At the clinic gate, a 7-year-old collapsed, crying, “Mommy has been sleeping for three days, please save them.” The doctor rushed to help the newborn twins, but as he lifted them, his hands shook. Underneath the babies was a handwritten note from the mother that made the doctor freeze in terror…

gaps in my education. Delfina found steady work at the town’s library once the boys were old enough for daycare.

We had staged a rebellion against the dark, and the light had answered.

Chapter 7: The Rusted Monument

Five years later, the brutal summer of the wheelbarrow felt like a vivid, terrifying movie I had watched a long time ago.

I stood in the sunlit continue reading …