Inside the wagon, time dissolved into something shapeless. The only hint of the outside world was the tiny window carved near the door, just enough to tell whether the sky was darkening, never enough to know where they were or how many hours had slipped past. Everything else was silence. Heavy, breathless, unkind.
Evangeline sat curled against the wooden wall, staring at the dull planks beneath her feet as Elijah Starn's words replayed relentlessly in her mind. Your family turned you in. They spoke your name first.
It felt unreal. Like a sentence spoken in a language she shouldn't understand.
How could they?
She hadn't even been there. Had they noticed she'd vanished from the ballroom? Had they worried? Looked for her? Or had they simply seen an opportunity to save themselves and offered her name before anyone even asked?
