CHAPTER 1: The Thing She Lost
The woman’s hands trembled as she stared at the object in his palm.
It was a small silver locket—worn, scratched, but unmistakably hers.
“I… I lost that years ago,” she whispered, her voice barely holding together. “The same day… I met you boys.”
The man nodded slowly. “We know.”
Her heart began to pound.
“How do you have it?”
The three men exchanged glances, something heavy passing silently between them.
“We didn’t just take the food that day,” the second man said quietly. “We saw what happened after.”
Her face drained of color.
Because she remembered.
After feeding the boys, she had been followed… cornered by a desperate thief who had ripped the locket from her neck before running off into the dust.
“I thought it was gone forever,” she said.
“It almost was,” the first man replied. “We chased him.”
Her eyes widened. “You were just children…”
“We were hungry,” he said. “But you fed us. That made you… ours to protect.”
The third man stepped forward. “We found him. We got it back.”
She shook her head in disbelief. “Then why didn’t you return it?”
May you like
The air grew heavier.
“Because,” the first man said, his voice tightening, “that night changed everything.”
