But Nico is in Don Mode now. He’s grilling every single staff member, everyone who might have seen something, and I?—
I can’t stay still. The air feels wrong. Too tight. Too heavy. Like breathing is something I have to remember how to do.
I step away from the crowd without thinking about it.
All I can see in my mind is Noah’s face. His backpack bouncing when he ran toward the school door. His voice in the car sayingI love you.
My son.
My baby.
The parking lot behind the school is quieter than the front. Fewer people, fewer voices. I barely notice where I’m walking.
All I know is that I need to move. If I stop, I might collapse.
Then—
Pain explodes at the back of my head.
White, blinding.
The world spins violently. My knees buckle before I even understand what happened.
Voices echo somewhere above me.
Not English.
Russian.
“Ona koroleva?”one of them asks.
Another voice answers.
“Da.”
Darkness swallows everything.
The first thingI feel when I wake up is movement.
The second is pain.
My head throbs with every heartbeat, a deep pulsing ache right at the back of my skull. My mouth tastes like copper. When I try to move, something pulls at my wrists.
My hands are tied.
The realization comes slowly, like my brain is wading through mud.
Car.
I’m in a car.
The engine hums under my feet. The windows are dark. Two men sit across from me in the back seat.
They’re speaking Russian.
They don’t stop when my eyes open. They barely even glance at me. Like I’m not a person. Like I’m a package.
Memory slams back into place all at once.
