She'd slipped away from Morningside in the early morning; but not before adding to their caches and paying her dues, as she believed was owed. The flame-touched girl had looked back once in the slight of the cold dawn before slipping past the borders, wounds long healed and mental scars not quite so raw. She'd put on weight, after her meeting with Forrest, and gained enough energy to make her way to the coast, not entirely sure if this was the end of her stay at Morningside, or where she would go. The man haunted her still, and the fear had warped into a twisted desire for it to come to a head and for her to meet the monster again; surely that was better than the constant uneasy, the fear, the worry.

But there was no time for such thought now, not when the ocean crashed against the surf, the familiar scents of salt and brine lay heavy in the air. The moon lay heavy in the sky, huge and clear and reflected in the far waves. Feeling the closest to happy she'd been in a long while, she moved swiftly to meet the waves as they rushed forth, gasping as their chill crashed against her twiggy hocks.