AVA’S POV
As I went to see for myself, tiptoeing and peeking through the front door, it was one of the security guards that came in through the gate.
Then I stepped out and asked him why he was coming in late, he said he didn’t go out, he was just surveying the environment just like Nicholas had ordered them to do.
I watched from the doorway as Ivy traced her tiny fingers over the edge of the puzzle piece, her brow squeezed in deep concentration.
Julie sat cross-legged beside her, silently sorting the colors into piles while Rita gently hummed a song I used to sing to them at bedtime.
A melody she hadn’t heard in weeks, but somehow still remembered.
They weren’t the same children I knew before.
I could see how they moved, how Julie’s shoulders hardened whenever the wind shook the
