And you found me.
I begged for help, and you delivered it.
I cried for a new life, and you provided it.
I craved a kinder existence, and you showed me it was possible.
I’ll never forget you, Elder Prest.
I’ll always love you, No One.
Please never forget me.
Pimli—
I stopped mid signature.
Did I really want to say goodbye to Elder with a slave name? To let him forever remember me as some beaten girl, when, thanks to him, I was so much more than that?
I could sign off as Little Mouse—the nickname he’d chosen to use when we were intimate or heart-joined. But even that wasn’t perfect.
My true name had been my secret.
Elder had wanted my secrets.
Now, he would never have them. But I could give him one as a parting gift.
With my fingers tight around the pen, I scrawled my old name, turned new name, turned known identity.
Yours forever, Tasmin.
I didn’t bother with my last name as I didn’t want to give him any way to chase after me. I couldn’t vanish into the world, return to my mother, and forever look behind me hoping he’d find me. I couldn’t lie in bed at night believing he’d hunt me down and admit he couldn’t live without me.
No.
This was the way it had to be.
He would only know my first name. He would never know where to look. He would have no way of ruining us further.
With tears dripping down my cheeks, I kissed the letter, folded it carefully—wishing I was talented enough to transform boring rectangle into pretty origami—and placed it on the end of the bed.
With a heavy breath that whistled through all the new holes inside me, I slipped feet into flip-flops, glanced at the Japanese/English dictionary and black metal spoon I’d stolen for him, crept from the hotel room…
and vanished.