The red Ferrari California sped through the night, fleeing downtown Chicago. Nono rolled down the window, and the wind swept into her face, lifting her hair. Her thoughts drifted in the wind along with it, tangling and coming loose.
She drove fast, leaving downtown Chicago behind her, along with that room, the eighteenth floor, the quiet hallway, and the elevator scented with Water of Winter.
None of those things could catch the Ferrari.
She wondered how many more moments like this she would have in her life, when everything else in the world was left behind by a speeding sports car as she raced down a pitch-black highway, the car creaking around her, darkness on every side.
She had heard that Cao Cao had owned a fine horse called Shadowless, so fast that even its shadow could not catch it. Nono imagined that horse with a coat of red, forever running through the dusk, the boundary between light and darkness always behind it. Whenever darkness was about to catch up, it would break into a wild gallop once again.
But only when she drove back to the dorm building did Nono realize that some things could not be left behind.
She reclined her seat a little and turned on the radio, pretending she was still on the road, pretending she was simply traveling on and on, that no one knew her, that no one could see her embarrassment, and that she had only stopped for a brief rest.
Yet although she heard nothing, her mind was full of everything.
Nono quietly opened the door, her footsteps light. She gently closed it behind her, then felt her way through the dark and sat on her bed in a daze.
Susie switched on the night-light, filled a glass with water, sat beside