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We head straight to the office, grab the prank bags, and move in silence toward the kids’ rooms.
There’s no spark in my step. No wicked grin. No giggles bubbling beneath the surface. Just a strange hollowness in my chest, like I’m operating on muscle memory alone. I don’t know why we’re doing this.
Maybe I’m trying to feel human again.
Sammy’s been staying with the boys lately—Noah and James. Their door is closed, but we sit down outside it like ghosts and set every single alarm clock to 4 a.m. One by one, quiet as shadows, we slip them into the boys’ room.
Fifty clocks in total.
Tucked in drawers, under pillows, behind curtains, inside shoes.
The silence is thick. Every beep or click sounds like a gunshot in the stillness.
Then we pull out the markers.
James gets “fart face” i
