Chapter 5

I stopped what I was doing and looked at him. "What would look good, then?"

He thought about it seriously. "Like Serena's style. That's nice."

"Learn from her."

"I have money. I'll buy you things."

I looked down at a white dress sitting on top of the pile, and something stopped me.

Cain had picked that dress himself. A year ago, when we were out together and he'd walked into a shop. He'd chosen it.

I still remembered how he'd reacted when I came out of the fitting room.

He'd stumbled over his words, said the same thing over and over.

"Pretty."

But it was still the same dress. And now he said it was tacky and outdated.

Had the dress changed? Or had he?

I looked back down and kept folding. "That's okay. I like my own style."

A flash of irritation crossed Cain's face.

He said "fine" and walked off. The door shut behind him with a loud bang that made my ears ring.

He didn't come out of his room that evening.

So he didn't see me leave Thorne Manor.

The day I came in, I had one suitcase, twenty-four inches, and a blue backpack.

The day I left, I had the same two things.

Cain was right — this had never been my home. What belonged to me here was almost nothing.

I spent one night in the apartment and then headed west.

When I was small, my mother used to tell me things would keep getting better.

She'd said when she saved up enough, she'd take me traveling.

After she was gone, I told myself the same thing. Things would keep getting better. When I saved up enough, I'd travel on my own.

But life never quite cooperated. From one trap into another. Cain couldn't manage without someone there, so I couldn't go anywhere.

I'd tried to take him with me once.

But he'd lived in this territory his whole life. Changing environments was almost impossible for him. On the high-speed rail, he'd become unbearably anxious.

He couldn't even eat properly.

I had to get off at the next stop and bring him home.

I'd been so excited planning that trip. I'd been just as deflated when I stepped off that train.

Turns out having enough money doesn't mean you can just go.

Because there are ties. Because there's no time.

But now, I was finally standing at the edge of Silver Lake in Western Frontier Territory.

The wind rippled the water. The wind reshaped the clouds.

I put in my headphones and rode a bike along the path, drifting through wheat fields and open meadow, through light bouncing off the water, and the silhouette of Ironpeak Mountain holding up the sky.

Every rigid, scheduled routine dissolved somewhere in the sound of the lake.

Life became loose and alive.

I became a person without purpose, and somehow felt more real for it.

The Western Frontier was full of people like that — worn down and looking for something. They'd set up little stalls of all kinds.

We sat on the ground together, under a sky full of stars, and traded stories.

There was a woman who'd been studying medicine and nearly cracked under the pressure, quit her program, and come out here to breathe. She said the days finally felt whole instead of cut into useless fragments by breaks and deadlines.

There was someone recovering from something serious. He said the future was unknown, but at least he was growing again right now.

We came together briefly, touched something real in each other, and then scattered like tributaries off a river — each one winding toward its own somewhere.

Later, I went alone to watch the sunrise from Ridge Landing Dock.

Silver Lake broke the light into coins on the water.

When I was surviving in the Forsythe Pack, I didn't cry. When Cain said ugly things to me and threw me out, I didn't cry.

But standing there, I pressed both hands over my face, and my shoulders shook.

I had never felt freedom this completely before.

No alarm going off every few hours. No to-do list reminders.

Just me, answering to the mountains in the distance, allowed to stare at nothing for an entire day.

Two weeks later, I put my SIM card back in.

I'd sent Gerald a message before I left Thorne Manor — just a short one explaining what I'd done.

When I turned my phone back on, I had missed calls from everywhere.

Roland. Gerald. Cain.

I sat on the bus heading back and called Gerald.

"Ember." His voice was heavy with exhaustion. "Come back. Please."

"Cain — he's not doing well."

I went back to Thorne Manor.

After I left, Cain had completely fallen apart.

He didn't know how to manage his own medication — which pills, how many, when. I'd always measured them out and set them in front of him with water.

He had an event the day I disappeared. He couldn't find the tie that matched his suit.

He tried to reach me and couldn't.

The house manager told me Cain had destroyed everything he could get his hands on. Cups, bowls — smashed. The floor unit air conditioner was toppled. The coffee table and the cabinet both overturned.

The whole place was a disaster.

Gerald had hired Nora on short notice, but Nora didn't know Cain yet. She was completely lost.

When I walked back in, Cain looked thinner. His jaw had gone sharper.

He saw me and turned away with cold eyes.