Malorie hurries to the door, slides it open herself.

She stands where he stood.

She listens.

She thinks.

She feels.

Wind. The openness. Is that all? Or did Tom leave from here, from this very spot? It’s not hard to imagine him doing it. Tom jumped from the roof of Cabin Two, landing on a pile of mattresses he’d prearranged himself. Once, he rolled down a particularly steep hill in the woods bordering Camp Yadin. He swam the lake, eyes closed. He’s been injured, broken bones, spent weeks laid up in his bunk. His whole life he’s dared, been daring, tried new things, pushed back against his lot, their lot, the new world in full. It’s not hard to see him making a decision, his face still red from where Malorie struck him. It’s not hard to see him smiling even as he leaps from the moving train, the gravel cutting into his elbows, his bare hands splintered by the tracks.

But then what? Where from there? And while Tom might flee Malorie and her rules, would he ever go without saying goodbye to his sister?

She can’t help but think of her own sister. Shannon, dead upstairs, a glimpse of something she shouldn’t have seen from the upstairs bedroom window. A bedroom they fought over when they moved in together.

Malorie enters the next car and knocks on the first door she comes to. Silence from within.

Someone’s coming up the hall. A woman speaks.

“Is everything okay?”

Malorie stands still, just like she would’ve had someone asked her the same thing, suddenly, in Camp Yadin.

But the truth is, this train is not home. And sometimes the clearest path to safety is through other people.

“Did you see a teenager ahead?” she asks. “A young man. About my height. Dark hair. Short-sleeved shirt?”

“Did you lose someone?”

The way she says it, Malorie wants to reach out into the dark and grab her.

NO, I DIDN’T LOSE SOMEONE. SOMEONE LEFT ME.

“Yes,” she says.

“No. I didn’t see anyone like that at all.”

“Not in the dining car? Not seated? Think.”

“I’m thinking.” She sounds like the people from the school for the blind. No doubt she is questioning why Malorie is wearing her sweatshirt, gloves, a blindfold, in a place they were told is secure. “I didn’t see him, no.”

Malorie walks. She knocks on the next room. There’s movement within. The door slides open.

“Is someone there?” a voice asks. Maybe this is the blind woman Dean spoke of.

“My son is missing,” Malorie says.

“Oh, no.”

“He’s sixteen. Did you…see…or hear a young man, dark hair…”

“I’m wearing my blindfold.”

This steals Malorie’s breath. In a place where they’ve been told it’s okay to look, this woman still lives by the fold.

Lives like Malorie does.