Mrs. Whitmore’s sharp eyes narrowed, boring into mine as if she could peel back my skin and read the desperate lies keeping me upright. The heavy silence of the sitting room felt vacuum-sealed.

It was a spacious, sunlit room with high arched windows, but it was suffocatingly quiet. Shelves lined the walls, filled with hundreds of high-end educational toys, art supplies, and books—all completely untouched, perfectly organized, and gathering a faint layer of dust.

In the center of the room sat Noah.

He was curled up in a large beanbag chair, clutching Captain Buttons to his chest, staring blankly out the window at the snow-dusted gardens below.

True to Mrs. Whitmore’s instructions, I kept my head down, moving silently across the hardwood floor with a dusting cloth and a spray bottle. I wiped down the bookshelves, polished the wooden activity tables, and swept the corners, hyper-aware of the small, silent shadow sitting only ten feet away from me.

As I reached the low art table near his chair, I noticed something strange.

On the center of the table lay a blank sketchpad and a box of colored pencils. Next to it was a small, intricately folded origami paper swan—slightly crumpled, as if someone had struggled to fold it with shaking hands.

I paused, my cleaning cloth hovering in the air.

My special education training—the years I spent working with traumatized children before Lily got sick—whispered in the back of my mind. Traumatized children don't communicate with spoken words when their world has been shattered. They communicate through symbols, art, and touch.

Slowly, deliberately, making sure my movements were completely non-threatening, I reached into my apron pocket.

I pulled out a small, spare piece of pink plastic cord left over from Lily’s bracelet-making kit.

Without looking directly at Noah, I set the pink cord down on the corner of the art table, right beside his sketchpad. Then, using my right hand, I slowly formed a simple sign in American Sign Language: Help—placing my fist on top of my open palm and lifting them together.

I didn't say a word. I just lowered my gaze and resumed wiping the bookshelf.

Minutes passed. The room was so quiet I could hear the faint ticking of a grandfather clock in the hallway.

Then, I heard a soft rustling sound.

Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.

I glanced sideways out of the corner of my eye.

Noah had leaned forward out of his beanbag chair. His small, pale fingers had picked up the pink plastic cord. He was running his thumb over the smooth, flexible plastic, his grey eyes fixed on it with intense, burning concentration.

Then, slowly, he picked up a dark blue colored pencil.

He pulled a fresh sheet of paper from the sketchpad and began to draw.

He didn't draw a monster. He didn't draw a gun, or a dark alley, or a terrifying underworld king.

He drew two stick figures standing side by side under a massive, looming storm cloud. One figure was large, with jagged black lines radiating from its chest. The smaller figure was holding a pink string.

And right between them, written in shaky, clumsy, childlike block letters, was a single word:

LOUD.

My breath hitched in my throat.

He’s talking about his father’s anger, I realized with a jolt of pure terror. He’s terrified of Damian.