Chapter 4 No.4

The first thing Anastasia did was throw away the cheap burner phone Courtland had given her. She snapped it in half and dropped the pieces into a storm drain.

It was a small act of rebellion, but it was hers.

She walked for hours, the rain soaking through her thin dress. The city lights smeared and bled in the wet darkness.

She had a few dollars in her pocket, stolen from a loose change jar in the kitchen. Enough for a bus ticket.

A bus ticket to anywhere.

She found herself in a greasy spoon diner, shivering in a corner booth. The waitress gave her a pitying look and a cup of hot water.

She stared out the window, her mind a numb fog.

"You look like you've seen a ghost."

A man's voice. She looked up. It was one of the gardeners from the estate. She didn't know his name.

"Heard they let you out," he said, sliding into the opposite side of the booth. "Heard she came back."

Anastasia said nothing.

"It ain't right," the gardener muttered, shaking his head. "What he's doing to you. What they're both doing. We all see it."

She looked at him, surprised by the unexpected kindness.

"He used to look at you... different," the gardener said. "Before. When you were kids. Like you were the only person in the room."

Anastasia's throat tightened. A memory, sharp and painful, pierced through the fog. A boy with a temporary blindness, his hands tracing her face. A promise whispered in the dark.

"That was a long time ago," she said, her voice hoarse. "He's a different person now."

"No," the gardener said, his gaze steady. "He's the same person. He's just forgotten who saved him."

The words hit her with the force of a physical blow.

She left the diner and walked until she found a cheap motel. She paid for one night in cash.

The room was grimy and smelled of stale smoke. But it was a sanctuary.

She lay on the lumpy mattress, fully clothed, and fell into a restless sleep.

She dreamed of Aspen. He was small, his hand in hers. They were in a field of wildflowers, the sun warm on their faces. He was laughing. "You'll protect me, won't you, Ana?" he asked. "Always."

She woke up with tears on her cheeks.

The dream wasn't a comfort. It was a condemnation. She had been given this second chance, this foreknowledge of the horror to come, and what was she doing? Hiding in a motel room, wallowing in her own misery.

She had been so focused on Courtland. On the pain he caused. On the love she had once felt.

She saw it clearly now. The hope he had given her as a girl, the way he had nurtured it, only to smash it to pieces when she became a woman... that was the cruelest part. Not the hatred, but the hope that came before it.

She got up and went to the small, cracked mirror in the bathroom.

She looked at her reflection. A pale, haunted face.

She had to get to her grandmother's house. That's where Aspen was. With the last of their family.

She had to stop remembering and start acting.

She was packing her small bag when there was a loud, insistent knock on the door.

Her blood ran cold.

"Anastasia."

It was Courtland's voice.