Chapter 2
For one second, nobody moved.
Then I hit the hidden door with my shoulder.
Once.
Twice.
The wood shook but didn’t break.
“Ryan, stop!” Caroline cried.
I turned on her.
“Who is behind this door?”
She shook her head fast, tears already forming.
“You don’t understand.”
“That’s becoming clear.”
The little girl inside the wall curled against my leg.
Lily stood in the bedroom doorway, sobbing so hard her small shoulders jumped.
I grabbed my phone.
Caroline lunged.
I moved faster.
“Don’t call anyone,” she begged.
That terrified me more than the door.
I dialed 911.
“There are children hidden inside my house,” I said, my voice shaking. “Send police. Send an ambulance.”
Caroline backed away like I had betrayed her.
“Ryan, you’re going to ruin everything.”
I stared at the woman I had slept beside for seven years.
“What exactly am I ruining?”
She said nothing.
Behind the door, someone knocked again.
Then a voice.
A woman’s voice.
“Please.”
I kicked the door near the lock.
The frame cracked.
Again.
The door burst inward.
Inside was a cramped space built between two rooms.
A woman lay on a mattress with another child beside her.
A boy.
Maybe three.
The woman shielded him with one arm.
Her hair was tangled. Her lips were split from dryness. Her eyes found mine.
And she cried.
“Ryan.”
My knees nearly gave out.
“I know you?” I whispered.
She nodded.
“Claire.”
The name meant nothing.
But her face broke when she saw that.
“You don’t remember,” she said.
Caroline’s voice came from behind me.
“She’s lying.”
Claire flinched at her voice.
The little girl beside me screamed, “No!”
Police sirens rose outside.
Caroline ran.
I chased her down the hall and caught her at the stairs.
She fought like a stranger.
“You don’t know what they’ll do!” she hissed.
“To who?”
“To me,” she said.
I held her wrists until officers burst through the front door.
Lily ran to me.
The hidden children cried.
Claire kept repeating my name like it was the only word keeping her alive.
May you like
And Caroline looked at me with pure hatred.
“You should have left the walls alone.”
