Ethan hadn't slept.
Not the restless kind where dreams fade when morning comes. This was worse. His body lay still all night while his mind paced in circles, stopping only to ask the same question again and again—each time louder.
Why me?
Out of all the people tangled in masks, warnings, secrets, and invisible hands… why was he the one being protected?
By morning, the answer didn't come.
So he went looking for it.
The orphanage gate creaked open under his hand.
That sound alone nearly made him turn back.
He had heard it before. More than once.
The building stood there like it always had—fresh paint trying to hide old bones. New signs, trimmed hedges, security cameras mounted at the corners. Yet beneath it all, the place felt unchanged.
Watching.
Ethan stepped inside.
At the front desk, the woman flipped through papers without looking up.
"Sign in, please."
He wrote his name.
The pen stopped scratching halfway through the page.
Silence.
Slowly, she lifted her head.
Her eyes widened—not in surprise, but recognition.
"…You're back."
Ethan's stomach tightened. "You remember me."
Ms. Turner leaned back in her chair, studying him carefully, like she was comparing him to a version stored in her head.
"Some children don't leave," she said softly. "They just grow taller."
He swallowed. "Last time I came, you said I was asking dangerous questions."
She gave a small, sad smile. "And I hoped you'd stop asking."
"Did I?" he asked.
Her silence was answer enough.
"I need the truth," Ethan said. "Not the file version. Not the polite version."
Ms. Turner hesitated. Her fingers tapped once on the desk.
"You were never meant to remember everything," she said quietly. "Only enough to survive."
"That's not an answer."
She exhaled. "You didn't arrive here alone."
The words landed heavy.
"That's not possible," Ethan said. "I was told I was found. No records. No family."
She nodded slowly. "That's what we were instructed to say."
Instructed.
"By who?" Ethan pressed.
Before she could respond—
"Ms. Turner."
The voice came from behind them.
Low. Controlled.
Both of them turned.
The man stood in the hallway like he'd always belonged there. Gray hair. Clean coat. Eyes sharp enough to cut through years.
Ethan felt it immediately.
Recognition.
"We've met," Ethan said.
"Yes," the man replied calmly. "You just didn't remember."
Ms. Turner straightened instantly. "I'll step away."
"No," Ethan said sharply. "Stay."
The man smiled faintly. "Still protective of witnesses. That hasn't changed."
"What hasn't changed?" Ethan demanded. "Because everything else in my life feels fake."
The man walked closer, his footsteps measured.
"You were brought here on a stormy night," he said. "Two boys. Same blood. Different instructions."
Ethan felt his pulse spike. "Two boys?"
"One was claimed," the man continued. "One was hidden."
Ethan's hands clenched. "Hidden from who?"
The man didn't answer.
Instead, he asked, "Do you know why the Cole family adopted you?"
Ethan shook his head.
"They were asked," the man said. "And because the Reeve family owed them something they never wanted to owe."
The name crashed through Ethan like impact.
"Reeve?" he whispered.
Ms. Turner looked away.
"Daniel Reeve?" Ethan pressed.
The man's expression darkened slightly. "His bloodline."
"That's insane," Ethan said. "I don't belong to them."
"Blood doesn't ask permission," the man replied. "It only waits."
Ethan's phone vibrated in his pocket.
One message.
You went back.
His breath caught.
"You knew," Ethan said.
The man nodded once. "He always does."
Something inside Ethan shifted.
The warnings.
The anger.
The obsession with his safety.
It wasn't surveillance.
It was protection.
Because the gorilla mask wasn't just watching him.
It was guarding him.
And behind that mask—
wasn't just a man hiding.
It was a brother who remembered everything Ethan was forced to forget.
What Was Taken
The man didn't stay.
That was the first thing Ethan noticed.
He delivered the truth like a sealed envelope, then stepped back as if whatever followed was no longer his responsibility. Ms. Turner waited until his footsteps faded down the hall before she moved again.
Her hands were trembling.
"You shouldn't have come back," she said quietly.
Ethan didn't respond. He was staring at the hallway where the man had stood, replaying every word, every pause, every choice to not explain.
Two boys.
Same blood.
Different instructions.
"That night," Ethan said at last, "what actually happened?"
Ms. Turner hesitated. Then she stood.
"Come with me."
They didn't go toward the offices.
They went deeper.
Past the renovated wings. Past the cheerful murals and locked classrooms. Down a narrower corridor where the lights buzzed faintly, older wiring humming behind the walls.
"This part of the building was never meant to be updated," she said. "Too many… complications."
She stopped in front of a metal door.
No label.
Just a keyhole polished from years of use.
Inside was a records room that smelled like paper and dust and time. Filing cabinets lined the walls, most of them sealed, some of them dented. Ms. Turner crossed to the far end and pulled one drawer open.
She didn't hand him a file.
She placed it on the table between them.
"This is what remains," she said.
Ethan opened it slowly.
The first page wasn't his name.
It was a date.
The night of the storm.
The intake report listed two arrivals, not one.
One name had been neatly crossed out in black ink. Not erased. Not removed.
Crossed out.
"You see?" Ms. Turner whispered. "They didn't delete him. They marked him."
Ethan's throat tightened. "Why?"
"Because deletion raises questions," she said. "But reassignment looks like order."
He flipped through the pages.
Medical checks. Behavioral notes. Two columns where there should've been one. One boy listed as withdrawn, observant, nonverbal under stress.
The other—
The other was marked protective, reactive, aggressive only when separated.
Ethan stopped breathing.
"This—" His voice cracked. "This isn't me."
Ms. Turner nodded slowly. "No."
He turned the page.
There it was.
A transfer authorization.
Only one signature remained visible.
D. REEVE
Below it, another name had been scratched out so hard the paper thinned.
"The decision was made that same night," Ms. Turner said. "One child was to disappear into safety. The other was to disappear into silence."
"Why split us?" Ethan asked, barely audible.
She met his eyes. "Because together, you were a liability."
Ethan leaned back, heart pounding.
All those moments—
The sudden rescues.
The warnings before danger.
The rage beneath protection.
Not guilt.
Fear.
"They didn't take him away from me," Ethan said slowly. "They took me away from him."
Ms. Turner didn't correct him.
Instead, she reached into the drawer and pulled out one last item.
A photograph.
Two boys, no older than six, standing side by side in the courtyard.
One was gripping the other's sleeve.
Hard.
Like letting go wasn't an option.
"You were crying," Ms. Turner said softly. "He wasn't."
Ethan stared at the image until it blurred.
"So all this time," he whispered, "he wasn't protecting me because of a debt."
"No," she replied.
"He was protecting what they failed to erase."
Ethan folded the file closed.
The past wasn't a mystery anymore.
It was a crime scene.
And somewhere out there, Dawson Daniel Reeve had been carrying the weight of a decision made in the rain—one that split blood, rewrote lives, and turned a brother into a shadow.
Ethan stood.
"Thank you," he said.
Ms. Turner watched him carefully. "For what?"
"For not pretending I was alone."
As he walked back toward the exit, his phone vibrated.
No warning.
No anonymity.
Just a single message.
You weren't hidden to protect you.
You were hidden to control me.
Ethan typed back without hesitation.
I remember now.
The reply came instantly.
Good.
Because once you remember—
no one gets to choose for us again.
Ethan stepped outside, the orphanage gate closing behind him with the same creak it always made.
But this time, the sound didn't chase him away.
It followed him forward.
And somewhere in the city, two lives that had been split by instruction were quietly moving toward collision.
Blood didn't forget.
And neither did the truth.