เข้าสู่ระบบChapter Forty-Nine: Kai's GhostsKai POVNobody speaks in the car.Rose sits by the window with her phone in her lap, the screen dark. Harlan drives. Priya sits up front and stares at the road. The crowd outside the opera house was still chanting when we left. Someone shouted Ghost Zero! and Rose didn't turn her head.She hasn't looked at me once since the voicemail.I keep waiting for her to say something. Anything. Drive faster. Open the window. My name. She doesn't. Her thumb moves back and forth across the edge of the phone, slow and even, and every pass makes my chest tighter.At the penthouse she hands her coat to nobody. She goes straight to Jay's door, opens it an inch, and looks in for a long time. Then she closes it softly and walks to the glass doors at the end of the living room.She opens them. The night air comes in cold."Balcony," she says. "Now."I follow her out.The city is spread out below us, all lit windows and moving headlights. Rose stands at the railing with h
Chapter Forty-Eight: The Woman Who Wasn't ThereJay POVI don't tell anyone about the box.I try. In the car I open my mouth three times. Mummy is looking out the window, and Uncle Kai has one hand on the wheel and the other very close to Mummy's hand on the seat, not touching, and nobody is saying anything. It feels like a bad time. It feels like the kind of time where a grown-up says later, Jay.So I carry it upstairs in my pocket. I close my bedroom door. I sit on the floor with my back against the bed and open the lid again.The wolf is silver. Its eyes are two blue stones, so tiny I have to hold it close to see them. The chain is thin and cold. I put it around my neck, just to check. It's the right size. That's the worst part.I take it off.For the boy who picked right.I don't know what I picked. I read the note four times. I know the handwriting is neat, neater than Miss Alvarez's, and I know the M doesn't stand for Mummy because Mummy writes her M's with a big loop.Uncle Har
Chapter Forty-Eight: The Woman Who Wasn't ThereJay POVI don't tell anyone about the box.I try. In the car I open my mouth three times. Mummy is looking out the window, and Uncle Kai has one hand on the wheel and the other very close to Mummy's hand on the seat, not touching, and nobody is saying anything. It feels like a bad time. It feels like the kind of time where a grown-up says later, Jay.So I carry it upstairs in my pocket. I close my bedroom door. I sit on the floor with my back against the bed and open the lid again.The wolf is silver. Its eyes are two blue stones, so tiny I have to hold it close to see them. The chain is thin and cold. I put it around my neck, just to check. It's the right size. That's the worst part.I take it off.For the boy who picked right.I don't know what I picked. I read the note four times. I know the handwriting is neat, neater than Miss Alvarez's, and I know the M doesn't stand for Mummy because Mummy writes her M's with a big loop.Uncle Har
Chapter Forty-Seven: Parent NightRose POVFriday. Six o'clock. A week since Jay told us to pick a fight and finish it.We haven't picked one. We haven't finished anything. But Kai opened the car door for me tonight, and I let him, and neither of us made it a thing.The school hall smells like floor polish and orange squash. Paper snowflakes are taped across the windows. Rows of tiny chairs face a low stage with a banner hanging crooked over it. Our Class Presents. Somebody's mother is on a stepladder trying to fix the corner.We walk in together.Harlan's earpiece clicks once as the door shuts behind us. Kai's hand brushes the small of my back, there and gone, as if he's checking I'm real. I let him.Heads turn. Not all at once. In waves, from the front rows to the back, the way it happens when a room recognizes a face from the news. I know that look. The slap on the steps is still circulating. So is the photo from the terminal. I keep my chin level and my bag on my shoulder, and I d
Chapter Forty-Six: Silent TreatmentKai POVThree days.Rose and I have not spoken more than ten words to each other in three days. I know the number because I have counted. Pass the salt. Jay's shoes. Harlan called. Fine. The last one was Tuesday night, and she said it to the refrigerator.She sleeps in Jay's room. She takes the narrow bed against the wall and leaves the door open one hand's width. I hear her go in at eleven and I hear the door close, and I do not hear it open again until six. At three I get up and stand in the hall in my bare feet. The floorboard outside her door has a sound I know. I do not step on it. I sleep alone in my own bed, if it can be called sleeping. I lie on my back with the lights off and I listen to the quiet on the other side of the wall. At two in the morning the bond tugs once, low in my chest, and I hold very still until it stops.Jay came home from the secure campus on Monday. Harlan walked him to the door himself and left without looking at eithe
Chapter Forty-Five: Table for ThreeRose POVI dress in black. Plain. No jewelry except the diamond at my throat.I stand in front of the mirror for a long moment with my hands on the dresser. Lucid left the tracker running in the lining of the coat I wore to the hospital. It hangs in the closet behind me, transmitting the sound of an empty room to whoever is listening. Priya has already confirmed the address on Milo's card. The motel is real. The room is booked under a name I know. I have my own people on the road, and they will not move until I tell them to.Kai is not in the penthouse. He left an hour ago without a word. I do not ask where he went. I heard the front door close and I stood very still in the hallway until the sound of the elevator was gone. Jay's drawing is still stuck to the refrigerator, a black wolf and a smaller gray one, with three stick figures beside them. I pass it twice on my way out. I do not look at it either time.The restaurant is on the roof of a hotel







