Her palm, wrapped around iced coffee in sweating plastic, then placed against the back of my neck, sending a chorus of shivers down my spine.
Her lips against mine.
“Hi, babe,” Frankie said on her way to the bathroom, a towel over her shoulder.
My hand covered the crow skull, but Frankie had barely glanced at me. The bathroom door swung closed behind her.
A tear trickled down my cheek.
I was failing this test. Overflowing with care, overwhelmed by memories, I would fail all the tests from now on.
All those times Sebastian walked away, it wasn’t only him I was missing.
I’d been worried about sacrificing Faraday to my family, but they were already here, inside the walls of Helshire. The skull was a reminder of all my mistakes in New York, especially loving Hiromi. The tests would keep coming, to make sure I could stand up under interrogation.
I could not. Which meant that Sebastian and the other caretakers were in danger. I had to leave, to draw my family’s attention away.
Now.
Inside my room, I grabbed my bug-out bag from the top shelf of the closet. It was in disrepair—the energy bars past their eat-by dates, the flashlight batteries corroded. But there were hand warmers, a first aid kit, a pair of $100 bills, a metal water bottle, a camping knife.
Enough to disappear.
I shoved underwear and T-shirts into the bag, grabbed a jacket—it was turning cold next week—and the bottle of pills that kept me from having more seizures. What else?
Standing at my closet door, the world spun. I had so little of my own. My money, my clothes, my name—all of it belonged to the family.
Where was I supposed to go? Where would I sleep tonight?
In the dark, alone.
I shook off that thought—there were always empty houses—and went into the bathroom to fill the water bottle. The air was steamy from Frankie in the shower.
I was standing at the sink when she came out, wrapped in a towel, pink-skinned and shiny. She went to the little hutches where we kept our toiletries.
She stood next to me, combing her wet hair in the mirror.
“So that girl found you.”
I turned to her. “What girl?”
“The one who was hanging around this morning, looking for you.” Frankie’s eyes went to the crow skull. “She was wearing that.”
My heart stumbled again. “It was hanging from my door.”
“Creepy,” Frankie said. “We all thought she was kind of weird.”
“How, exactly?”
“She wasn’t sure about your name. And she had this blurry picture on her phone. Looked like you before the crash, but with jet-black hair.”
“I’ve never dyed my hair,” I said carefully. “Did you get her name?”
Frankie shook her head. “Don’t think she goes here—I’d remember. Really tall, like, taller than you. Cool clothes, pink hair. Figured she was a visiting teacher, except you’d never take an art class, which is definitely what she’d be teaching.”
The water bottle ran over in my hand.
I turned the tap off.
