Chapter 1: The Envelope
The silence in the bedroom was heavier than the darkness. Beneath the bed, Grace pressed her hand against her mouth, fighting the urge to gasp. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. Above her, the floorboards creaked as Nathan’s footsteps retreated down the hallway, his panicked sprint fading into the distance. He knew someone was onto him.
Grace’s trembling fingers tightened around the manila envelope. Grace, it read in a hurried, desperate cursive. It had been slipped under her pillow by her sister, Sarah, just hours before Sarah died in a mysterious car crash. Grace slid out from under the bed, her eyes darting to the small dropper bottle Nathan had left on the nightstand. Cyanide derivative. He had been poisoning her slowly, just as he had likely silenced Sarah. Grace ripped open the envelope. Inside was a flash drive and a single piece of paper: a list of fifty names, mostly children from the impoverished Rust Belt town of Oakhaven.
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