Vera

The scream left her throat before her mind could catch it.

Vanessa’s room was wrong.

Not destroyed.

Not ransacked.

Just… emptied.

The bed was unmade, the sheets twisted as if small hands had clawed for comfort. The night lamp still glowed faintly, warm and useless. The lion toy—the one Vanessa slept with every night—was gone.

Vera staggered forward, knees weak, palms braced against the doorframe.

“No,” she whispered. “No, no, no…”

This wasn’t chaos.

This was ...