CHAPTER ONE56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz1fv1mFTMm
“Colonial Codes”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgcnCocKEXM
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUHyr7TC3N4
He wasn’t alone.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwjUj5QO5jp
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcp9m16bRlv
“I’ve found it,” Jabari said quietly, pulling out a single, sealed envelope tied with faded red tape. In ink barely legible, it read:56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqexVSTuS1n
‘Edict 17B – Joint Custody Regulations – Kisumu Educational Districts – Dated: 1925’56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA3Aci0HguO
Musa looked up. “You sure that’s the one?”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkqOVgokQZh
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxc4YFIEK8h
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ76UYju8i3J
Jabari’s grip on the page tightened. “They didn’t just separate the schools. They erased the idea of unity.”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbvyG9VAW3N
“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.’”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnMARuYV4YS
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,56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLoZadsNztM
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXUAQeQDVt4
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOxrfrq13G7
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡT9JoiPq2Qv
“One... two... three.”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp48uOoNlXe
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXBX5ifkOAa
Inside was a roll of thick paper bound with twin cords — one red, one blue.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdq53x72kBg
Jabari unrolled it slowly. His breath caught.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpe3EL4DfAV
It was a map.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYe1CN6Bd9e
Faint, but clear enough: the outline of the school compound. Except… it was too broad. It stretched beyond the wall. It showed both schools.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbtxG2svwbO
His pulse quickened.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1SNXMiH9em
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRYoxDAoI2N
It reemerged somewhere beyond, marked only with a symbol: a water droplet inside a flame. No labels. No words.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0B6VW0SC3j
And then there was the note, in the same hand as before:56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjDWYsvZ6Ql
“Built before the split. Sealed after the first betrayal. Still dry. Still waiting.”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBYe9RoVZyZ
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpIILCtD6Hf
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS6ZxjDJKta
“Movement,” he whispered. “Not just contact. Exchange.”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxXawyjdr4k
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvH6cISBekZ
Back in his dorm, Juma was waiting at the window, arms folded.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡc3aRewAZwV
“Well?”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQZaSFxWl86
Jabari answered with a look, and a word neither of them had said aloud in months:56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfJU53Q8F3D
“It’s real.”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxNNrug88Mf
They didn’t speak of it again. Not yet.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtU0IZDia4h
But that night, for the first time in years, Juma dreamt not of climbing over the wall—but of passing through it.
**********56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEnSdTTnm92
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrdYS6FBcsB
They did not leave names. Only echoes.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfiDZX8QfPg
They did not follow rules. Only shadows.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTEC3MRfusb
They did not ask permission. They moved.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5lACfWphnc
And on one night, two terms ago, Kim had seen them — though she didn’t yet understand who or what they were.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB3AFBxYQoW
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaESDc9a1je
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe3yjnWWf0a
And they had.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ1YEF0d6xp
To her.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa2TyQAXoqY
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡD3gd4qAtUT
They meet underground, in a forgotten crawlspace beneath the collapsed greenhouse, where mildew clings to concrete and the walls sweat memory.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHgkHYlGYtT
Only a few know the way. Fewer still survive it.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnD5oS8pvmz
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOaBHfvkJUP
They didn’t speak often. Shadow Walkers spoke through action.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQbCvIiwVvj
When Ayo arrived, breathless and muddy from the drainage slope behind the dorms, he tossed down a folded square of stiff paper.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSbrjX42spA
A fragment of a science exam from Kisumu Girls. Still warm.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCtLPJrMsJa
“Direct,” Kwame murmured. “Clean.”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmgSWXIFcvl
Otieno smiled faintly. “The wall’s just paper now.”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIQCG0Mqi6o
“No,” Kwame said. “The wall is a myth.”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWQF1wXRFrL
They are not a gang. Not a cult.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv7San1Lpef
Not an extension of the Order.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeYbZYQpXSU
They do not ask for allegiance.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡujC0O2VOT3
They require only presence.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE0ebtInVFu
Their only law:56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeU7x1x9OyH
“Never be still.”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡznnBNgqgOb
Shadow Walkers are the quiet between bells. The blur behind hallway reflections.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiNMs0NOb7W
The glitch in the security feed.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpqD4XViCAw
They are protest and prophecy. They are the sharp breath before the truth drops.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ58zwnOluqM
No crests. No salutes. Just movement.
**********56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiDGAd8cpg7
Kim stared at the red paper again, its surface soft but deliberate—cut clean, folded once, nothing else. Just the line:56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfgHrEYmgwT
“Curiosity is no longer a private habit.”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAAH6x3OnZv
It wasn't a threat. It wasn't a joke.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSTWqWkZseB
It was a signal. But from who?56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZAQrcBq0bm
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCyMIt8j1mA
And it meant someone had not just found her test note… but understood it.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzcP29tX19x
Stone markings. The first thread that never frayed.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡElCu5SvbI4
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx4CMfWMCFY
Not by replying. By returning it—transformed.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmsdUO2hgE2
Kim clutched the atlas tighter to her chest.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoF45DDn6MV
Someone had mapped her thinking.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDmGf5PwwvF
And not by surveillance. Not by prefect tricks. This wasn’t Mercy. This wasn’t Naomi.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiLTGv7GT6t
This was someone else.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlHU20Qx29W
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6qxuVi4P4U
Otieno crouched nearby, watching Kwame unfold the latest page torn from Kim’s original decoy.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ38NLYxiW7a
“‘The first thread that never frayed,’” Otieno read aloud, smiling faintly. “She’s poetic.”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqwWxfAFnoB
“She’s calculated,” Kwame corrected. “She placed this for us.”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXZ2P2vONSo
“No. She placed it for herself,” Otieno said. “We just saw it first.”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd73kHjYtoV
Kwame folded his hands beneath his chin, eyes distant.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd380hXFyjC
“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.”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQbmFR32RXf
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJFtl5bGIxH
Because fear was best delivered in familiar fonts.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ66C0PLRRcv
“Do you think she’ll trace it back to us?” Otieno asked.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzheZnafSJH
Kwame shook his head. “She’s too smart to assume. But just uncertain enough to wonder.”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRNER7OLikb
He tapped his fingers slowly on his knee.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz3qQ7R5hw7
“If she follows the pattern, she’ll leave something else. Soon.”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEV0LE7nKEt
Otieno glanced up at the bleachers. “And if she doesn’t?”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ24rLfwf8w6
Kwame’s smile was subtle, grim. “Then she’s not the threat we hoped.”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbDQMxLz0qP
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3rFNvYKu0Y
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqsHZb6PNxP
“Do you think it’s the Order?” Shiko asked again.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB83yOg2BeI
Kim shook her head.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxbhHCRPGdq
“No,” she murmured. “I think it’s someone else.”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEccLEMw7xt
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9JLYdOCGII
She’d played these games before.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL2ZV8q84GQ
And this time, she’d play them first.
*****56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4DLmvBaCRX
Ayo didn’t believe in ghosts.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvrXoLS1iCZ
But that didn’t mean he didn’t see them.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkRBDg15ID5
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMrZ5eF21et
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6n9MeJDyp1
Prints. Not shoeprints. Barefoot. Deliberate. Light. Whoever had stepped here had done so with practice.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxv0fHehUNU
But what made him freeze wasn’t the shape. It was the color.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDy3kcKEbXq
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡG1c7wJoN72
Mercy. Not as a prefect. Not even as a leader. But as something far older.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMCmZPzqIoy
Ayo’s breath caught.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyr6dBPorkw
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4vPfR2HMW1
But Kwame had only smiled that small, cold smile he wore when something clicked.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ95vRXyDvwr
“She was one of us. You just didn’t know it yet.”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4Oga9gdRMn
Mercy hadn’t just corrupted the Order.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaOyGWzIGS4
She’d outgrown it.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡenFqknKc6v
She’d used it like a shell. A decoy.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOquHYfG9Hx
While underneath, in tunnels and side passages, she had trained with the Walkers.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBSihpORZSs
Unaligned. Untraceable. Unquestioned. Until she got bored. Until she vanished.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡy53vGdtNRf
And now— She was back.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTsHZrFUwNd
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJFDTTH1Yzj
But Ayo remembered. Mercy’s games hadn’t been about leadership. They’d been about control. And if she was laying ink again…56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF6CZHL2Jua
She wasn’t just reclaiming a position. She was reactivating a network.
56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdt8zRiCKQY
Mercy moved like she never left. She wasn’t hiding — not in the way the Order expected. She was remembering.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPrLZsP1edr
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:56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj6QmL5ez5F
A curved wing. Half-finished. Someone would find it. Eventually. And they would understand: Mercy wasn't returning to power. She was returning home.
*****56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡif7f6bGEqG
The prefects had finished inspection rounds. The paths were swept. The dorms were silent.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡALKAO7pkqH
But Kim was already up.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXm5UbbtUbD
Shiko had left her a note before dawn: “Come alone. Old pump.”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhWW0U2uI2J
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnDlzMufgXT
When she arrived at the overgrown edge of the borehole courtyard, Shiko was already waiting, crouched low behind the wall of banana leaves.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoO42r2xdfF
Her eyes were locked on the concrete slab where the rusted borehole cage sat unused.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYteiZKVcVt
“Look,” Shiko whispered.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIQDIMreTPU
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡthH2DAIClD
Not graffiti. Not words. Symbols.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsnHzFCh69x
Kim knelt beside her, scanning them with an almost instinctive unease. A spiral, a horizontal stroke, a crescent hooked beneath a triangle.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJeB2DvWGuS
“This wasn’t here yesterday,” Shiko murmured.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNwUyOAYtnf
“No wind or rain overnight,” Kim added. “No footprints.”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9FM2oZuVIq
“Not visible ones,” Shiko replied grimly.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPmauFC6UcK
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQOoboemQZt
But something in her chest stirred. A memory. Something old.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX4iI1NZHPG
Blue ink. Sandstone. A girl with eyes that didn’t blink.
56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa4IIh0nrrz
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡh3q1CtU5d6
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7Movemj9wL
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.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX8GbwL96BS
She knelt, pressed her hand to the cement, and whispered:56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM321kofZNH
“Curiosity wakes the tunnels. Let them crawl back to me.”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIyx4pbN1Km
Then she vanished before the sun cleared the dorm rooftops.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaRvHgEs7xS
“We should tell Naomi,” Shiko said.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq62r0UDwur
Kim didn’t move. “And say what? That someone wrote ancient wall symbols in ink that shouldn’t exist anymore?”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBRRAbX4AmP
She traced one of the crescents with her finger, careful not to touch the wet center.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRxSU6EnVYV
“I’ve seen this,” she whispered. “Last term. Just not this clear.”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNq1p8Q370S
Shiko looked at her sharply. “Where?”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLx9sbIBinH
Kim’s eyes lifted toward the wall.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7rasv9PqXB
“On a stone. Right before the night I saw them.”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYTiwMOl2wv
“The boys?” Shiko asked.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkjHEqZgASL
Kim nodded.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEAmK7VuhzC
“And the girls who followed.”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEtD1mG4T5k
Shiko’s voice dropped. “You think this is them?”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbgRYK85wQS
“I think this is her.”56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ51zaSGyv6f
They didn’t say her name.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIzjsZNCOsJ
But in the silence that followed, the ink on the stone dried like breath held too long.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4PJbkNMNF6
56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7O952o1xwB
