The ground hums back.
I freeze. That’s not—
Ground doesn’t do that. I put my hand on the stone as I pass and the stone is warm, and I decide, very firmly, that stone holds heat from the sun. That’s science.
The sun is barely out.
Don’t care. Science.
“Ella.”
I turn, mid-hum, mid-step.
They’re at the edge of the clearing — Erik in front, the others coming out of the trees behind him — and all four of them have stopped dead, staring at me like I fired a gun.
Erik’s face has no color in it at all.
The humming dies in my throat. “What?”
Nobody answers. I wipe my face with the back of my wrist, which fixes nothing.
“I’m fine,” I say. “I just needed—”
They’re not looking at me right.
Their eyes keep dropping. To my feet. To the ground around my feet. Gunnar says something low to Brock, and Brock doesn’t answer him, and now all four of them are staring at my shoes.
Is it the shoes? They’re normal shoes.
“Ella.” Erik comes forward, slow, both hands where I can see them. “Hey. It’s okay. Let’s go home, yeah?”
And it’s out of my mouth before I know it’s in me.
“No. You left me alone.”
The whole clearing goes silent.
My hand comes up over my mouth, but the words are already out there, standing between us, truer than I have ever been out loud. He left. He saidplease, let me do thisand he left, and Kyle walked through the hole where my door used to be. And I would never say anything to anyone because it wasn’t his fault, not really. But it doesn’t feel that way, and my head and my body do not care that they don’t agree. My body wins by default because it remembers. It always remembers, and I have never said that to anyone. Not to Ashley. Not to Gerald. Not even to Muffin, and I tell Muffin everything now.
I just said it to his face.
Erik looks at me like I just kicked his puppy and I will remember that look for the rest of my life.
“I didn’t mean—” I step back. “I don’t know why I said—”
“Elara.” Brock’s voice, very careful. “Stop moving.”
They’re all coming forward now. Slow. Spread out. Hands loose and low, eyes flicking from me to the ground behind me and back, and I take another step away because everyone I have ever let in is walking toward me like I’m the emergency.
“Elara — STOP—”
My next step doesn’t find the ground.
It finds light.
The world tips. The clearing swings up and away from me — trees, sky, four men breaking into a run with their mouths open, my name in four voices, and one word that isn’t my name at all.
And underneath all of it, low and fast, something orange.
