Immediately, my phone vibrates with another flood of texts as I consider my next steps. I answer her in a daze, thinking through my plans. My condo will be the first place Judge looks for me, and I’m sure the guards will alert him soon enough when they figure out their mistake. But I have to go there to get the cash I’ve hidden, which is my only resource at this point. After that, I don’t know what. I just know I’ll have to leave this city. I’ll have to go far, far away and even then, they’ll probably never stop looking for me.

As I consider everything and everyone I’ll have to leave behind, an ache unlike any I’ve ever known spreads through my chest, icing my veins and freezing my heart. Solana’s name flashes across my screen again, but there isn’t time to read her message because Paolo’s truck comes to a stop, and he turns it off. I wait for a full minute, completely still as he gets out, slams the door, and walks away.

From the sound around us, I can tell we’re at the store. But I’m still not convinced if I pop up, there won’t be guards everywhere, ready to drag me back. Back to The Tribunal. Back to the consequences of my actions from a time I couldn’t know what I’d have to protect.

It’s that thought that drives me to move. To jump out of the truck and run. I run until my lungs burn and my muscles seize from the exertion. It takes me a few minutes to find my bearings, but once I’m on a main thoroughfare, I flag down a taxi and jump inside, rattling off the address to my condo.

The cabbie drives me in silence. All the while, my phone continues to vibrate in my lap, but I can’t look at it. I can’t do anything but drag in each breath and focus on the next. I do that until we get to the place I once thought of as my sanctuary. Now it feels like anything but.

“Can you wait here?” I pay the cabbie when he pulls to a stop. “I’ll just be a few minutes.”

“No can do,” he grumbles. “This was my last fare.”