Chapter 1 - Prom Ends Before It Starts
Daniel’s hand tightened around the old photograph.
Emily stood beside Marcus in her pale blue prom dress, one hand still linked with his.
Nobody moved.
Marcus looked from Daniel to the photograph.
“That’s my mom.”
Daniel swallowed.
“I know.”
Emily’s fingers slipped from Marcus’s.
“What do you mean, you know?”
Daniel set the picture on the table.
“Rachel Bennett and I knew each other before you were born.”
Marcus’s jaw tightened.
“How well?”
Daniel didn’t answer fast enough.
Emily stepped back.
“Dad.”
“Very well.”
The room changed.
Prom music drifted faintly from Emily’s phone where it lay on the couch.
Marcus stared at Daniel’s face, then touched the small scar near his eyebrow.
Daniel touched the matching scar near his own without thinking.
Emily saw it.
So did Marcus.
“No,” she whispered.
Daniel asked Marcus, “When were you born?”
Marcus gave the date.
Daniel went still.
The timing fit.
Too well.
Emily’s breathing turned shallow.
Marcus pulled out his phone.
“I’m calling my mom.”
Rachel didn’t answer.
He called again.
Voicemail.
Daniel grabbed his own phone and searched an old contact archive.
Rachel’s number was there.
He hadn’t touched it in seventeen years.
He called.
No answer.
Emily shook her head.
“We’re not doing this based on a picture and a scar.”
Daniel looked at her.
“We need a DNA test.”
Marcus flinched.
Emily did too.
Daniel hated himself for saying it.
But the alternative was worse.
Marcus nodded.
“Fine.”
Emily’s eyes filled.
“Marcus—”
“No. We need to know.”
He turned away and tried Rachel again.
This time a text appeared.
His face changed.
“What?”
He didn’t answer.
Emily reached for the phone.
Marcus tried to lower it.
Too late.
The message sat on the screen.
DO NOT LET DANIEL CARTER TEST YOUR DNA.
Emily stared.
Daniel read it over her shoulder.
The blood drained from his face.
Marcus typed back.
WHY?
Three dots appeared.
Stopped.
Appeared again.
Then vanished.
Daniel said, “Call her from my phone.”
Marcus did.
Rachel answered on the first ring.
Nobody spoke for a second.
Then she said, “Daniel?”
He closed his eyes.
“Rachel.”
Her breath caught.
“Marcus is with you?”
“Yes.”
A long silence.
Daniel looked at Emily.
She stood frozen beside the stairs, corsage still around her wrist.
He said, “Tell me I’m wrong.”
Rachel didn’t.
“Rachel.”
Her voice came low.
“Do not test him.”
“Why?”
“Because that result will not give you the answer you think it will.”
Daniel’s chest tightened.
“What answer will it give me?”
Rachel whispered something he almost missed.
“It will wake up people who think that boy should not exist.”
The line went dead.
Marcus stared at the phone.
Emily whispered, “Dad, what does that mean?”
Daniel looked at the photograph again.
Rachel at twenty.
A young Daniel beside her.
Except now, looking closer, he noticed something he had missed for seventeen years.
The man in the photo wore a black signet ring.
Daniel had never owned that ring.
His twin brother had.
The brother who died when they were six.
Daniel’s hands went cold.
He called Rachel back.
No answer.
Then Marcus’s phone buzzed again.
One message.
COME ALONE.
And beneath it:
May you like
ASK DANIEL ABOUT DAVID.
CUT.
