“I thought if anyone important found them, they’d take them away. I didn’t know if you were good.”
Daniel crouched, gripping the boy’s shoulders gently. “What’s your name?”
“Ethan.”
“Ethan… take me to them.”
They left the cemetery and crossed the city as it slowly changed from polished streets to cracked pavement and rusted fences. Daniel followed the barefoot boy through alleys and narrow paths until the smell hit him—smoke, rot, metal. The landfill stretched like a gray wasteland.
Ethan led him carefully through piles of debris. “They’re under a tarp. They’re scared of adults.”
Then Daniel heard it. A faint whimper.
Ethan crouched near a torn blue sheet. “Lily… Rose… it’s me.”
Two small faces peeked out. Thin. Dirty. Frightened.
Alive.
Daniel dropped to his knees. “Lily… Rose…”
They didn’t run to him. They hid behind Ethan.
“Don’t move fast,” Ethan whispered. “They trust me.”
Daniel stayed where he was, tears falling freely. His daughters were breathing, blinking, trembling—and terrified of him.
“I’ll come back,” he promised softly. “I won’t force anything. I just want you safe.”
That night, Daniel reopened the fire investigation file. Reading it clearly for the first time, he saw the cracks: identical times of death. A doctor he’d never met signing off. A hospital listed in the wrong district.
Then an anonymous message lit up his phone: Stop digging.
The next morning he returned for Ethan.
But when they reached the hiding spot, the tarp was torn aside. The blankets gone.
“Lily! Rose!” Ethan shouted.
Silence.
Daniel found small footprints in the dirt—and heavier boot prints beside them. A pink ribbon lay half-buried in ash. He had bought that ribbon for their first birthday.
“They took them,” Ethan whispered.
They followed the tracks deeper into the metal maze of the landfill. A small sob echoed nearby. They turned a corner and saw the twins crouched together while a large hooded man rummaged through their hiding place.
The man bolted when he saw them.
Daniel rushed to his daughters but stopped short, letting Ethan reach them first. On a sheet of rusted metal nearby was a chalk mark: the letter V.
A low engine growled behind them.
A white van rolled into view.
The door opened.
Victoria Hale stepped out, her blonde hair immaculate despite the filth around her.
“So,” she said coolly. “You found out.”
Daniel positioned himself between her and the girls. “You faked their deaths.”