Then she left. She didn’t climb out the window like a trespasser, but rather went out the front door like a proper visitor. Jack had not felt like a proper visitor in a long time. Not since the first Mrs. Holloway was laid to rest in the ground and the second made a home for herself within these stone walls. But things were different now. Raven’s father had not only invited her into his home, he’d said she could live there if anything ever happened to him. And though Jack had no intention of moving into Holloway Manor, she felt truly welcome for the first time in years.

As if she belonged.

Her heart swelled as she looped around the back of the house, nearing the place where she’d hidden her bike. But as she climbed onto the seat, her stomach tightened in fear. She wished she could return to Raven’s room. Wished she could crawl into his bed and sink into the fairy tale they’d invented when they were young, about a knight who rescued a prince from a villainous witch.

But Belle was not really a witch. She was a seventeen-year-old girl locked in a detention center, alone and afraid. If Jack kept avoiding her, she’d be no different from Stefan Holloway, hunched over on the couch.

Avoiding reality.

And so, instead of turning east, toward the little green house where her brothers slept, Jack turned north, pedaling up the hill. It took half an hour to reach her destination. The tightness in her stomach worsened as she parked her bike outside the large square facility, painted the ugliest shade of orange and surrounded by a barbwire fence. A person could rot in this place. There was no garden to tend to and no room full of books, like the library Belle’s father had built for her.

She could be in this place if she didn’t play things very carefully.

Still, she asked the attendant to buzz her in. Parked her bike outside the door. There was a desk ahead of her, where a woman with dark skin and burgundy ringlets waited to greet her. Off to the right, Jack saw a wall of glass separating her from the visitors area, where family members came to meet their incarcerated loved ones. Soon, she’d be sitting at one of those little square tables, stuffed into a hard plastic chair, and Belle would be sitting across from her.

Jack approached the front desk, breathing in and out slowly. The woman looked up, blowing a strand of burgundy hair out of her face. “I need to see your identification and check your bag.” Her eyes narrowed. “Are you under eighteen? You have to be at least—”