Chapter 2

The house was deathly quiet. The silence was a physical weight, pressing down on me, suffocating me. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think.

Then my phone buzzed. It was Molly, Andrew' s younger sister. She was a sharp, compassionate lawyer who had always treated me like her real sister, not just a sister-in-law.

"Jocelyn? I heard what Andrew did. I'm on my way over. We're going to get them."

Relief, sharp and painful, shot through me. Molly arrived twenty minutes later, her face a thundercloud of fury. "That bastard," she muttered, pulling me into a hug. "Get in the car. I have the address of the camp."

We drove for hours, deep into the arid landscape of the remote desert. The sun beat down on the car, the heat relentless. My anxiety grew with every mile, a tight knot in my stomach.

As we finally pulled up to the gate of the "camp"-a collection of dilapidated buildings surrounded by a high fence-my phone buzzed again. It was an Instagram notification.

My hands shook as I opened the app. It was a post from Andrew.

A sonogram picture.

The caption read: "A new chapter begins. We can't wait to meet you." Maria was tagged in the photo.

At that exact moment, the gate to the camp creaked open and a grim-faced man walked out, flanked by two police officers. He looked at us, then at the ground.

"Are you the family of Caleb and Jayden Duncan?" the officer asked, his voice gentle.

Molly and I got out of the car. I couldn't speak. I just nodded, my eyes fixed on the man from the camp.

"There was an incident," the officer said carefully. "The boys... they suffered from severe dehydration and heatstroke. I'm so sorry. They didn't make it."

The world tilted. The officer' s words didn' t make sense. They were just sounds, meaningless noise. I looked from his face to the sonogram on my phone, then back to his face.

Dead? My boys?

No. It wasn't possible. I had just held them yesterday.

Molly let out a strangled cry and grabbed my arm to steady me. My phone slipped from my numb fingers and clattered onto the dusty ground. The screen showed Andrew and Maria's happy announcement, a grotesque monument to their new chapter, built on the graves of my children.

My knees gave out, and the world went black.