ELLA SAID THE right things about my mom, showed the right amount of alarm. She told me to shower, said she’d get my stuff. I asked after Girl. “I don’t know,” Ella said. “I’ll try and find her name.” I locked myself in the bathroom with my phone and removed the robe. In the mirror my whole face sagged, like someone had grabbed me by the jowls and pulled. I thought of Shonda the Botox Queen; I thought of my mother, what do you think, just a little tuck? Steam fogged in from the mirror’s edges until it hid my reflection and I stepped into the shower. The water was warm. I turned it toward hot until I burned, which felt right, like my skin might rinse off, discard the evidence of who I’d been before last night, before Jake, Instagram. I pumped soap from a dispenser on the wall, rubbed it over my torso with the lightest touch. I felt certain that if I pressed, I’d find a tumor, pushed up against my skin. I punched for more soap, moved my hand to my outer labia, which felt puffy. When I swabbed inside, stinging. I rinsed quick and got out. My body, when I dried it, looked like something fragile I had borrowed, broken, glued back together. But my skin was numb and nerveless.

I came out of the shower in a towel and found Ella, sitting on the edge of the couch, texting. My backpack was by her feet and I dropped my phone inside. She had a Blaze branded tracksuit for me to wear. “Did you find the girl?” I asked.

“Not yet,” she said. “Need underwear?” I told her no, took the suit back to the bathroom where she couldn’t see me change, then came back out, got my backpack and carried it in with me. I didn’t want to be alone without my phone. I wiped the mirror. Wiggled my jaw. Jake called it gurning, the way your mouth locks up and aches from too much powder. I had been sloppy.

Behind the door Ella said, “Okay, I talked to Blaze, we’re getting you out ahead of schedule because of your mom.” She would drive me to the airfield herself. “We take care of our girls,” she said.

Downstairs the floor was covered in liquid and ash. A group of Buds slouched around in tracksuits like mine. They carried coffee cups and seemed to be waiting. To leave or to stay, it wasn’t clear. I looked for Girl among them. But I would never see her again, not on Instagram, not anywhere.

ELLA DROVE ME away from Blaze’s mansion, fast like we were both escaping. The road was dark, empty space on either side. She put an elbow on the window, leaned her head on her hand. “Jake’s going to call you later,” she said. “He’s worried about your mom.”