Page 97 of The Ashes of Summer

Don't think. Move.

We pass tall windows looking out over black mountains and endless trees, the moon smothered behind storm cloud. Out there, this house doesn't exist. Nobody would ever hear you scream in it.

He turns us down a narrow corridor tucked behind the grand staircase—one I never knew was there—and the air goes colder the further we get from the main halls.

Then a steel door.

Harris fumbles the keys off his belt, hands shaking so badly he drops them once before he gets it open.

The door swings wide and cold mountain air rushes over my skin.

Freedom. The trees beyond the service road stretch out into the dark, and it doesn't feel real. None of it feels real.

He presses a set of keys into my hands. "The black SUV, the one nearest the gate."

I stare down at them. "What about the gates?"

"I can open them from inside."

Fear moves through me. "But they'll know."

Harris goes still, and I see it all over his face. Acceptance. A tear slips down the deep lines of his cheek.

"I know."

No. No⁠—

"Harris—"

"You should go now, miss."

"Why are you doing this?" It comes out broken, because nobody risks Jackson Moore unless they're already lost. Or grieving.

He looks past me, toward the dark beyond the gates.

"My daughter." The pain that crosses his face is so violent I nearly stop breathing. "She disappeared years ago into Mr Moore's network. I don't know where she is now. Only that she stays alive as long as I work for him." His voice cracks. "I couldn't save her. But I would pray somebody would help her, if they ever had the chance."

Emotion surges up so fast it chokes me. I reach up without thinking and touch his face, and the old man closes his eyes beneath my hand like it's the first kindness he's felt in years.

"Thank you," I whisper. "Thank you."

Then something clicks hard inside me. If I get out—if I actually get out of here—then I'm the chance he's praying for.

"Harris." He opens his eyes. "What's her name?"

The silence stretches.

"Sarah," he says. "Her name is Sarah."

Sarah.

I take it out of his hands like something I've been asked to carry, and I put it somewhere in my chest where nothing in this house can reach it.

"Then I'll find her," I tell him. "I swear to God, I'll find her."

He squeezes my shoulder once. It's the only goodbye either of us gets.

The cold slams into me as I run for the black SUV, gravel loud under my shoes, my heart trying to climb out through my ribs. I get the door shut behind me and my hands shake so badly I nearly drop the keys before the engine catches.