Leaving The Genius’s World Chapter 05

Leaving The Genius’s World Chapter 05

A few minutes later, she returned with a black umbrella. A ring was looped around the handle. It was the

promise ring Theo had given me long ago.

He’d said when we truly grew up, after college, he’d replace it with a real engagement ring.

“This umbrella…” Sadie’s voice tightened. “Yesterday. Outside the lab.”

Theo’s face went white. The conversation in the lab replayed in his ears, sentence by sentence.

“She heard.” He murmured. “Audrey heard all of it.”

“What did you say?”

Owen and Wyatt looked over at the same time.

Theo didn’t explain. He yanked out his phone. “Find her. Go to Union Station. Go to LAX. Call everyone she

knows.”

“Wyatt, didn’t you see her book a ticket to Seattle yesterday? Start with the airport.”

They rushed to LAX. The Los Angeles-to-Seattle ticket had never been checked in.

I never got on that plane. They checked Union Station too. But I hadn’t told anyone where I was really going.

That morning, I’d only bought a same-day Amtrak ticket at the counter. As the Southwest Chief pulled out of Los Angeles, I sat by the window and watched the city slide away.

Four people who excelled at calculation could predict a model’s next output, but they couldn’t predict where a person who’d stopped acting the way they expected would go.

Later, I heard Theo searched all night between LAX and Union Station.

At dawn, he sat alone on a chair in the airport corridor, head down, unmoving for a long time.

But the Audrey who used to soften the second she saw him frown never appeared again.