The hospital called me before midnight — but my mother's reaction told me the truth was far worse than the news.

I don't remember walking out of that room. Marsh found me in the hallway with one hand braced against the wall, swallowing hard against the urge to be sick.

"He says the red book is in my apartment," I said.

Marsh's face went hard. "We'll send a unit."

"Ethan and I haven't been home in days."

"I know."

"My key's at the hospital security desk."

"Nobody goes in without us."

But somebody already had.

When Marsh's team got to my apartment in Houston, the front door was unlocked.

Nothing obvious was missing. The TV was still there. My jewelry was still there. Ethan's toys were still scattered across the living room floor, his plastic T. rex lying on its side under the coffee table. His cereal bowl was still sitting in the sink from the morning we left for my mother's house.

But in my bedroom, the closet wall had been cut open. Behind the drywall was a narrow metal safe.

Empty.

On my pillow was a single photograph.

Marsh brought it to me at the hospital that evening. It was old, and slightly bent.

My mother stood in front of the red shed — younger, prettier, with a smile sharp enough to score glass. My grandfather stood beside her with one hand resting on her shoulder.

And in front of them stood a little girl.

Me.

Maybe six years old. A yellow dress, white sandals, my hair tied off with a blue ribbon. I was smiling uncertainly at the camera, one hand half-raised, as if I'd been caught mid-wave.

On the back, in black ink, someone had written:

First chosen. Not forgotten.

I stared at the words until they swam.

"I don't remember this picture," I whispered.

Marsh said nothing.

"I don't remember ever being near that shed as a kid."

His silence was the answer.

There are memories the mind buries, not because they're gone, but because carrying them around would make it impossible to keep living.

That night I sat beside Ethan's bed and watched him sleep. For the first time since the phone call, the machines sounded less frantic. His breathing had evened out. His fingers twitched every so often, chasing something in a dream.

I held his hand and tried to remember my own childhood.

Not the birthdays. Not the school plays. Not the clean, polished version my mother handed out to the neighbors.

The gaps.

The summer I couldn't account for. The nights Chloe crept into my room because she said there were footsteps inside the walls. The morning I woke up under the kitchen table with dirt caked on my feet and my mother told me I'd been sleepwalking.

The red book. The red door. The shed that made bad noises.

At 2:18 a.m., my phone buzzed. Unknown number.

For one terrible second, I thought about not answering.

Then I picked up.

Nobody spoke at first. Just breathing.

Then a woman's voice. "Rachel Prewitt?"

The hair on my arms stood up. "Who is this?"

"My name is Grace Alvarez."

I stopped breathing.

"That's impossible."

"I know what they told everybody," the woman said. "They said I disappeared."

My hand closed around Ethan's blanket. "Where are you?"

"Close."

I looked toward the door of his room.

"Why are you calling me?"

"Because your son opened the red door," she said. "And now they know you remember enough to be dangerous to them."

"I don't remember anything."

"You will."

Behind her voice I could hear something faint. A train horn.

Then she said, "Do not trust Detective Marsh."

My eyes lifted to the glass wall of Ethan's room. Out in the hallway, Marsh was standing there talking to Agent Ruiz. As if he felt me watching, he turned his head.

Our eyes met.