Billie didn’t look back. The station lamps burned gold against the midnight fog, and she kept her chin tucked low, fists clamped around the single bag she’d managed to grab before bolting. Whatever had happened at home—whatever she’d left smouldering in that house—it was behind her now, swallowed by the dark.

The train screeched into the platform like some tired beast, steel and smoke dragging through the night. A week’s ride, the ticket man had said. Seven days of rattling tracks, nameless towns, and strangers’ eyes. Seven days carrying her to the place people only spoke of in whispers: a town carved into the spine of the mountains, hidden where the world forgot to look.

When the doors opened, Billie stepped inside, heart drumming, breath raw in her throat. She didn’t know what was waiting at the end of the line. Only that it had to be better than what she was running from.