CHAPTER ONE38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLJgGPEMFo7
“Colonial Codes”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIZg1ojq9uA
The rain had stopped hours ago, but the scent of damp earth clung to the halls of Kisumu Boys’ like an old hymn. Jabari stood in the archive room of St. Theresa’s Missionary Annex, a dusty brick wing that had once served colonial officers and now housed forgotten files and moth-eaten school trophies. Light filtered through high, grilled windows, illuminating swirls of dust around him like the ghosts of policy-makers past.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7Yagn0j21z
He wasn’t alone.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgvRMkWH6ot
Musa sat crouched by a dented cabinet drawer marked “Education—Boundary Acts: 1920–1970”, flipping through yellowing folders. The pages crumbled at the edges but still bore the insignia of the British protectorate: a lion crouching beneath a palm tree.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRbLeUoTOsm
“I’ve found it,” Jabari said quietly, pulling out a single, sealed envelope tied with faded red tape. In ink barely legible, it read:38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaREkFZ2MqA
‘Edict 17B – Joint Custody Regulations – Kisumu Educational Districts – Dated: 1925’38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe7k5cNjK9U
Musa looked up. “You sure that’s the one?”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRQoiGyjwBc
Jabari didn’t answer immediately. He sliced the seal open with the edge of his prefect’s badge. Inside was a sheet of official parchment and a typewritten letter.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUzaMbxnbgC
By decree of the Provincial Office of the Protectorate, any institution found to be in violation of Gendered Custody or Moral Formation Standards will be segregated and bound by enforcement walls. No intermingling of students is to be permitted except during externally authorized national functions. The boundary shall be physical, symbolic, and cultural.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiQn96kG7Dp
Jabari’s grip on the page tightened. “They didn’t just separate the schools. They erased the idea of unity.”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrBlG9fgtw6
“And enforced silence,” Musa muttered, pulling out a second page. “Listen to this clause: ‘Failure to comply shall result in withdrawal of national funding, erasure from examination boards, and immediate restructuring of administration under colonial discretion.’”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXDVPN1YqAT
It made sense now. Why the two schools had been split. Why the wall had been built. Why even now, decades later, rebellion felt like a sin instead of resistance.
“Under the third stone from the left, by the old bell,38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPMGwB9zxY5
Names are written that never rang.”
That night, long after lights-out, Jabari walked alone beneath the cloisters. He carried no torch — he knew the angles of this place by heart. Juma had offered to join him, but Jabari waved him off. Some discoveries had to be earned in solitude.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmfTmfdmUzq
The old bell tower was half-swallowed by creepers now, its spire cracked near the tip. Few students ever came here. There were no schedules to monitor, no records to file. Only silence, wind, and stone.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5KOpBKzZzp
He stood before the base — a squat square of worn masonry. At the base was a row of foundation stones, uneven and chiseled rough. He counted softly.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡowpMR7V4TJ
“One... two... three.”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ58xTegl4SA
The third stone was looser than the others. His fingers, calloused from years of fencing practice, felt for the edge and pried gently. The stone shifted with a reluctant groan, revealing a small cavity beneath.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCgSwbguzrN
Inside was a roll of thick paper bound with twin cords — one red, one blue.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnvgwo5QjGV
Jabari unrolled it slowly. His breath caught.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz2uoAJfCE9
It was a map.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5pFt4NvBT1
Faint, but clear enough: the outline of the school compound. Except… it was too broad. It stretched beyond the wall. It showed both schools.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvNXe6zdKKo
His pulse quickened.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMrAHzgRCGE
Drawn in graphite and ink, careful as a surgical diagram, was a narrow channel. It began beneath the Kisumu Boys borehole, ran beneath the bell tower’s foundation, and continued — dotted like a breath held — under the wall.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgCStLIkxqg
It reemerged somewhere beyond, marked only with a symbol: a water droplet inside a flame. No labels. No words.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJXECpRYrMb
And then there was the note, in the same hand as before:38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgMUaNAsMpI
“Built before the split. Sealed after the first betrayal. Still dry. Still waiting.”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBd4XmPxWok
Jabari sat back on his heels, mind racing. This wasn’t part of the Order’s archives. It wasn’t even in the protected cipher vault. Whoever had drawn this had known how to vanish — and how to leave only what mattered.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRWj7nfM61o
He thought of what it would mean for their order — to have a corridor that didn’t just pass messages under the wall, but moved bodies through it.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn5Gbl72tbj
“Movement,” he whispered. “Not just contact. Exchange.”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk4PEmBc4kr
He rolled the map back tightly, tucked it inside the hollow of his jacket, and replaced the stone as best he could. It no longer sat flush. That would have to do.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4yyKEDMhe5
Back in his dorm, Juma was waiting at the window, arms folded.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVhd7MHErOi
“Well?”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ96BFVNzQTc
Jabari answered with a look, and a word neither of them had said aloud in months:38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEOuiMMuknp
“It’s real.”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvw1P9VpZpc
They didn’t speak of it again. Not yet.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1Fg1LW0id4
But that night, for the first time in years, Juma dreamt not of climbing over the wall—but of passing through it.
**********38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJN8skCnP2r
Long before anyone admitted it — before the Order had its map, before Mercy returned with her black ribbons, before the prefects began whispering about breaches — the Shadow Walkers had already crossed.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEIGyWPMj6m
They did not leave names. Only echoes.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA8XfRjfina
They did not follow rules. Only shadows.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡesgorNQ7FZ
They did not ask permission. They moved.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoTa0edKU1s
And on one night, two terms ago, Kim had seen them — though she didn’t yet understand who or what they were.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNFtyp0QoJK
She had crouched in the dark near the bougainvillea, and she’d seen the wall bend. Not break. Not fall. Just... give. Slightly. Like a breath held and released.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡan4LEPIqTu
She’d seen them — boys — fleeing across the red-dust path behind the dormitory. Moving like shadows cut loose from curfew. Moving with the urgency of those who had risked everything to deliver a message.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP0YM6SsNKH
And they had.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUXpA6J0V3t
To her.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyKkCkYbfDS
The Shadow Walkers don’t meet in daylight. They don’t record rosters. They don’t kneel to prefects or care for the rituals of the old Orders.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsOYionZ4LA
They meet underground, in a forgotten crawlspace beneath the collapsed greenhouse, where mildew clings to concrete and the walls sweat memory.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhWFedq2tm4
Only a few know the way. Fewer still survive it.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQnWZYDlxxW
Kwame sat cross-legged on the cracked floor, back to the tunnel hatch, fingers brushing the map that had guided them on that first crossing. Otieno leaned beside him, massaging the knee he’d twisted months ago, the limp still aching from that night on the girls’ side.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGT8b2xoFLB
They didn’t speak often. Shadow Walkers spoke through action.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZc9SdqsOyx
When Ayo arrived, breathless and muddy from the drainage slope behind the dorms, he tossed down a folded square of stiff paper.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOr9ivNrI1N
A fragment of a science exam from Kisumu Girls. Still warm.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡm1ZYiKKx55
“Direct,” Kwame murmured. “Clean.”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡG3JeW2rF41
Otieno smiled faintly. “The wall’s just paper now.”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWBOkpLxMai
“No,” Kwame said. “The wall is a myth.”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCKVCmsWLec
They are not a gang. Not a cult.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5SxbXZ7Bak
Not an extension of the Order.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNqAkrLnRot
They do not ask for allegiance.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7LEP56aFto
They require only presence.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9Gz7Z2haOe
Their only law:38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHrIehiiJkB
“Never be still.”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFZ2ZXFWkkU
Shadow Walkers are the quiet between bells. The blur behind hallway reflections.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ34CRKLToOr
The glitch in the security feed.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd3k5VW1Ulw
They are protest and prophecy. They are the sharp breath before the truth drops.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyC2uwSTkMW
No crests. No salutes. Just movement.
**********38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡivP5hDtE2O
Kim stared at the red paper again, its surface soft but deliberate—cut clean, folded once, nothing else. Just the line:38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡId4UECygGL
“Curiosity is no longer a private habit.”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1xkfL9ie51
It wasn't a threat. It wasn't a joke.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpxjcCMOFrg
It was a signal. But from who?38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVzO9Sfq8uI
The Order didn't operate like this. They gave warnings in cold whispers or summoned girls under the guise of “guidance.” This—this was precise. Elegant. A response.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7cyMx2o8up
And it meant someone had not just found her test note… but understood it.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡofoX4jwWZ5
Stone markings. The first thread that never frayed.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtguqmfzTL9
Kim had written those lines as metaphor. A decoy—just cryptic enough to seem meaningless. But someone had read it like a code. And replied.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCTfywkdhdJ
Not by replying. By returning it—transformed.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHolS4lHuEI
Kim clutched the atlas tighter to her chest.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhErOdG5Vzd
Someone had mapped her thinking.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBLjv2zNhCs
And not by surveillance. Not by prefect tricks. This wasn’t Mercy. This wasn’t Naomi.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4Or5U6cw66
This was someone else.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdLRErs97zo
Elsewhere, at the same moment — Kisumu Boys, beneath the bleachers, Kwame watched the rain drip through the iron scaffolding, tapping against the aluminum bleacher seats above like impatient fingers.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡilrzRCQ6GA
Otieno crouched nearby, watching Kwame unfold the latest page torn from Kim’s original decoy.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAYnMuY9xfY
“‘The first thread that never frayed,’” Otieno read aloud, smiling faintly. “She’s poetic.”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ24j84K6sxz
“She’s calculated,” Kwame corrected. “She placed this for us.”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2r2ZN5djif
“No. She placed it for herself,” Otieno said. “We just saw it first.”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcAPHk6p5Pv
Kwame folded his hands beneath his chin, eyes distant.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXESfN82swL
“She wants the truth,” he said finally. “But she wants to control how it arrives. That makes her more dangerous than anyone in the Order.”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBxFkRXX0ET
He pulled a thin strip of crimson paper from his pocket—the one he’d already sent back, tucked into the borrowed atlas. The message, his message, had been written in the penmanship of a prefect.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjzvmNTcoxJ
Because fear was best delivered in familiar fonts.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡly2T06I0gI
“Do you think she’ll trace it back to us?” Otieno asked.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLkqB1XixGR
Kwame shook his head. “She’s too smart to assume. But just uncertain enough to wonder.”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk5f983904Q
He tapped his fingers slowly on his knee.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0URMilHPkB
“If she follows the pattern, she’ll leave something else. Soon.”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHGxmfT1y8s
Otieno glanced up at the bleachers. “And if she doesn’t?”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjNhMD4ztCR
Kwame’s smile was subtle, grim. “Then she’s not the threat we hoped.”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn6AFVHzUlq
Back at Kisumu Girls. Kim walked slowly down the corridor, Shiko at her side, speaking quietly about missing class notes and cryptic schedules. But Kim wasn’t hearing her anymore.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzk1bLWYByb
Her eyes drifted to the rain outside. The same rain that fell across the wall. Across the space between schools. Between factions. Between watchers and the watched.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCGhCxYY6SM
“Do you think it’s the Order?” Shiko asked again.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ4bZoW60R2
Kim shook her head.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQdZKpZzXJs
“No,” she murmured. “I think it’s someone else.”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1MFRqGdlbI
From behind the hall’s corner, Seline watched them again. Kim. Shiko. Leaning too close. Whispering too easily. And something inside Seline turned—not with fear, but precision.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcCtkXZ9veP
She’d played these games before.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLnbB2y6pJG
And this time, she’d play them first.
*****38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡT1MUeDeqql
Ayo didn’t believe in ghosts.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfjLZSpQ1Aw
But that didn’t mean he didn’t see them.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡD2UXHZzIwu
They appeared in patterns. In broken routines. In marks left behind by people who didn’t want to be seen. And tonight, something was wrong with the air near the borehole — wrong in the way only silence could be when it used to hold secrets.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ89aONQ08Kb
He crouched low behind the shrub line, just beyond the outflow grate. The rusted maintenance hatch hadn’t been touched in years — not officially. But Ayo’s fingers brushed over the soft earth near the metal bolts and paused.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgnbEuCN9js
Prints. Not shoeprints. Barefoot. Deliberate. Light. Whoever had stepped here had done so with practice.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVrH4ZWjKvj
But what made him freeze wasn’t the shape. It was the color.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyQNsYtgoI0
Just beside one of the indentations, smeared into the grainy dust, was a curved smudge of blue ink. The same type of ink the old Order used for encoded warnings. But only one person had ever weaponized it.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCMHxOOZyIz
Mercy. Not as a prefect. Not even as a leader. But as something far older.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa4Hepy8ex0
Ayo’s breath caught.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡI8SjKXXpjI
Back when he was still new to the Shadow Walkers — still earning trust, still failing small tests — he’d once followed a trail of blue drops from the chapel rafters to the records room. It had led to a pile of books, all hollowed out, each containing forged Order directives. He’d reported it to Kwame, thinking it was an outside saboteur.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzuLmAPjQm7
But Kwame had only smiled that small, cold smile he wore when something clicked.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPGs1wKpA0k
“She was one of us. You just didn’t know it yet.”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqOIVjnJPSy
Mercy hadn’t just corrupted the Order.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKTVEfnwQdO
She’d outgrown it.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF2gFEJMFsK
She’d used it like a shell. A decoy.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNcM5BYzPQc
While underneath, in tunnels and side passages, she had trained with the Walkers.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡo9HdoB5jUV
Unaligned. Untraceable. Unquestioned. Until she got bored. Until she vanished.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVNieo3Fa56
And now— She was back.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM0AO2hYxaA
Ayo stepped back from the ink. His mind raced. The others wouldn’t believe him — not unless he brought proof. Kwame had always kept his assessments of Mercy quiet, never confirming her role. Otieno hated her. Jabari pretended she didn’t exist.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNqUUylemwD
But Ayo remembered. Mercy’s games hadn’t been about leadership. They’d been about control. And if she was laying ink again…38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs3qfctCRGU
She wasn’t just reclaiming a position. She was reactivating a network.
38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡW2xsh0pM9v
Mercy moved like she never left. She wasn’t hiding — not in the way the Order expected. She was remembering.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdJNKgMgCrc
Remembering how it felt to slip between the bell tower arches undetected, how blue ink bled better on sandstone, how shadows didn’t ask for loyalty — just silence. She knelt by the stones, dipped her finger in the capped vial, and traced the mark again:38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzOvDXXwPlP
A curved wing. Half-finished. Someone would find it. Eventually. And they would understand: Mercy wasn't returning to power. She was returning home.
*****38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡedRtQN9UTz
The prefects had finished inspection rounds. The paths were swept. The dorms were silent.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhxLgpnvRfA
But Kim was already up.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRxkOffoFri
Shiko had left her a note before dawn: “Come alone. Old pump.”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBZCCzqh3To
She pulled on her hoodie, slipped through the science wing’s fire exit, and jogged the narrow path behind the assembly hall. The air smelled of wet leaves and burning trash from the kitchen fires. The light was still violet-blue.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ814zezhMHE
When she arrived at the overgrown edge of the borehole courtyard, Shiko was already waiting, crouched low behind the wall of banana leaves.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3kVNIzC36B
Her eyes were locked on the concrete slab where the rusted borehole cage sat unused.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDjWzX60HFw
“Look,” Shiko whispered.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkWCr1gU12F
Kim followed her gaze — and froze. Drawn in four smooth arcs across the surface of the cement was a series of faint, blue ink symbols. Still wet in places. The lines gleamed like veins.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFB4Ky0OU79
Not graffiti. Not words. Symbols.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1gxXydFTSl
Kim knelt beside her, scanning them with an almost instinctive unease. A spiral, a horizontal stroke, a crescent hooked beneath a triangle.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNtu3LFRrLK
“This wasn’t here yesterday,” Shiko murmured.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOxItGgmEjY
“No wind or rain overnight,” Kim added. “No footprints.”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8Z9wWBhV4k
“Not visible ones,” Shiko replied grimly.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmx2K8FEJA9
They stared at the ink as it dried. One mark in particular — a shape like an inverted wing — felt familiar. Kim couldn’t place it.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVmLsDC8yJ2
But something in her chest stirred. A memory. Something old.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaTSyHuS6as
Blue ink. Sandstone. A girl with eyes that didn’t blink.
38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJKQpqojaBF
Mercy had always liked the borehole. It was forgotten, unguarded. The place where so many whispered things had begun when she still a junior in Form One three years ago.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDDHfhUj4e6
Now she walked its edge again, dipping her fingertip into a tiny jar of indigo ink and tracing her old mark on the slab — slow, deliberate strokes. Each curve a syllable. Each shape a warning.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡC9GX5Ms9kq
She wasn’t returning to the Order. She was reactivating her passage. The Shadow Walkers — on the girls’ side — would recognize the mark. Even if they didn’t know it was hers. Especially if they didn’t.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1M9F6LT3EU
She knelt, pressed her hand to the cement, and whispered:38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0pDqYXBG4J
“Curiosity wakes the tunnels. Let them crawl back to me.”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoMj8pncm2W
Then she vanished before the sun cleared the dorm rooftops.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGDsuqy2ata
“We should tell Naomi,” Shiko said.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAa5JkCCMnh
Kim didn’t move. “And say what? That someone wrote ancient wall symbols in ink that shouldn’t exist anymore?”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhkU3E9X1EG
She traced one of the crescents with her finger, careful not to touch the wet center.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzM0TACvifU
“I’ve seen this,” she whispered. “Last term. Just not this clear.”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWQT7s6FGjZ
Shiko looked at her sharply. “Where?”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8j3ovrD40E
Kim’s eyes lifted toward the wall.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFLJ8hcT4dO
“On a stone. Right before the night I saw them.”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9ajZU13EDC
“The boys?” Shiko asked.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡo1SeBYmYO2
Kim nodded.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHVmKQpFNX8
“And the girls who followed.”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu4Sl0E5dJp
Shiko’s voice dropped. “You think this is them?”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1sS26hFHue
“I think this is her.”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡy2fNSJJDgv
They didn’t say her name.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZvs5kCLINF
But in the silence that followed, the ink on the stone dried like breath held too long.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡW79VhzC6hJ
38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVjSF7gWeqy
