The silence after Richard left for work was anything but peaceful.
It felt like the hollow echo in your ears after an explosion.
I stood in the middle of the library, clutching a scrap of paper from the wastebasket-the receipt for the "Mountain View Clinic"-until its edges softened from my grip.
A private clinic in the mountains sounded serene, a place for healing.
But with Richard Hale involved, it felt more like a tomb.
If my father had been sent there, he was no longer a prisoner of the state; he was now a prisoner of the Hale estate.
I waited for the heavy click of the front door's electronic lock, then I didn't head to the bus. I went for the stairs.
I needed to find out what my mother had hidden in that copy of The Count of Monte Cristo.
The library felt colder, as if the spirits of the shattered portraits were watching me.
I approached the mahogany bookshelf, my fingers shaking as I traced the spines of the leather-bound books.
I found the volume-thick, old, and smelling of vanilla and decay.
I pulled it down.
It was hollow.
Inside the carved-out pages was no envelope-my mother had taken that-but there was a small, tarnished silver locket and a handwritten note.
The ink was faded, in the elegant handwriting of a woman I had never met.
"Richard, if you are reading this, it means I have failed to be the wife you wanted. Please, do not punish the boy for my weakness. He is all I have left."
It was a suicide note or a farewell. Edmund's mother hadn't just been "sent away." She had been terrified.
I looked at the locket. Inside was a tiny, grainy photo of a toddler with messy dark hair and those same winter-sea eyes.
Edmund.
"What are you doing, Jane?"
I gasped, the book slipping from my hands and hitting the floor with a dull thud.
Edmund stood against the doorframe, his school blazer over his shoulder. His face showed deep exhaustion, but his eyes were fixed on the locket lying on the rug.
I didn't try to hide it. I picked it up and offered it to him. "I found it in the book. My mother... she took something from here last night."
Edmund stepped into the room, his footsteps silent.
He took the locket, his thumb brushing over the silver casing with a tenderness that made my heart ache. "She kept this? I thought he destroyed everything."
"Edmund, I found a receipt. My father isn't at the prison infirmary. Richard moved him to a place called Mountain View Clinic yesterday."
Edmund's grip tightened around the locket until his knuckles turned white. "Mountain View isn't a clinic, Jane. It's a high-security psychiatric facility owned by one of Richard's shell companies.
It's where he sends people when he wants the world to forget they exist. It's where he sent my mother before she 'disappeared' to Europe."
The room felt like it was tilting.
"We have to go there. Now."
"We can't," Edmund said, his voice sharp. "The second we miss check-in at Blackwell, the GPS on our phones and the trackers in the car will alert Richard's security team. They'd catch us before we even hit the highway."
"Then we make it look like we're at school," I said, adrenaline pushing away my fear. "Riley. She's great with tech. If she can spoof our pings, we might have a four-hour window."
Edmund looked at me, a slow, dangerous grin spreading across his face. "You're getting better at this.
But we need a car he doesn't recognize."
"The service entrance," I reminded him, pulling the silver key from my pocket. "And my old friend from Lincoln High.
He works at a chop shop three blocks from the academy.
He owes me for passing his senior English."
Moving from the world of silk and marble to the grease-stained reality of my old neighborhood was shocking.
We had slipped out of Blackwell during the mid-morning assembly, with Riley promising to "loop the digital shadow" of our presence in the library.
We met Leo behind an abandoned warehouse.
He didn't ask questions when I showed up with a boy who looked like he belonged on a yacht, asking for a "non-descript" vehicle.
For a hundred dollars and the promise to never see me again, he handed over the keys to a rusted, gray sedan with tinted windows and a muffler sounding like a localized earthquake.
"You're driving," Edmund said, eyeing the car with disgust. "I can't operate something that looks like it's held together by prayer and duct tape."
"Just get in, Prince Charming," I muttered, sliding into the driver's seat.
The drive into the mountains took two hours.
As the lush greenery of the North Shore faded into the jagged gray peaks of the interior, the temperature dropped.
The "Mountain View Clinic" sat on a plateau, surrounded by a double-fence topped with razor wire. It didn't look like a hospital; it looked like a bunker.
"Stay in the car," Edmund said as we pulled into the shade of a large pine tree a few hundred yards from the gate.
"Not a chance."
"Jane, if they see you, Richard will know. If they see me, I can play the 'concerned son' card. I can say I'm scouting the facility for a 'donation' my father is considering. They won't question a Hale."
"But my father-"
"I'll find him," Edmund promised, his hand briefly covering mine on the gearshift. His touch was cold, but his gaze was steady. "I have the locket. If he's as out of it as they usually make people in there, he'll need a reason to trust me.
This is the only thing that proves I'm not my father."
I watched him walk toward the gate, his posture instantly shifting back into that of the arrogant heir.
I watched the guards check his ID, the gate hiss open, and watched him disappear into the building.
Thirty minutes passed.
Then forty. Every second felt like a year.
I sat in the rusted car, the heater blowing lukewarm air, clutching the Polaroid of my father. He's talking. Stop him.
Was he talking to Marcus Thorne? Was he telling the truth about whatever Richard had done years ago?
Suddenly, the back door of the clinic swung open.
Two guards sprinted toward the perimeter. My heart stopped.
Had Edmund been caught?
But they weren't looking for him. They were staring at a black SUV racing up the driveway-a car I recognized instantly. Richard's security detail.
They were early.
I didn't think. I shifted the sedan into gear and sped toward the main entrance, the engine protesting. I didn't have a plan; I just knew I couldn't let them trap him inside.
I rammed the front bumper into the gate's sensor box, sparks flying as the metal groaned. The gate shuddered and stuck halfway open.
Edmund appeared at the top of the concrete stairs, half-carrying a man in a white gown. My father. He looked frail, his movements jerky and confused, but he was alive.
"Get in!" I screamed, leaning across to throw the passenger door open.
Edmund shoved my father into the back seat and dove into the front just as the black SUV swerved to block the exit.
"Reverse!" Edmund yelled. "Now!"
I slammed the car into reverse, the tires spinning on the gravel, swerving around the SUV and clipping their side mirror.
We fishtailed onto the main road, the gray sedan pushing eighty as we sped down the winding mountain pass.
"Dad?" I choked out, glancing in the rearview mirror.
My father looked at me, his eyes unfocused. He looked down at the silver locket Edmund had placed in his hand. "Jane?" he whispered. "The man... the man with the shadow... he said you were safe."
"I am, Dad. I'm here."
"He's sedated," Edmund said, checking the side mirror. "They're not following us yet. They'll try to handle this quietly first. Richard can't afford a high-speed chase involving his son and his 'charity case.'"
"Where do we go?" I asked, my hands shaking on the wheel. "We can't go back to the mansion. We can't go to the police-Richard owns half the precinct."
Edmund leaned back, his chest heaving. He looked at the locket, then at me.
"There's a place. A property my mother owned in her own name, tucked away in a trust Richard forgot about. It's a three-hour drive south."
"Will he find us?"
"Eventually," Edmund said, his voice turning dark. "But by then, we'll have what we need. Your father wasn't just talking to Marcus Thorne about the past, Jane. He has the ledger".
"The ledger?"
"The real one," my father mumbled from the back seat, his eyes closing. "The one that shows where the money went. The one that shows who Richard really is."
We drove in silence for miles. The sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in shades of purple and gold.
We were fugitives now.
We had traded our gilded cage for a rusted sedan and a life on the run.
As we pulled into a dark gas station to switch plates, Edmund stepped out of the car. He stood in the cool night air, looking back at the mountains we had just escaped.
I walked up to him, the weight of the day finally crashing down on me. "We're never going back, are we?"
Edmund turned to me. The arrogance was gone. The prince was gone. There was only a boy who had finally broken free.
He reached out and pulled me into him, his arms wrapping around me with a desperate, crushing force.
"No," he whispered into my hair. "We're going to burn it all down."
But as he held me, I felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He pulled it out, the screen lighting up his face.
It was a text message.
"I hope you're enjoying the drive, Edmund. Check the trunk. R."
My blood turned to ice. Edmund walked to the back of the car, his movements stiff. He popped the trunk.
Inside was not luggage. It was a small, ticking device attached to a briefcase, along with a single, fresh white peony-my mother's favorite flower.
Richard hadn't been trying to stop us. He had been leading us.
"Jane," Edmund said, his voice barely a whisper. "Run."
Then the world exploded in a flash of white.
