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“Yeah.”

I’ve ridden in an elevator before. We took one up from the parking garage, but that was quick. And the newspaper office in town had one, although there were only four floors, and the walls were dull metal and plastered in posters. This one is polished mirrors all over, and there are a hundred buttons. Kian picks a floor seemingly at random.

My stomach swoops at how fast we rise. And for how long.

It opens with a chime. A few turns and a long hallway later, he stops at a door.

I’ve never stayed in a large hotel before—that little quirky one was the first, and I don’t really know if I could say we stayed there. I mean, we did. Eventually. But I wasn’t too interested in figuring it out with Kian. I just went where he led.

“How did you know what floor to go to?” I ask him.

He pauses. “Have you stayed in a hotel before?”

“Yeah…” I shrug. “Last night. With you. And that bed and breakfast, but the girl led me to my room.”

He seems flustered for a minute. He taps the number beside the door. “This is our room number. The first digit—in this case, two digits—indicate what floor we’re on. All the rooms on this level start with one-four. Because we’re on the fourteenth floor.”

Interesting.

“All hotels do that?”

“Yeah, generally. It’s an easy system for guests to find their room without assistance.” He taps the key card against the door. It lights up green, and it unlocks with a click. “Although the fourteenth floor is a lie. We’re on the thirteenth.”

I stare at him. “What? They just… skip a floor?”

“People think thirteen is unlucky.”

“And they think there’s a witching hour.” I shake my head. Numbers and superstition go so far that a hotel skips naming floor thirteen as such? Ridiculous.

He waves the key in front of the lock and holds the door open for me. I duck under his arm. There’s a short hall, with a bathroom on the right, and then it opens up into a sitting room. Straight ahead is a huge window, currently mostly blocked by curtains. On the right after the sitting area are French doors that lead into the bedroom.

I bypass the couch and coffee table, the television on some sort of stand and a desk built into it, and go to the window. I shove the curtains open and stare out.

It’s even better from up here.

Kian steps up beside me. “Just wait until it’s dark out. It’ll all be lit up with different colors.”

I glance up at him, then back down to the street.

They all seem like ants from this height.

With sudden, dizzying clarity, I realize that this is another first. Being this high off the ground.

I press my palms to the glass and close my eyes.

Without a word, Kian wraps his arms around my waist. He tugs me back flush against his chest, and then his chin touches the top of my head.

I breathe out and slowly open my eyes again.

There are mountains in the distance. The same ones we saw driving in, but they seem farther away and closer all at once.

“You okay?” he asks.

Am I? I don’t know. My mind can’t keep up with the changes, but all I can do is keep moving forward. Keep trying to find my mother, this detour, and the seven weeks I spent captive, aside.

Guilt stabs me. It’s been seven weeks.

What if Mom thinks I’ve abandoned her?