Annabelle Landers didn’t move, staring at me as if I could be a ghostly apparition, able to disappear at any moment.

This wasn’t the first time I saw the woman who had given me life.

I’d seen her reflection in the mirror within the bathroom of the club. I’d looked her up online once I knew more about her. Yet none of that prepared me for this second, for the way my heart pounded in my chest, my circulation drummed in my ears, or my hand trembled on the ...