Dad helped her check her suitcases through to Boston, and she got through the nervous excitement of showing her ID for the tickets, and then it was – all of a sudden – time for goodbyes again. Hard ones. She threw her arms around her dad’s neck and hugged him breathless, and kissed him on both cheeks, which made him surprised and happy; she was usually more reserved than that. Her mom got the same, and they both pretended not to notice how unsteady each other’s voices were as they said all the usual things, all the loving things.

And then she was in the security line, and leaving her past behind her with a finality that was more than a little terrifying. I’m alone. Funny. She’d faced so much these past few years – life and death and all the stages in between. Loss and love. Heartache and joy. Most of all, danger, constant and unremitting danger …

… Yet, she was shaking all over as she handed the TSA agent her ID card and her ticket, and frantically wondering if she’d scrubbed her backpack clean of all the usual Morganville survival aids – silver nitrate, stakes, blades, the works. What if she’d overlooked something? What if …

‘Miss? What’s this supposed to be?’ The uniformed officer frowned at her and held out her ID card.

Oh. Her Morganville ID card. She’d grabbed the wrong one, and quickly blushed and fished out the Texas driver’s licence instead. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Uh – library card.’

He hadn’t read the text, luckily, and he just shrugged, scrutinised her face long enough to make her even more nervous, then waved her through.

Shoes were hard to get off – she hadn’t planned for that – and her hoodie had to come off, too. Her backpack passed through scanners without trouble, thankfully, and then she was clutching all her stuff, breathless with relief, on the other side of the barriers. Claire walked barefoot to some seats, donned her hoodie and her Skechers, put her ID back in her wallet (moving the Morganville ID safely to the back to avoid confusion with legit state-issued stuff) and then, finally, took a moment to let the enormity of it hit her.

She was committed. Checked in. Bags headed for the plane. Her dad was shipping the rest of the boxes to her directly to her new apartment.

She was on her own. Completely, utterly, totally on her own, going into a new world without Shane, without parents. Without enemies, even.

Nobody cared. People walked past her, and ignored her existence.

Claire sat for a moment in silence, taking that in and adjusting herself to the reality that outside of Morganville, she was just some mildly pretty eighteen-year-old girl headed up to college, like ten thousand other girls she’d see along the way. Not someone special at all.