Chapter 3 Hannah Lane's Future

Isadora

Eventually, I stop running.

The pain in my leg is throbbing now, my lungs searing, my head hurting with every uneven breath. The blood has started to dry in the late evening chill, pulling tight across my skin and sticking my hair against my face. My adrenaline is wearing off, and exhaustion slips in behind it, heavy and cold.

I make my way through the wooded area until the trees thin and the city opens around me.

The houses are smaller on this side, the fences lean, and paint peels from old weatherboards and cracked footpaths lift around tree roots.

I’ve run through a million different ways this could go wrong, and every single one ends the same.

There is no going back.

If Father finds out I am alive now, after the whole city starts saying his daughter is dead, it will be blasted through the tabloids. It will leave a stain on his name.

Father hates stains.

He would lock me away for it. He would bury me somewhere quieter than a grave. I would never see sunlight again.

My last promise to Hannah was that I would get out someday.

I didn’t know it would be today, but I will not break my promise to her. I will not let her death be for nothing. I will take down my father, and I will expose every polished suit and the filth underneath. I will do it for Hannah, for me, and for every person forced to live under bright lights and rich men’s thumbs.

When I reach the suburban streets, I slow down and scan every corner. Every streetlight. Every dark window. Every place someone could be standing.

No one is outside.

A house sits at the end of the street with low yellow light glowing behind thin curtains. The garden is overgrown, and a hose is curled near the tap beside the front path.

I stand inside the shadows for a while, watching, before I cross the lawn, keeping close to the ground. My hands quiver so badly it takes three tries to twist the tap open. Water coughs through the hose, then spills cold and fast upon the cracked concrete.

I drop to my knees and shove my hands beneath it.

Pink water runs between my fingers.

I scrub hard, but the blood only spreads, thinning over my wrists and sliding down into the dirt. I splash water over my face, and it hits the cut near my hairline, burning. I wash until my school blouse clings to me.

Two streets over, I find a walkway behind a row of closed shops. The back doors are covered in graffiti, and the air smells of old oil and rubbish. I crouch behind a heap of milk crates and pull Hannah’s bags into my lap.

My fingers hesitate on the zipper.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper again before I open them.

The first bag is mostly school things. Her phone sits in the side pocket, the screen damaged from the crash but still lights up.

I pop the case off with my thumbnail and search the sides until I find the little tray. I use the pin from Hannah’s school badge to force it open, and the tiny SIM card slides into my open palm.

Then I place it on the ground and crush it below my heel. I’m not taking any chances. I know how much reach our parents have.

In her second bag, I find the life she was supposed to have.

Passport.

Boarding ticket.

Wallet.

Cash.

Her parents probably gave it to her for taxis, food, and emergencies. Quiet guilt folded into crisp notes.

I press the money to my chest and close my eyes.

Then I look at the passport.

Hannah Lane stares back at me from the photo, with her soft brown hair and careful smile. A face that still has a future.

“I’ll use it,” I whisper. “I won’t waste it.”

A bus rumbles past at the end of the alley, and I shove everything back into the bags and head toward the main road.

The motel I find is located between a bottle shop and a closed laundromat. The sign out front flickers blue and red, missing two letters. The windows are barred, and a cigarette burns in an ashtray beside the office door.

Inside, a man sits behind the counter watching a small television mounted high in the corner. He has a grey beard, a stained shirt, and the tired eyes of someone who has seen enough trouble for a lifetime.

His gaze moves across me, and I know exactly what I look like. A mess. A bad one.

“Need a room,” I force out.

He looks at the bags, then back at my face.

“Rough night?”

I swallow past the smoke and grief still lodged in my throat. “Car accident.”

He stares at me for another second, then holds out his hand. “ID.”

I take Hannah’s wallet from the bag and slide her ID over the counter. He barely glances at it before his attention wanders back to the television.

“Cash only.”

I give him the notes, and he counts them slowly before he pushes me a key.

“Room twelve. Hot water’s stubborn.”

I take the key and Hannah’s ID, and limp along the row of doors until I find twelve. The key sticks twice before the lock turns. I slip inside and shut the door behind me, twisting the chain into place with a shaking, battered hand.

The room smells of bleach, damp carpet, and old smoke.

There is a bed with a pale blanket, a chipped bedside table, a dead fly on the windowsill, and a bathroom door hanging open.

I go straight into the bathroom and turn on the shower.

The pipes groan, and brown water spits out for a second before it clears. I step under it with half my clothes still on because my fingers can’t work the buttons.

Then I watch as the water runs pink at my feet.

Hannah’s blood.

Mine.

It circles the drain in thin red streams, clinging in the cracks of the old porcelain before it disappears.

I brace one hand against the tile and try to breathe, but the sound that comes out of me is small and broken. I curl my fist to my mouth, but it doesn’t stop. My knees fold, and I slide down the shower wall until I’m sitting in the tub with water pouring over my head. I sit there until the water runs cold, and my body is as numb as my heart.

When I finally drag myself out, my skin is pale and shaking. I wrap myself in a thin towel and leave the bathroom to sit on the edge of the bed.

The remote is sticky underneath my fingers when I blindly reach for it. I turn on the television because the silence itself is too big, and the news appears before I can change the channel.

A burning car fills the screen.

The footage shakes as emergency lights flash red, and smoke pours into the night.

Then my school photo appears beside the anchor’s face.