Every Safe Place Is Temporary

Felix knew where I was staying. Not merely where I slept, but the exact place I had chosen to feel almost safe. I read his message twice, then a third time, hoping the words would rearrange themselves into a mistake. They did not. I wanted to be angry enough to throw the cracked camera into the sea, but all I felt was the sick arithmetic of other people’s addresses appearing in my head. If Felix can find one refuge, what else has he mapped?

I keep making temporary places sound like choices. The truck, the road, another person’s last request, one night without an address on me. Freedom sounds cleaner than flight does. It is easier to leave before I can be found than to admit that someone might have found me first.

Tamsin sat beside me while I drove, and I hated that I kept checking the mirrors. I could hear her deciding what to do next, but I was listening for headlights. Every quiet stretch of road made the hospital trap feel less like an escape and more like an invitation. The bruise from the service van is settling into a hard yellow, which apparently is what danger looks like when it stops being dramatic.

At the forecourt, I backed up the recordings twice and watched the depot road. Waiting for pursuit while pretending to be organized. There is no honor in that. My mother is losing the Observatory home, and I am guarding evidence beside a service station because the thought of going to her with nothing frightens me more than the people who caused this.