Hannah had been on the roof of the school's art block, the sun warm on her back and the city noise below blurred into a steady, indifferent hum. She came up there to think. To breathe. Kiera always mocked her for it. However, she couldn't help but miss the mocking. It had been nearly a month since she had last seen her sister, and she could not help but feel a pang of worry in her heart.
Her phone rang somewhere deep inside her pocket.
It was Claire.
She answered quickly but held her breath. Claire was Kiera's best friend and their only mediation site between her and her sister when she disappeared like that.
"Hannah, is it you?" the voice on the line said. The voice was urgent and panicky, quite unlike the nature of the person it belonged to.
What was happening?
"Claire—what happened?" Hannah's throat had narrowed. "Is Kiera okay?"
"We found her," Claire said. "She's—" She didn't finish with words. Instead, there was a sound like a swallowed sob. "Hannah, please. You need to be in your backyard now. Bring nothing. Don't touch anything."
Hannah's legs went useless. She climbed down from the roof on hands and knees, ripped through the corridors, bumped a locker, and ignored the bell.
Sprinting with her breath heavy... she was about to say something when she was pulled inside the storeroom closet by a familiar strong pair of hands.
From there, through a tiny slit, she could see the living room, and her breath froze. Police boots dotted the hallway; voices low and professional. Her father stood by the doorway, face white and blank, hands clamping each other like he could keep them from trembling. Her mother's features had collapsed in a place where grief and suspicion fought each other.
Claire's jaw was a strict line when she met Hannah's eyes. "We found her at the old dry docks. She was dead two weeks ago."
The floor slid out from under Hannah's world. Tortured. The word landed like a stone in her gut, and she heard only the rush of blood. She pictured Kiera's bright laugh, the way she used to braid hair absentmindedly, the stubborn set of her jaw.
"What happened?" she asked, her question shallow and worthless.
"She was tortured. Ligature marks. Signs of restraint. Bruising consistent with… with prolonged violence," Claire said, and her voice was trained to be factual but it shook no matter what she tried.
Hannah blinked, almost picturing what Claire was saying.
"That's not the worst part," her voice had become dry and fathomless.
"They found CCTV placing someone who looks like you near the docks the night before, along with your hair and several instruments with your fingerprints," she said, looking directly into Hannah's eyes. "The police are here to arrest you."
Hannah could not even bring herself to refute it. The accusation was completely baseless and stupid.
"We have a statement," Claire cut in. "Neighbors heard shouting from your house a few nights ago. Your father confirmed you had an argument. Your phone pinged the night she died; your last message was—"
Hannah's mouth made a small, dry sound. She could remember the message—Noor had texted around midnight: I think I've found something. Meeting her. Tell Dad I love him. Hannah hadn't replied. She had been asleep.
"You have to run away," Claire said, and her eyes were professional. "As far as possible. The accusations against you are too severe, and your parents seem to believe the evidence. I know that you could not have done it... but it's my word against truckloads of false evidence. You understand?"
She nodded, feeling compelled.
"Then go," Claire said, giving her a small purse full of money. "Do not come anywhere near this house as long as I personally don't tell you to."
And so she ran.
There was no plan.
Running felt like betrayal. It felt like the simplest, most decisive confirmation for anyone watching. But she had known people die under systems that claimed to be just, and she knew the difference between being arrested by mistake and being eaten alive by a system that just wanted the case to be over.
There was a cold, animal calculation in her chest: the less you have on you, the less they can prove. You move. You disappear. You wait.
She ran to the bus stop, only to see the faces of people she went to school with—uncomprehending, hungry for spectacle—on their phones, heads bent like vultures. She cut through alleys, hopped fences, borrowed a hoodie from a teenager selling cigarettes, then got a lift from a stranger who didn't ask questions, who only wanted cash and the illusion of distance.
By the time she reached the river, the city had folded away into grey suburbs and then a patchwork of old warehouses, with the smell of oil and salt.
Finally, after a long distance, Hannah pressed her back against a cold brick wall and let herself breathe in short, stunned bursts. Her breath fogged in the evening air.
She had no allies except Claire, who she knew would herself be under a lot of pressure. Her parents would be more than happy to get rid of her now that their golden child was gone. Society lived on rumors. Who would believe her against such evidence?
She thought for a ragged second of her sister's friends, of the small online corners Noor had been obsessed with—message boards, private chats. Kiera had been deep into something, for sure. And it definitely had something to do with her murder.
She pulled out Noor's last message again: Meeting her. Tell Dad I love him. The pronoun sat there, small and traitorous. Her. Who was she? A lover? A witness? A target? Kiera's notebooks might have had something—Kiera kept lists sometimes, clipped things together with hospital-band precision. But the house was crawling with police. Any evidence there could be catalogued, misread, or used against her.
A rustle in the alley startled her. She flattened herself into the shadow of a loading bay, breath shallow. A man in a threadbare jacket approached, hands shoved into pockets. He stopped a few paces away and didn't sit. He regarded her with that curious look people used on stray animals—half pity, half claim.
"You shouldn't be out here," he said. His voice was soft, pitched to avoid attracting attention. He had the sort of face that kept secrets because nobody ever asked him for them.
Hannah wanted to tell him to go away.
"Do you know where I can go?" she asked, voice thin and small.
He glanced around and then handed her a small paper packet—granola? A bus schedule?—and beneath it, folded into a sliver, a number scrawled in ink. "Safe house tonight," he said. "You'll have to move fast. Don't trust anyone who asks you for a name. They'll be listening."
"How do you know—"
"Because I was listening before they started listening," he said, and a bitter humor twisted his mouth. "Your sister was not the first person who was killed in the department."
Hannah accepted the slip and slid it into her pocket. Her eyes met the cold green ones of the man in front of her, who stood there in oversized rags.
"Why help me?" she asked.
He shrugged. "Because you won't be the last person to be framed." His gaze sharpened. "And because someone has to watch the watchers sometimes."
His voice turned more serious. "Don't go home tonight. Burn your phone. Change your hair if you have to. Go south. Don't tell anyone where you're headed."
"Claire told me."
"Be careful of who you trust," he said, giving her a small pouch which jingled with coins.
She had no map, only a certainty that she had to move.
Somewhere in the city, someone who had watched the docks that night or planted the hair or smudged the prints would be waiting. Someone who understood that accusation could be weaponized.
Hannah walked until the brimming lights of the town were behind her and the river narrowed to a thread, until the night folded her like a secret. She would have to learn to be someone else. She would have to disappear to survive.
For now, all she could do was keep moving.