Chapter 3

Sarah was not good at feelings.

If a kid cried, she' d stare at them like they were a broken appliance she didn't know how to fix.

But she was good at other things.

She taught me how to tie my shoelaces so they wouldn' t come undone every five minutes.

She didn' t coddle me.

"Like this," she said, her fingers moving quickly, efficiently. "Pull it tight. Stop tripping over yourself."

Her attempts at making "healthy snacks" for the kids were legendary.

Once, she made something she called "power bites." They looked like lumps of mud and tasted like cardboard mixed with regret.

Even the hungriest kids wouldn't touch them after the first brave volunteer gagged.

I ate one, just to see. It was as bad as it looked.

Sarah saw my face. "What? It's nutritious."

I just nodded.

But if a fuse blew, or a lock jammed, or the ancient computer system crashed, Sarah could fix it.

She had this set of tools she kept in her bag, small, shiny things.

Ethan would look impressed. "Wow, Sarah, you're a lifesaver."

A tiny, almost invisible softening would happen around her mouth for a second when he said that. Then it would be gone.

The first time Ethan and Isabelle had a big public thing together – some charity dinner – it was in the local paper.

A picture of them smiling, Isabelle' s hand on Ethan' s arm.

The next day, Sarah didn't come to work.

The center felt weird without her, even though she was so quiet.

Ethan asked if anyone knew where she was. Nobody did.

I got worried.

After the center closed, I walked around the neighborhood.

I found her on the roof of an abandoned warehouse near the docks.

She was just standing there, looking out at the city lights.

The wind was blowing her hair around her face.

She wasn't doing free-running, not then. Just standing.

"Sarah?" I called up.

She looked down. No surprise on her face.

"What do you want, Leo?"

"The boiler at the center broke," I lied. "Mr. Henderson can't fix it, and Ethan needs your crazy lock-picking skills to get into the maintenance closet. The key is lost."

It was a stupid lie.

She stared at me for a long moment.

Then she sighed, a small sound. "Fine."

She climbed down the fire escape, agile and quick.

When we got back to the center, the boiler was fine, of course.

Ethan was confused. "Boiler? It's working perfectly."

Sarah just gave me a look. I couldn't read it.

But she stayed. She didn't disappear again that week.

Another time, after Ethan mentioned Isabelle was helping him write a grant proposal, Sarah was gone for two days.

I heard whispers. Someone saw a woman matching her description at an underground MMA fight across town.

They said she won, easily, but came out with a split lip and a dark bruise on her cheekbone.

When she came back to work, she wore makeup to cover the bruise, but I saw it.

She didn't say where she'd been.

I just knew it was because of Ethan and Isabelle.

It was a cycle. Ethan and Isabelle would get closer. Sarah would break.

And I would try to find the pieces.