The courthouse appeared without warning.

  Concrete and glass, harsh lines cutting into the street, the car slowing as traffic thickened. Vans were parked along the pavement—news logos peeling, cables snaking across the ground. Cameras. Tripods. People clustered behind metal barriers, voices rising and falling in restless waves.

  Skye felt it before she understood it. A pressure behind her eyes. A tightening in her stomach.

  Alice went rigid beside her.

  “Oh no,” she breathed.

  Dad’s hands tightened on the wheel. “What?”

  “That’s the courthouse,” Alice said, already leaning forward. “That’s—” Her voice broke. “Jamie gets out today.”

  Skye turned to her. “Gets out of where?”

  “Dad,” Alice snapped, heat flooding her words. “Stop the car.”

  “No,” he said immediately. “Absolutely not.”

  The car kept moving.

  “You don’t understand,” Alice said. Her knee bounced, sharp and uncontrolled. “He doesn’t get to just walk out. He doesn’t get cameras and sympathy and—”

  “Alice,” Dad warned. “I’m not stopping. This isn’t safe.”

  “I don’t care.” Her hand went to the door handle. “If you don’t stop, I’ll get out anyway.”

  Dad saw her hand on the handle and made the decision fast — brakes were safer than her jumping.

  The car lurched to the side of the road.

  He swore under his breath and slammed the brakes. “Alice—”

  She was already out.

  For a second, Skye stayed frozen. Rules fought each other in her head. Stay put. Don’t be seen. Don’t be alone.But Alice is more important than safety.

  Skye got out.

  “Skye!” Dad shouted.

  Too late.

  She ran — not fast, not clumsy, just determined — moving with the crowd’s pull, ducking as a boom mic swung low, slipping through a gap where two reporters collided, following the barrier’s edge like it was an instruction.

  The crowd surged forward as the courthouse doors opened — reporters pressing in, barriers rattling as people leaned. Someone stumbled. Someone swore.

  Alice was already halfway across the pavement.

  Dad moved to grab Skye — but a cameraman stepped back into him, cable snagging his arm.

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  “Sorry—”

  Skye slipped past while his balance broke.

  She ran — not fast, not clumsy, just determined — moving with the crowd’s pull, ducking as a boom mic swung low, slipping through a gap where two reporters collided, following the barrier’s edge like it was an instruction.

  Her trainers slapped concrete that felt too loud under her feet.

  Dad followed, panic cutting through his voice. “Skye, stop—”

  Alice didn’t hear him.

  She pushed through the crowd, shoulders squared, eyes locked on the courthouse doors as they opened.

  Cold air spilled out with the echo of footsteps and courtroom polish.

  Jamie stepped out like he’d been invited.

  Clean shirt. Soft smile. Head bowed just enough to suggest humility. His solicitor murmured something beside him as cameras surged forward, shutters snapping like insects.

  Jamie lifted a hand—not waving. Calming.

  Alice’s chest burned.

  She shoved past a reporter. “You don’t get to do this,” she hissed, though he couldn’t hear her yet. “You don’t get to pretend—”

  Jamie’s eyes swept the crowd.

  Searching.

  He found her.

  The smile changed.

  Just a fraction. Something private slipped into it, something that didn’t belong on camera.

  Recognition.

  Possession.

  Alice felt it like a slap.

  Skye reached her then, breathless, fingers curling into the back of Alice’s coat.

  Jamie’s smile vanished.

  His gaze slid downward.

  Time fractured.

  He saw her.

  Not older. Not changed. Not wrong.

  The same height. The same face. The same clothes.

  His mind stuttered.

  Impossible.

  He saw the coffin. The flowers. The dirt hitting wood. He remembered watching the service from custody on a flickering screen, remembered thinking it was neat. Finished.

  Skye Harper was dead.

  She stood in front of him anyway.

  For a heartbeat, he thought he was hallucinating. Stress. Shock. A trick of light.

  Then she moved.

  Jamie inhaled sharply.

  The universe had blinked.

  Alice felt it before she saw it—Jamie’s attention narrowing, his body angling, the way predators focused when something unexpected survived.

  She turned.

  Skye stood beside her.

  Too close.

  Too visible.

  Dad reached them then, hands shaking as he grabbed Skye and pulled her tight. “What were you thinking?” he whispered fiercely. “You can’t just run—”

  Skye pulled free.

  She looked at Jamie.

  Really looked.

  And something inside her lined up — the way facts did when you finally found the right order.

  Accidents had panic in them.

  This hadn’t.

  He had chosen.

  Jamie looked back at her, recalculating. The shock faded. Something else took its place.

  Interest.

  Possibility.

  He smiled again—small, deliberate—and dragged a finger lightly across his own throat, so subtle only she saw it.

  A promise.

  Skye didn’t flinch.

  Dad did.

  Rage flooded his face, raw and unfiltered, a sound tearing out of him that didn’t quite form words. He stepped forward—

  The solicitor tugged Jamie back.

  “Let’s go,” he hissed.

  Jamie let himself be pulled away, eyes never leaving Skye until the last possible second. Even as he turned, his mind was already busy.

  More brutal this time.

  He slid into the car, door slamming shut.

  The crowd swallowed him.

  Alice collapsed against Skye, arms wrapping tight. “I’m sorry,” she said into her hair. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think—I just—”

  Dad folded around them both, one hand gripping Skye’s shoulder like an anchor. His phone was already out.

  “We can’t go home,” Alice said. “What do we do?”

  Dad swallowed. Made a decision. “First — the base,” Dad said, already moving them. “Dr. Carter. Then...” His jaw set. “We open the grave.”

  He dialled.

  “Linda,” he said the second she answered. “Jamie saw Skye. I need you to go to the police. Now. Ask for a patrol tonight—tell them anything you have to.”

  He hung up and steered them back toward the car, scanning faces, cameras, phones raised too casually.

  None of them noticed the man across the street.

  Black coat. Still posture.

  Leather gloves — despite the mild air — one thumb worrying the seam of the right cuff as he watched.

  The man lifted his phone — screen already lit, call active.

  “It’s begun,” he said quietly. A pause. “Yes. He’s seen her.”

  Another pause.

  “I’ll be ready.”

  He lowered the phone and vanished into the moving crowd as the Harpers drove away, unaware they were no longer hidden—

  Only surrounded.