Chapter One
Chloe
“Mei?” I keep my voice low, not wanting to wake the other girls. “Sweetie, where are you?”
Silence.
I check the bathroom—empty. Look under the beds, even though Mei is too old for that kind of hiding game. Nothing.
My heart rate picks up, my palms starting to sweat.Don’t panic.She’s probably in the kitchen getting water. Or she had a nightmare and went to find Jay.
But even as I think it, I know it isn’t true. Mei is nine years old, responsible, the kind of child who follows rules because breaking them means chaos, and she’s had enough of that in her short life.
I move into the hallway, checking each room systematically. Boys’ dormitory—all accounted for. The playroom—empty. Jay’s office—dark.
The buzz of my phone in my pocket causes me to pause. A text message in the middle of the night? Pulling the phone from my pocket, I click the home button, and the screen lights up. The bright light cuts through the darkness of the hallway like a blade. 2:47 AM.
Swiping across the screen, the text pops up immediately upon unlocking. Two words glow at me:Thank you.
No name. No context. Just an unknown number and gratitude for a deed I can’t remember doing.
I frown, my thumb hovering over the screen. Wrong number, probably. Or some drunk person texting their ex. It happens. I start to type back—I think you have the wrong number—but stop. What’s the point? Whoever sent it will figure out their mistake eventually.
A chill runs down my spine as I look at the timestamp again. 2:47 AM. Exactly now. Not hours ago, not yesterday—this very moment.
Who sends a “thank you” text at nearly three in the morning?
I slip the phone back into my cardigan pocket and continue my rounds, my footsteps silent on the worn wooden floors. The orphanage settles around me with familiar sounds: the ancient radiator hissing in the corner, wind rattling the windows, the soft breathing of twenty-three children sleeping in their beds.
Twenty-three. I count them every night, a habit I can’t break even after three years of working here. Old fears die hard.
I’m heading toward the kitchen when I hear it: the soft thump of the back door closing.
My blood goes cold.
Outside. Mei went outside.
I break into a run, my mind already spiraling through terrible possibilities. It’s October in New York, the temperature hovering just above freezing. Mei is wearing thin pajamas. What if she wandered into the street? What if someone has lured her out? What if?—
I slam through the back door and into the yard behind the orphanage. The cold hits me like a slap, making my teeth chatter instantly and stealing my breath. The yard is dark except for the single light above the door, casting long shadows across the brown grass and the chain-link fence that separates our property from the alley beyond.
“Mei!” This time I don’t bother keeping my voice down. “Mei, answer me right now!”
Movement at the edge of where the light touches catches my attention. I spin toward it, my body automatically shifting into a defensive stance—weight balanced, hands ready. Ten years of training have made it instinct.
But it’s just Mei, appearing from behind the storage shed, her chest heaving like she’s been running. Her breath comes out in visible puffs, her cheeks flushed red from the cold.
Relief crashes through me so hard my knees go weak. Then anger rushes in to fill the space relief left behind.
“Mei Zhang, what are you doing out here? Do you have any idea how dangerous?—”
“I found a child!” Mei interrupts, her eyes bright with excitement rather than fear. She grabs my hand, tugging insistently. “You have to come see. Please, Miss Chloe. I think… I think he’s hurt.”
The anger evaporates. A child… out here? In the dead of night and the frigid cold?
“What? Where?”
“By the fence. I heard a noise when I got up to use the bathroom, and I looked out the window, and I saw a shape moving. So, I came to check.”
