Chapter 3

I walked past Isaac and went straight to the closet.

I pulled out a suitcase. I did not pack any of the clothes Isaac had bought me and only took a few simple outfits of my own.

Isaac leaned against the doorframe, watching me with a cold smile.

"Playing the runaway act again? Wren, are you done throwing your tantrum? Sabrina handled all those relatives for you today, and you can't even say thank you. Now you're going to give her attitude?"

I ignored him and turned to open the nightstand drawer. It was my backup drawer, where I kept my documents and an old phone.

The drawer was empty.

My whole body went rigid, and I turned to look at Sabrina.

She was sitting on the couch, turning the familiar‑looking phone over in her hands.

"Why do you have my things? Give it back!" I walked over and held out my hand.

Sabrina shrank behind Isaac, looking wounded.

"Wren, please don't be so harsh. My phone died today, and I saw the spare in the drawer. I just wanted to borrow it to transfer some photos.

"I couldn't figure out the password, so I just went ahead and did a factory reset. It's an old phone anyway. There couldn't have been anything important on it, right?"

A ringing filled my head. Blood rushed straight to my skull.

That old phone had no photos or chat history on it, only a handful of voice recordings.

Mom had died in a car accident. Before that, the thing she worried about most was her directionally hopeless daughter. She was always teaching me how to find my way over the phone.

After she passed, there was a time when I could not even bring myself to step outside.

It was Isaac who had stayed up through several nights, cutting and organizing every voice message Mom had ever sent me, turning them into a personal navigation system that existed nowhere else in the world.

"Wren, turn left up ahead."

"Slow down. Don't be afraid."

"It's okay if you go the wrong way. Mom is here."

For five years, every time I went anywhere on Avenmore Island, I got through it because of that phone and Mom's voice.

I snatched the phone from her hands, trembling as I powered it on.

The screen lit up to the initial setup page, and it was completely blank. Everything was gone.

The local backup had been wiped. The cloud data had been erased right along with it.

I stared at Sabrina, my eyes burning.

I raised my hand and slapped her hard across the face. The sound cracked through the room.

Sabrina screamed and fell back onto the sofa, clutching her cheek.

Isaac's expression changed instantly. He grabbed my wrist and squeezed hard enough to bruise.

"Wren Covington! Have you lost your mind?"

"She wiped my navigation recordings!" I struggled against him, my nails digging into the back of his hand.

"Isaac, those were my mother's voice! You know that!"

Isaac froze for a moment, then let go and pulled Sabrina behind him. He frowned, his voice thick with impatience.

"It's just a few recordings. Sabrina didn't know. She's gone, Wren. You can't spend the rest of your life living off a few voice clips."

He paused, then added as though it were the most obvious solution in the world.

"I'll hire a few top voice actors tomorrow to imitate your mom's voice and record a cleaner set. Will that make you happy?"

I looked at the man standing in front of me. My chest felt like it had been pried open, and cold air was rushing through the hollow it left behind.

The boy who had once held me and said, "Don't be scared, I'll help you keep your mom's voice," had died somewhere in the last five years. Now he had stripped those recordings of every bit of meaning they ever held with his own words.

"Voice actors?" A broken laugh escaped me, and I took two steps back.

"Isaac, do you really think everyone can be replaced?"

I turned around, grabbed the suitcase handle, and walked toward the door.

Isaac called out from behind me. "If you walk out that door today, the honeymoon trip to Vindmark next week to see the Northern Lights is canceled!"

He knew that bringing Mom's ashes to see the Northern Lights was a wish I had spent three years planning for.

My steps did not slow. I did not even turn my head.

"There's no need."

I did not need him to lead the way anymore.