“No. They’re still there—she wouldn’t leave if she came back.” She went out of her way to leave me. If she came back, she means it. She means it this time for good. She has to. “She wouldn’t leave if she came back this time. She wouldn’t do that to me—” They exchange a glance and I want to grab them both and shake them, something. “It doesn’t matter! We’re going to Rayford anyway—we can stop there. Why can’t we stop there?”

“No one said we couldn’t stop there—”

“Why am I asking you permission?” It hits me so hard. We don’t have to do everything as a group. “I don’t have to ask you if I can go to my home. I’ll just go there myself—”

All I wanted to know was if they saw it, if the message was real. It is and I’m packed. I can leave. Cary grabs my arm and it’s the wrong arm, the one Trace kicked and something about that brings me to my senses, turns me back into the Sloane I was and have always been, except I don’t want to be her because she fills my head with this thought immediately: even if we find each other again—

“Calm down,” Cary tells me. “We can go, Sloane. Of course we can check it out.”

She still left me.

I push the thought out of my head.

Bury it.

We decide to leave in the morning. There’s no point in waiting anymore.

Cary asks me if I want Trace to come with us, like it should be up to me, like I would even think of leaving him behind when he’s Grace’s brother and they’d already decided to go to Rayford, where their family might be. He has to come.

“If she’d said no, were you just going to leave him in the nurse’s office?” Harrison asks.

“He’s coming,” I say. “Stop.”

“Someone has to tell him what’s going on,” Cary says. “Harrison, that’s you.”

“What? Why me? I don’t want—”

“Christ.” Cary buries his face in his hands for a long moment and when he finally raises his head, he looks ready to kill Harrison. “If I’m dragging your sorry ass through Cortege, you can just do what I fucking tell you. You know why you’ve never done anything that matters? Because you never do anything. Tell Trace. Now.”

Harrison leaves the room with tears trailing down his cheeks and I understand why he’s afraid to see Trace. Trace’s grief and anger mark him now. But Harrison made his choice.

“I’m going to divide Grace’s—” Cary takes a breath, trying to collect himself. “Her book bag. I’m going to divide everything inside it between us.”

“Okay.”

He goes to the library and thinking of him opening up her bag, everything she was going to take with her, makes me so sad and I try to think of Lily instead, seeing Lily, but it doesn’t help. Rhys watches me from his side of the table. There’s nothing in his eyes. His mouth is pinched.