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A diner. The sign said “Mary Sue’s.” The windows were lit brightly from inside, warm amber against the dark and the snow. The light meant heat and people and maybe something that passed for food.
She sat with it for a long moment. Felt the cold. Felt the fever pulsing behind her eyes. Felt how empty she was — not just her stomach, all of her, scraped hollow by everything that had happened, everything that hadn't, and everything she'd lost.
One more try, Felicity's voice said, fading now, leaving her alone in the cold with just the echo of it. Just one more, sweetheart. That's all.
Sage looked down at Shadow. At his one remaining button eye, catching the diner light through the foggy glass.
She thought, Okay mom…If this doesn't work. If I walk in there and there's nothing — no help, no warmth, nothing — then I'm done. I'm done trying. I’m coming home.
She meant it. She knew she meant it.
She put Shadow in the front seat.
She got out of the car.
The cold hit like a punch to the gut — real cold, Montana cold, a kind that had teeth — and she hunched into it and crossed the parking lot with her boots loud on the frozen snow covered asphalt and pushed open the diner door.
One more try.
1
SAGE
The warmth settled on her almost ferociously. It was immediate. Total. A wall of hot air that wrapped around her face, her hands, the narrow strip of bare skin between her hoodie and fishnets.
For half a second Sage couldn’t breathe—her body had forgotten what warmth felt like. She’d been cold for so long that its sudden absence felt like violence, like something being ripped away instead of given.
She closed her eyes.
Dizziness rolled through her in a slow, seasick wave, starting behind her eyes where the fever lived and sliding down into her chest, her legs, turning everything liquid and treacherous. The floor tilted. She braced a hand on the doorframe.
Don’t fall. Don’t you dare fucking fall.
Then the smell hit.
Apple pie—deep, caramelized cinnamon and brown sugar, butter-soaked crust—punched straight past thought and into something primal at the base of her skull. Her stomach clenched so hard she nearly doubled over. Hamburgers. Fries. Coffee. The thick, layered perfume of a kitchen that had been working all day: grease, toasted bread, savory depth underneath. Her body recognized food with a desperation that felt inhuman.
The diner hummed around her. It was a dense, comfortable drone of people who all knew each other. Forks scraping plates. Low laughter from a booth by the window. The heavy clink of a coffee mug set down too hard. A jukebox crooning something old and country she didn’t recognize but that Felicity probably would have. Voices thick with the lazy drawl of folks who had nowhere better to be.
Sage opened her eyes and tried to focus.
Shiny vinyl booths. Laminate tables. A long counter lined with chrome stools, most of them filled by broad, weathered men in work jackets who looked like they’d grown straight out of the landscape. Families tucked into rare-treat dinners, kids bargaining for extra fries and dessert. A chalkboard menu behind the counter with prices so low they almost felt like a joke. Warm yellow lights glowing over everything, the same soft haze she’d seen in every rest stop, every truck stop, every nowhere place that stayed open late.
Behind the counter, a blonde waitress looked up. She was older than Sage, but still carrying a youthful softness in her face. Tired lived in the shadows beneath her kind eyes and the slight slump of her narrow shoulders. Her brow creased.
“Hi… can I help you?”
Her nametag read Annie.
Sage’s hand slid into her hoodie pocket on pure reflex—the same grim questions she’d been running for four weeks straight: how much left, what can I stretch, how many more hours until I drop? Her fingers scraped fabric, lint, the crumpled edge of Felicity’s last note. Nothing else.
No money.
What? No…no I…
Her stomach clenched like she’d been given poison. She’d had four dollars this morning—she was sure of it. She’d counted them twice, smoothing each bill with shaking fingers. Gone now. And here she stood in a diner thick with the smell of buttery crust and sizzling beef, her body screaming for fuel while her pockets held nothing but dust and grief.
Oh, Mom… I can’t. I can’t do this anymore.
