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Prologue: Corrine

Rose Novak was likethe first, most vulnerable weeks of her existence, and a bond had been forged between that child andcould ever break Sofia and Derek knew that That hen Rose and Micah had gone , they’d placed their faith in us to find them

Despite their trust, Ibrahim and I left The Shade without any se we did was hover around the island, scanning the waters closest to us, and then spiraling out further and further About fiveboat Ibrahim and I landed on the deck

“Corrine,” Ibrahim called He pointed to a splatter of dried blood at the bow He bent closer and sniffed it “Human blood”

Panic gripped me as I clutched my husband’s shoulder “Rose’s?”

Ibrahied

“What happened? Where could they be?”

“Let’s keep scanning the waters”

We covered a radius of several dozen miles more in this way, to no avail

Either Micah and Rose had drowned and were now beneath the waters somewhere, or Micah had found another boat and they’d set off on it But in the tiht them if they’d been in the water somewhere

We returned to Micah’s boat again We looked aroundthat could help us understand what had happened here

I walked to the bow, eyeing the splatters of blood again, while Ibrahim looked around the stern

“Corrine,” he said I tore my eyes away from the blood and approached him

“What?”

He turned to face ers It was too short and curly to be Rose’s, and Micah had blond hair

“Where did you find it?”

Ibrahi the wheel It was at least six feet high off the floor

“Whoever that hair belongs to is tall,” I said

“Of course, this boat belongs to The Shade This hair could belong to some other resident”

“Could Micah have had an accomplice?”

“Who?” Ibrahih head count Who else on the island has curly dark hair and could have done this to Rose?”