I didn't sleep.
Even after slipping back into the woods, even as the sun crept over the hills and washed the world in gray-gold light—I didn't sleep. My thoughts were too loud. My heartbeat too fast.
Kiani saw me.
And I saw her.
Not just as the abused little girl hunched in the shadows of John's house, but as my sister—blood of my blood.
She had our mother's eyes.
The same silver-gray, soft and sad, rimmed with thick lashes like a shadow curtain. The same way they darted away when someone raised their voice. But there was more—something sharp and clear underneath the fear. A spark. A flicker of fight.
And now that I'd touched the truth, I couldn't turn away.
I had to reach her.
By midday, the air turned warm and sticky. Flies buzzed over rotting apples in the grass near the fence line. John was outside again, tinkering with something near the tractor. Aira hung laundry silently, her face a blank mask. Kiani wasn't in sight.
She's in the house.
