Chapter 6

The bus shelter was empty when Dorian got there.

He stood in the hard rain, soaked through in seconds, and looked at the wooden bench where Toby had sat, his small clean shoes swinging. There was no sign that anyone had ever been there — just wet wood and a damp city bus schedule curling at the edges.

He turned in the empty street, the water almost audible, and his voice came out as a plea: "Lena!"

No one answered.

He pulled out his phone — soaked, the screen glitching — and he tried to call her. The number he had was old, seven years old, disconnected, the automated voice saying *the number you have reached has been changed or is no longer in service*.

Forty miles away. She'd said forty miles. He didn't know where. She'd never told him, had she? In the doorway, in the rain, she'd said she'd moved forty miles away, and he'd never asked anything else.

"Where are you?" he said into the empty street.

His phone buzzed. A text from a number he didn't recognize: