yes. From eleven onward.”
“Must have been isolated.”
“That was the point, I think.” I duck under a low branch. “Wanted to keep me safe. I wasn’t totally alone though, someone took me in the boat every morning to Sidney just across the water there where I went to high school. I had friends. I was starting over…”
Until Toby. Until I found out what I was.
Nate is quiet for a moment. “There’s a lot you haven’t told me. About your father. About this place.”
I sigh heavily. God, the air is so sweet here, it fills your lungs like nothing else.
“I know,” I say. “And I will.”
“Copy that,” he says, his hand brushing against mine in the dark, sending shivers up my arm and down my spine. Then it brushes again and then his hand stills as it makes contact, his fingers wrapping around mine and holding me.
My heart skips a beat and I have to remind myself to breathe again. Funny how something as small and chaste as holding someone’s hand can mean so much.
We carry on like that in the dark until the facility looms ahead, all concrete and security lights. It looks smaller than I remember, less intimidating. Or maybe I’ve just faced scarier things since then.
Then Nate’s hand falls away, creating distance, leaving my palm cold and bare.
My father swipes a keycard at a side entrance, and we slip inside. The hallways are empty—it’s past midnight, and his assistant probably won’t be back until morning.
“This way,” my father says, leading us deeper into the building. Past labs I remember, past equipment I recognize from years of poking around where I wasn’t supposed to be.
We stop at a heavy door marked DIAGNOSTIC IMAGING.
“The scan will take a bit of time,” my father says to Nate. “It’s non-invasive, mostly—magnetic resonance, neural mapping, the standard battery. I’ll need you to stay as still as possible.”
“And Mia?”
“She can wait in the observation room. Or—” My father glances at me. “There’s a cot in my office, if you need to rest. You look exhausted.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You’ve been beaten, tortured, and flown across a continent in the space of a week.” His voice softens, just slightly. “Let me help him. You don’t need to keep watch every second.”
“But I do,” I tell him. I’m not leaving Nate’s side now, even if we are safe. “I’ll watch from the observation room.” My father nods. He opens the door to the imaging suite and gestures for Nate to enter.
He disappears into the imaging suite and I stand in the empty hallway for a long moment, surrounded by the hum of equipment and the ghosts of a childhood I’ve spent years trying to forget.
Then I push open the door to the observation room and settle in to wait.
CHAPTER 48
MIA
The observation roomis small and cold, humming with the low drone of equipment.
