I packed at three in the morning.

One bag. Small enough to carry. Underwear. Two shirts. Jeans. The letters my mother wrote from Dublin before I was born. Her handwriting slanted left, like she was always leaning into something better.

I hid the bag under the guest-room bed. Pushed it far back where the dust gathered.

The boy sat on the floor beside me. Sixteen. Hoodie. His knee bounced the way it used to when he was nervous before a test.

"Good," he whispered. "That's good. Now the money."

I'd checked the joint account that morning. Dillon hadn't frozen it yet. Maybe he forgot I still had access. Maybe he didn't care.

I withdrew eight hundred dollars. It was all I could take without triggering an alert. I did it at an ATM four blocks away. My hands shook so hard I entered the PIN wrong twice.

The boy walked beside me the whole way back. He kept looking over his shoulder.

"Almost there," he said. "You're almost out."

I bought the ticket at a café I'd never been to. One-way to Dublin. Departure in two days. I used the last credit card in my name. The one Dillon hadn't thought to cancel because it had a five-hundred-dollar limit and he didn't think I was smart enough to run.

The confirmation email loaded. I stared at the screen until the barista asked if I was okay.

I said yes.

I wasn't.

But I had a ticket. And that was something.

I didn't tell Dillon I was leaving. I didn't tell Sierra. I moved through the penthouse like a ghost for two days. I ate when they weren't looking. I showered at odd hours. I stayed in the guest room with the door locked.

Sierra knocked once. "Emberly? Are you feeling all right?"

I didn't answer.

She didn't knock again.

The night before the flight, I couldn't sleep. I sat on the floor with my bag. I checked the contents over and over. Clothes. Letters. Passport. Ticket printed and folded in the front pocket.

The boy sat across from me. He wasn't bouncing anymore. He was still. Watching.

"You're really going," he said softly.

I nodded.

"I'm proud of you."

My throat went tight. "You're not real."

"I know." He smiled. Sad. "But I'm still proud."

I left for the airport at dawn. I didn't say goodbye. I just walked out the door with my bag and my ticket and the feeling that if I looked back I'd lose my nerve.

The boy walked beside me. Down the elevator. Through the lobby. Into the cab.

"You're doing it," he whispered. "You're really doing it."

I pressed my forehead against the window. Watched the city blur past.

Seattle-Tacoma International was crowded. I kept my head down. Moved through security. No one stopped me. No one looked twice.

I made it to the gate.

Boarding started in twenty minutes. I sat in a plastic chair near the window. My bag was on my lap. My hands were folded over it like I was praying.

The boy stood beside me. He was looking at the planes. At the sky.

"Almost," he said. "Almost free."

I closed my eyes.

Then I heard his voice.

Not the boy's.

Dillon's.

"Emberly."

I looked up.

He was standing ten feet away. Suit. Tie. His face was hard. Furious.

Sierra was beside him. One hand on her belly. The other on his arm.

I stood. My bag slipped off my lap. Hit the floor.

"How did you—"

"Credit card alert," Dillon said. His voice was low. Controlled. "You really thought I wouldn't notice?"

I took a step back. "I'm leaving."

"No." He moved forward. "You're not."

"Dillon—"

"You're sick, Emberly." He pulled something from his jacket. Papers. Folded. Official-looking. "You need help."

I stared at the papers. At his hand. At Sierra's face. She looked sympathetic. Concerned.

She looked like she'd won.

"What is that?" I whispered.

"Involuntary commitment," Dillon said. "Greenfield Psychiatric Center. I've already signed it."

"No." I shook my head. "No. You can't—"

"You tried to run," he said. "You're not eating. You're talking to yourself. You're a danger to yourself, Emberly. This proves it."

I grabbed for my ticket. He was faster. He took it from my hand. Ripped it in half. Let the pieces fall.

"Dillon, please—"

Two men in scrubs appeared behind him. Orderlies. They moved toward me.

I backed up. My shoulders hit the window.

"Don't do this," I said. My voice broke. "Please. I'll come home. I won't leave. Just don't—"

"It's already done," Dillon said.

The orderlies reached for me. I twisted away. One of them caught my arm. The other grabbed my bag.

"No!" I screamed. "No! Let go!"

People were staring. Phones came out. I didn't care.

"Dillon!" I was sobbing now. Thrashing. "You promised! You PROMISED!"

I wasn't talking to the man in the suit.

I was talking to the boy.

The sixteen-year-old standing frozen at the gate. Hands in his hoodie pocket. Eyes wide. Helpless.

He reached for me.

But his hand passed through air.

The orderlies dragged me toward the exit. I fought. I screamed his name. Not the name of my husband.

The name of the boy who swore on the moon.

"Dillon! DILLON!"

The last thing I saw before they pulled me through the door was Sierra.

She was smiling.

And the boy was gone.

The room was white. Walls. Floor. Ceiling. Even the light was white. Fluorescent. Humming.

I sat on the bed. Thin mattress. Scratchy sheets. My wrists had marks on them. Red lines from the restraints they'd used in the van.

I wasn't wearing my clothes anymore. They'd given me scrubs. Gray. Shapeless. The fabric smelled like bleach and something else. Something chemical I couldn't name.

There was a window. Small. Reinforced glass. I could see a parking lot. Cars coming and going. People who could leave.

I couldn't leave.

The door had a lock on the outside. I'd heard it click when they brought me in. Heard the nurse's footsteps fade down the hall.

I was alone.

Except I wasn't.

The boy was in the corner. Sixteen. Hoodie. But he looked different now. Paler. Like someone had turned down his brightness.

"Emberly," he said softly.

I didn't answer. My throat was raw from screaming at the airport. My eyes felt swollen.

"You have to eat something," he said.

There was a tray on the table beside the bed. Sandwich. Apple. Juice box. I hadn't touched it.

"I'm not hungry."

"You haven't eaten in two days."

"I don't care."

He moved closer. His sneakers didn't make a sound. They never did.

"Please," he whispered. "Just a little. For me."

I looked at him. At the boy who wasn't real. Who had never been real.

"Why are you still here?" I asked.

He didn't answer right away. He sat on the floor. Pulled his knees up. The way he used to on the rooftop when we'd skip last period and watch the clouds.

"I don't know," he said finally. "Maybe because you need me."

"I don't need a hallucination."

"Then what do you need?"

I closed my eyes. "I need to wake up. I need this to not be real."

"Emberly—"

"He put me here." My voice cracked. "Dillon put me here. He signed papers. He ripped up my ticket. He stood there and watched them drag me away and he didn't—" I couldn't finish. My chest hurt too much.

The boy's face was the saddest thing I'd ever seen.

"I know," he whispered.

"You promised you'd protect me."

"I'm not him anymore. You know that."

"Then what are you?"

He looked down at his hands. Sixteen-year-old hands that used to hold mine on the walk home from school.

"I'm what's left," he said quietly.

The door opened. I flinched. Pulled my knees to my chest.

A nurse came in. Middle-aged. Kind face. The kind of face that made you think she'd chosen this job because she cared.

She looked at the untouched tray. At me. At the corner where the boy sat.

She couldn't see him. But she saw me looking.

"Emberly," she said gently. "How are you feeling?"

I didn't answer.

She moved closer. Checked the chart clipped to the end of the bed. "It says here you've been talking to someone. Is there someone in the room with you?"

I looked at the boy. He shook his head slowly.

"No," I whispered.

The nurse's smile was patient. Practiced. "It's okay if there is. We're here to help you."

"I'm fine."

"You haven't eaten. You haven't slept. That's not fine, sweetheart."

I hated that word. Sweetheart. Like I was a child. Like I was broken.

Maybe I was.

"I just want to go home," I said.

The nurse's face softened. "I know. But right now, this is the safest place for you."

"Safe from what?"

She didn't answer that. She just made a note on the chart. "Dr. Brennan will see you tomorrow. In the meantime, try to rest. And please eat something."

She left. The lock clicked.

I stared at the door.

"She thinks I'm crazy," I said.

The boy stood. Moved to the window. "You're not crazy."

"I'm talking to someone who isn't there."

"That doesn't make you crazy. That makes you surviving."

I pulled the blanket around my shoulders. It wasn't cold. But I couldn't stop shaking.

"How long do you think they'll keep me here?" I asked.

The boy didn't answer.

"Dillon signed the papers," I said. "He can keep me here as long as he wants. Can't he."

The boy pressed his hand against the glass. Looked out at the parking lot.

"I don't know," he said quietly.

I lay down. Curled on my side. Faced the wall.

The boy sat on the floor beside the bed. I could feel him there. Even though I knew I couldn't.

"Don't leave," I whispered.

"I won't."

"Promise."

He was quiet for a long time. Then: "I promise."

I closed my eyes.

Somewhere far away, in a city I'd never been to, in an office overlooking a river I'd never seen, my brother—who I thought was dead—was reading a file with my name on it.

But I didn't know that yet.

All I knew was the white room. The locked door. The boy in the corner who was fading a little more every time I looked.

And the terrible, crushing certainty that no one was coming.

No one ever came.