Eight years, nearly nine. That’s how long ago it was when Elena and I arrived in New York in the dead of night, a pair of headlights all we had to guide us down pitch-black back roads. Seven years, nearly eight. That’s how long we had been building a life here, a home, a family.

It took me eight, maybe nine minutes to tear it all down.

Elena was out with Klaus—I didn’t even recall why. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the opportunity. I trashed our apartment. Drawers open, rummaged through, but nothing taken. Paper strewn everywhere. Ripped cards out of the rolodex. Pictures removed from the walls. Anything and everything I imagined the PRT might suspect and check, had they actually raided our place. None of the things that would be expected, had I decided to leave.

I took William and fled. I left it all. Clothes, formula, diapers, bottles, my heart. I couldn’t stand the thought of either of them knowing I chose to leave.

“Aaa maa?” William squirmed on my shoulder, babbling uneasily as I hurried down the street, afraid to even hail a taxi this close to… home. A clock in the window of a passing bodega read quarter to nine—way past his bedtime. Of course he would be fussy at being jostled so much.

I was in the neighborhood over before I felt safe enough to flag down a taxi. The ride was uneventful, and William blessedly fell asleep, nestled into my neck, but my heart would not stop thundering in my chest. Reaching our destination only made the sensation worse and deprived me of almost all my petty cash, but I was almost done.

The PRT headquarters. I needed to go in, to explain I know where the Butcher lives, and… and my feet refused to carry me forward across the plaza to its doors. Everything I had done until that moment could still be undone, but this? This was the point of no return. The point where I betrayed the trust of the woman I loved and the man I once trusted. The mother of my child… and the father of the child I gave up.

“A name and a date.” I hugged William closer to my chest, gentle enough to not wake him. My foot felt like lead, like the worst treachery, but I stepped forward. “I will not allow you to become a name and a date.”

“Ma’am?”

I jerked violently, my head snapping around as my heartbeat redoubled its tattoo as I squeezed William to my chest. Miracle of miracles, he didn’t wake up.The woman who’d spoken held up her hands apologetically, the gesture causing the curly black hair hanging over her shoulders to shift like an oily scarf in the artificial light illuminating the plaza. I belatedly noticed the ID card hanging from the woman’s neck—PRT.

“Sorry. I was just about to head in, and you looked like you might need some help?”

“Yes, I…” I swallowed, forcing down the bile in my throat. “Yes. Please.”

She laid a gentle hand on my back. “Let’s get you taken care of.”