"Someone's chronically online."
My phone is already ringing before Gabby finishes the sentence. Alex's name glowing on the screen. The call goes to voicemail. She always tries again.
My phone buzzes.
Not Alex.
Gabby's mom.
"Uh. Gabby?"
"Yeah?"
"Your mom is calling. On my phone."
Gabby twists in her seat. "What? Why would she — just answer it."
I hit accept, put it on speaker. "Hello, Mrs. Dymonte?"
"Oh, Benitova. Is Gabriella with you? I've been trying to reach her for hours. Her phone is on but she's not picking up."
"She's here, Mrs. Dymonte." I hold the phone out toward Gabby, mouthing, it's your mom. Was your phone on silent?
Gabby doesn't answer that. She takes the phone, clears her throat. "Hey, mommy bear—"
"Don't mommy bear me. Where did you leave the keys to the house?"
Gabby's face does something complicated. "I dropped them with security before I left. They should have—"
"They told me you didn't."
"Oh." Gabby is already digging in her purse with her free hand. Then she goes still. "…Oh."
"Gabriella."
"I have it. I must have forgotten to actually hand it over. I'm sorry, I love you." She hands my phone back and exhales.
Clarke snorts. "Not so chronically online after all."
"Shut up, Clarke."
Gabby's already scrolling again. "So we do my house first, then the party. Cool?"
I lean my head back. "There's no way you're still thinking about the party."
Gabby shrugs. "Aren't we used to this? It's not our first headline."
Clarke catches my eye in the rearview. "Benny should decide."
I wave a hand. "Don't look at me. I need peace and quiet."
"You're saying that," Clarke says, "but your face is saying something else."
I press my lips together. Outside the window, Trieste moves past, golden and unbothered. I think about going home. Alexandra waiting in some room of the mansion with that expression she saves for me — careful, weighted, already disappointed before I've said a word. My mother somewhere behind her, quieter, which is somehow worse.
I think about the empty evening that follows if I go back now. The headline on every screen. The walls of a house that has never felt like mine.
And underneath all of that, something quieter and more honest — Mountain Views. Pack neutral ground. A place that sits at the intersection of three territories and belongs to none of them. I've been told to stay away from it my whole life, which might be exactly why part of me wants to go.
"It's not like I want to ditch," I say.
Clarke's already planning. "We could grab outfits on the way. Quick change, we're good."
I look down at my white dress. My leather boots. Clarke in her bum shorts and lace top, Gabby in her denim skirt and heels.
"We look fabulous. There's no need," I say.
"We don't even have swimwear—"
"Nobody said anything about getting in the pool, Clarke."
"I mean—" Gabby starts.
"We're going, we're picking up what we need to pick up, and we're leaving." I say it firmly. Like I'm the one in control of this decision. "It doesn't have to be a whole thing."
Clarke makes a noise that isn't agreement but isn't an argument either. She takes the turning toward Gabby's estate without another word.
We pull up to Gabby's gate. Big wrought iron, camera pointed right at us. Gabby's out before the car fully stops, jogging to the cutout door. It slides open. A security guard appears.
"Good evening, Miss Dymonte."
"Hey!" All bubbly again, like the last hour didn't happen. "Can you give this to my mom? Tell her I'll be back later. Also tell her I'm sorry and I love her."
"Of course, miss."
She's back in the car in under a minute. "Done. Let's roll."
The GPS takes us up toward Mountain Views Estate. Clarke's eyebrows go up.
"I remember this area."
Gabby grins. "Yeah, I'm not surprised."
They laugh. I don't ask.
I'm watching the road instead. The houses set back behind trees. The hedges doing their best to keep secrets in. We're climbing slightly, the city dropping away behind us, and the air through the cracked window is different up here. Cooler. Older somehow. The kind of air that's been breathed by things that aren't entirely human.
I close the window.
"Almost there," Gabby says.
Music bleeds through the walls of one of the bigger houses before we even stop. Bass heavy. Clarke slows down.
"This is it."
We park. Nobody moves for a second.
I adjust my shades. Look at the gate. Somewhere on the other side of that wall is a space that has existed in my head as a warning for years, a pin on Alexandra's map with a circle around it and a very specific instruction: not for you.
Clarke looks at me in the rearview. "You good?"
"Fine," I say, and I get out of the car.
The security guard at the gate asks for an invitation. Gabby makes a call, holds up the phone. The gate opens.
Inside, the compound is almost too quiet at first. A pool, crystal clear, lit from below. No one in it. No music yet up here. Just the hum of something larger underneath, coming from the house itself.
"Please follow me."
A man in all black appears from nowhere. He doesn't wait. He just starts walking.
We look at each other and follow.
Through the house. Down a staircase. The music gets louder with every step. The air changes — thicker, warmer, and something else underneath it that I notice and Clarke and Gabby don't. A layering of scents that tells me exactly what kind of people are down here, what kind of gathering this really is.
Not all human.
Not even close.
I keep walking. I keep my face empty. I tell myself it doesn't matter.
The staircase opens into the room, and I stop telling myself that.