Standing barefoot beside the rails.
Children lined up beside me.
A woman in white gloves kneeling in front of us.
Smiling gently.
“Good children obey.”
A little boy beside me asks where they’re going.
The woman smiles wider.
“Somewhere useful.”
Then the guards separate him from the line.
I never saw him again.
The memory snaps so violently, I gasp out loud.
“Hannah!”
Clay grips my shoulders before I hit the wall.
I’m shaking hard now.
“He wasn’t real,” I whisper.
“Oh God…”
Clay’s face tightens.
“Who?”
“The boy beside me.”
Tears burn instantly down my face.
“I forgot him.”
The horror of that crushes me more than the memory itself.
Because how many children did Sentinel erase from us?
How many names disappeared?
Gabriel steps closer slowly.
“Hannah…”
“They made us forget each other.”
My voice cracks completely.
“That was the point.”
Silence settles heavily around the tunnel.
