Daniel Li represented that decision.
And she had no idea how to break free of a path that had never been hers to begin with.
But something inside her had moved tonight—finally, undeniably—and she wasn’t sure it could be pushed back into place again.
CHAPTER 4
The elevator doors opened into the silent hallway of her building, and Morgan stepped out with the kind of fatigue that felt older than the day. Her apartment key slid smoothly into the lock, and the familiar scent of cedar and clean air drifted toward her as the door clicked shut behind her. Everything inside was tidy, serene, arranged the way she liked it—cool lighting, uncluttered counters, warm minimalist lines. A sanctuary. Or the closest thing she had to one.
She set her bag on the console table and pressed her palms against its edge, letting her shoulders fall. The quiet felt heavier tonight, emptier.
The dinner replayed itself in pieces. Her father’s voice. Daniel Li’s measured politeness. The wordtemperamentfloating across memory like a verdict she had been handed at birth. Her father’s command, phrased as inevitability.
You will accept the Li marriage proposal.
Her chest tightened. She walked to the balcony doors and pushed them open, letting the cool night air wash over her. The city below was a scattered constellation of white and amber, Los Altos Hills a dark rise against the glow.
She hadn’t realized she was shaking until she braced her hands on the railing.
I can’t keep living like this.
The thought came quietly, without the defiant edge she wished it carried. It felt more like truth than rebellion.
She reached for the small ceramic box she kept tucked behind a planter—an object she hid not because of the neighbors, but because of the ghost of her father’s disapproval. Inside lay a pack of cigarettes, the one thing she allowed herself that he would never approve of. A small, private defiance that hurt no one.
She tapped one out, lit it, and inhaled slowly. The smoke curled upward, illuminated briefly by the balcony lights before dissolving into the night.
Her father would call it a weakness.
It’s mine,she thought instead, the smoke warm in her lungs.At least this is mine.
She closed her eyes, letting the tension ebb just a little—until she heard it.
A low hum. Barely audible, almost beneath hearing. It vibrated more than it sounded, a faint resonance in the metal railing beneath her fingertips.
She opened her eyes. The cityscape remained unchanged, steady in its sprawl. The hum deepened, no louder but closer, as if the air itself had tightened around her.
She straightened slowly. “What…?” The word left her before she could swallow it.
The light appeared without warning—white, sharp, impossible. It exploded across her vision, wiping out the world in a single overwhelming flash. Her cigarette fell from her fingers. The balcony. The skyline. The cool night air. Everything vanished behind that blinding brilliance.
Vertigo swept through her as if gravity had lurched sideways. She grabbed for the railing but felt nothing. The ground was gone. The world was gone. Her thoughts fractured into instinct.
What is happening?
The light intensified until she couldn’t even close her eyes against it, until her body felt weightless and unbearably heavy at the same time. The hum rose through her bones, through her breath, through everything she was.
The nausea overtook her.
Then—nothing.
The light swallowed all of it, and the world went black.
CHAPTER 5
Morgan woke to softness.
For a moment, she drifted in weightlessness, the sensation so unlike her usual mornings that her mind reeled from the strangeness of it all. The bed beneath her felt impossibly plush, as if she were sinking into warm clouds. The sheet covering her rippled like liquid silk when she shifted, sliding over her skin with a texture she had no name for.
