Page 159 of Mile High Ruin

I look again.

The man is already moving away. Camille watches him go. There’s something about her posture that feels wrong, not casual or friendly, but tense, as though she has been waiting for this conversation and didn’t want anyone to see it.

I start toward her.

“Sloane?”

I nearly jump out of my skin.

I turn. Mila is standing several feet behind me. She looks almost as startled as I feel.

“Sorry,” she says immediately.

“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you.”

Her gaze drops. She’s holding a small basket filled with flowers clipped from the garden.

I’ve seen Mila several times since arriving, but always from a distance, usually at meals where she says almost nothing and disappears before conversation can settle around her.

Up close, she seems younger than I first thought.

Not a child. Just young enough that the quietness around her feels more obvious.

“I was getting these for the kitchen,” she says.

I look back toward the garden.

Camille is gone. Of course she is.

Wonderful.

I turn back to Mila. “They’re pretty.”

“Anya likes them.”

“That makes sense. Anya likes everything colorful.”

Mila smiles faintly. It’s the first time I’ve seen her do that.

“You talk to Anya a lot,” she says.

“She talks to me a lot.”

“That’s different.”

I laugh. “Fair.”

Mila adjusts the basket in her hands. For a second, I think she’s going to leave. Instead, she stays. “You’re from America?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve never been.”

“Honestly, at this point I’m starting to wonder if I’m ever going back.”

She looks at me, uncertain whether I’m joking.

“Sorry. Bad joke.”