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I'm sitting on the floor when I see my sister for the first time in almost two months. The woman who stopped me in the street led me to a house a few yards away. My sister's house? She ushered me in the front door and motioned to a spot on the ground, a cushion.

"Sit, please," she says. "I'll tell Evie you're here."

My mind is racing with questions. What is this place? Am I in Evie's house? Is Evie actually coming out, or is this a trap?

But when my sister walks through the living room door, every question melts away and full-body relief takes their place. She's here, and real, and alive. She's safe.

"Haze," she says quietly, wrapping me into a hug when I stand, like there are no other questions hanging between us. Like she owes no other explanation. "You're here."

"I'm here," I say back. I'm still overwhelmed with relief but the questions are coming back.

"My furniture is on the way," she says, answering the one that was maybe last on my list.

She throws me another cushion from a pile in the corner of the room, and I take it as an invitation to sit again. Everything is beige. Even the light coming from the few fixtures in the room feels intentionally dulled. "The first month we give up pretty much everything just to be present."

I take a deep breath, conscious that the woman I had met earlier is still here somewhere. As if on cue, her voice cuts through from an adjoining room.

"It helps you figure out what you really do need, and what you don't," the woman says, coming in to sit cross-legged against a wall, sipping something from a ceramic mug. She's wearing an oatmeal-colored linen jumpsuit, her loose waves of thick blonde hair blending into the fabric around her shoulders. "And that's the whole point of what we do, really. But Evie will tell you all about that."

I glance from the woman to my sister, noting the changes in Evie's face. The hair extensions I had become used to are gone. The makeup is nonexistent. There are two single remaining eyelash extensions hanging on for dear life. Her clothes are old and mismatched, items I've never seen her wear before. It's her, of course. Freckles. Eyes the color of green grapes. Auburn hair. But something else has been pulled away from her. I can't tell if it's left her lighter, or dimmer.

"Right," I say to the woman, digging my fingers into my cushion. I look around the room, trying to make sense of the space, this place. "So what would be the point of giving me two flat tires on my car, exactly?"

"That wasn't how I wanted to meet. I'm Natalie, by the way," she says lightly. "And the tires…that was an accident. With as many VIPs as have here, there's no such thing as being too careful."

"So your goal is to make sure your biggest stalkers can't…leave?" I say, trying to calculate the logic in what she's saying. Trying to find it.

Evie shoots me a look that feels like a warning, but Natalie seems unfazed.

"Our goal is to give law enforcement easier access to people who wish to do our clients harm," Natalie says smoothly. "In fact, we have a very good relationship with law enforcement."

"Right," I say, and at first, I think the comment is odd, but then something starts to click. Maybe Natalie was the detectives' source, the one who told them Evie was just fine.

"The institution has its issues, of course, but they understand privacy," she says. "And ultimately, that's always what we're asking for. When things don't just die down, sometimes we need their assistance to protect the privacy of someone like Evie."

"So that's what the Instagram post was about," I say, staring at Evie, who just blinks back at me while Natalie responds.

"Well, yes," she says coolly. "It was to keep Evie safe. That's all we care about here. That's why our security measures are what they are."

She lifts her mug toward the front door, toward my useless car down the street.

"But you don't wish to do your sister harm, I'm sure," Natalie says, her gaze intense and unblinking. "You'd never do that, would you?"

The question feels exaggerated, like she's implying that I'm somehow dangerous to my sister.

Again, I look to Evie, but she's staring at her hands.

"No," I say, firmly, finally turning to meet Natalie's gaze. "Never."

"Great," Natalie says cheerfully. "We're on the same page then."

I glance at my phone and notice there's a blank space where there are usually bars and symbols. I have no service.

"No service out here," Natalie explains, pushing herself off the ground and walking toward the adjoining kitchen. "No internet either, of course, for our clients. A total dead zone. Though, you know, I've always wondered why we call it that, as it's the disconnection that makes you feel more alive than ever. That's why I started this."

"ReBrand, you mean?" I say. I can't keep the disgust out of my voice. "The so-called influencer agency…"

She smiles again, kindly, like she's slightly amused by my question. "The mission," she clarifies. "Evie can tell you all about that, though. I'm sure it would mean more coming from her. We're not for everyone, after all. Not yet, anyway."

I look around, studying the bland home, exactly zero trace of what I had imagined ReBrand would look like: clean lines, modern conference rooms, shiny glass surfaces. "So this is…what? Company headquarters?"

Evie tucks her knees toward her chest, nodding.

"It's like…" Evie starts. "A giant factory-reset button. For your life. Your brain. An opportunity to relearn how to be in the world."

"A rebirth, if you will," Natalie chimes in. "I believe that once you do truly start over, from scratch, there's no way you go back to the rot and hollowness of a disconnected, digital world. You want something more.

But you can't get there if you don't kill everything that came before."

She stops herself with a laugh. "Metaphorically speaking, obviously."

I think of the markers outside. Evie's initials.

"The graveyard…"

"Yeah," Evie says, a little like she's embarrassed. "It's…symbolic."

"Like I said, a metaphor," Natalie adds, but my eyes are fixed directly on Evie.

"Don't you think that's a little…absurd? Cheesy?" I ask. "Both?"

"What I think is absurd," Natalie says with a withering look, "is a child growing up with millions of people watching her every move. A mother monetizing her daughter's biggest successes and failures."

"And you don't do that?" I push, emboldened by the urge to help my sister. To protect her. "With Tier Threes? With Gavin? That isn't what you're doing with all of them, too? Exploiting the people you think are too stupid and meaningless to be helped?"

I want her to be surprised by what I know, how ReBrand manipulates and take advantage of people. But she doesn't even flinch.

"Tier Threes are a lost cause," she says with a wave of her hand, like she's brushing off my implication. "They're never coming back. They're not like Evie—craving a different way to be. They'll never get past how they exist now. So the best we can hope for is that they show everyone else how not to be. The worst ways to exist in this world. The clearest examples of how a life lived online sucks the soul out of you, changes the way you make choices."

I shoot a look at Evie, whose face is blank. This is her boyfriend Natalie's talking about. Why doesn't she seem more offended?

"Look," Natalie says lightly, placing her mug in the sink. "You don't have to get any of this, Hazel. That's the whole point. The only thing that matters is that your sister gets it. That she's choosing to be here. It's like any good form of therapy—designed to challenge you, to make you better and happier than before."

I think of Charlie and wonder how many other therapists ReBrand has on staff.

"The only thing that really matters is if it works for the client. If it serves them," she says, heading toward the front door. "I think you'll find that this serves Evie right now. Even if it's not comfortable or convenient for you."

This feels like a dig, a reminder that I forced myself into this world without being invited. That I showed up here unannounced.

"I'll see you two in the morning," Natalie says. "We will handle your car, Hazel—the damage. You'll be good as gold by tomorrow afternoon."

The word we lingers after she shuts the door, and for a moment Evie and I sit in silence, the hum of the air conditioning filling the room.

"So," I finally say. "All of this…mess. All of this anxiety and fear was just so…what? So you could just stay here with Cult Leader Barbie?"

Evie sighs, though it comes out a little like a laugh.

"I needed some space, Hazel," she says. "A chance to regroup, to reset. Like I said."

She sounds so sure of herself that it catches me off guard.

"And this is how you do it?" I push, following her into the kitchen. "I was terrified. I thought you were being held in a basement somewhere. Dead in a ditch. I haven't been sleeping. I was at Mom's for a week. A nightmare. And just so you could…what? Take a break? Just so you could do a little social media detox?"

"Look, I know how it seems on the surface. I know ReBrand's methods seem extreme. I know that because at first I felt just like you do—I didn't get it, didn't see it. Thought it was fucked-up. But then it clicked. Half measures don't work when it comes to resetting everything, not when you grew up like I did. Not when you're as broken as I was."

I cringe hearing my sister talk about herself this way.

"You weren't broken," I say, the last word coming out like a whisper. "I didn't think that."

"No?" She laughs. "I thought you, of all people, would get this. Would see it. The way you despised the world Mom and I were in. The way you looked down on it. I couldn't tell you about this place because of the NDAs. But I thought that when I had healed enough, when it was time to reach back out again…that when you saw me here, you'd understand. Forgive me."

I feel a pang of regret for a moment, ashamed to have disappointed her. And then I remember.

"The resources you wasted, Evie…the police, the time spent searching for you…" I argue. "The aftermath, what Mom did…"

"Oh, so now we feel bad for cops?" She snorts. "And Mom? That's new."

"I just mean—you caused chaos. Everyone was so worried about you. And then even after the Instagram post, I knew something was off…"

Her voice softens now. "I'm fine, Haze," she says. "This was a hard boundary, and I needed to draw it. I thought that would be clear."

I consider a different angle.

"What about Gavin, then?" I say. "You just left him in the dark, too? To spiral? To freak out? Even after he was so excited about the docuseries thing…even with everything with his dad? You just…left him?"

She's laughing for real now, and it chills me. "So you guys hung out, I guess. You finally got the full Gavin Ramirez charm offensive. Figures."

I'm thrown by her knowing this, embarrassed at the memory of being attracted to him. That afternoon in the kitchen.

"He'll be fine," she says. "I'm sure of that."

"But are you fine?" I push, putting a pin in the Gavin conversation. "Are you really fine with all of this? This place? The rules? The isolation? Being here for…for how long?"

"As long as it takes. And I'm getting there," she says. "That's the whole point of doing this program. It takes time. If it was easy to reframe how I think about connection, the internet, my selfhood, maybe I'd have figured it out years ago."

Years ago?

"You're eighteen, Ev," I say. "You don't need to have it all figured out."

"No?" she asks. "Is that why you were always pushing for me to leave home, go to college, get a real job?"

A burst of shame spikes my bloodstream, warming me.

"I…I just wanted you to have options," I say. "Beyond what Mom wanted."

She smiles. "Same. That's why I'm here. Hazel, it's not about you…" she says. "I've just never been truly on my own, cut off from everyone else's opinions. All the pressure. ReBrand gave me the opportunity to do that."

"So…is this…I mean, how long does this last?" I ask, afraid of the answer.

"It's for now," she says. "For a while."

I lean against the countertop and nod, telling myself I'll push back on this later. That maybe now it's best to just take a beat.

She finishes drying the mug that Natalie left in the sink and puts it away in a cabinet before turning to me. "You know, none of it means I don't miss you," she says. "That I haven't missed you. What I need and what I want are two very different things right now."

Are they? Did Natalie tell her that?

"I missed you too, Ev," I say instead, and I can feel the adrenaline of a day that started in Arizona and ended in a compound in California finally wearing off. It's past ten p.m. now. The relief of being near my sister is mixed up with sadness and fear now, too. It's a different kind of fear; after all, she's right here in front of me. Physically safe, a reality that wasn't guaranteed this morning.

This fear is for tomorrow, when I feel sure that I'm going to have to leave her here. To do the one thing that she really wants, even if I think it's wrong. Even if I think there's a better way. Even if I think it's going to hurt her in the end.

She stretches out her arms and walks toward me like she's read my mind, pulling me in for a hug. I close my eyes, and everything about her is familiar again. Her smell, the way her hand wraps around me and rests on my shoulder. We stay there for a minute, quiet, and I don't think she's going to say anything, but just before I pull away, she whispers.

"I thought you'd be proud of me, Haze."

I swallow, tears finally pricking my eyes.

"Always," I lie.