Chapter 2: What Was at the Bottom
My hands were shaking as I picked it up.
It was a g*n.
Small, dark, and very real.
I sat on the edge of Leo's mattress and couldn't move.
My mind kept repeating the same question — why does an eight-year-old boy have this?
I heard footsteps on the stairs.
I shoved it under the mattress just before Leo appeared in the doorway, his sandwich half-eaten, his eyes scanning the room.
"Do you like it?" my husband asked from behind him.
"We painted it your favorite color."
Leo didn't answer.
His eyes went straight to the empty trash bag on the floor.
Then he looked at me.
Not at the room.
Not at the dresser.
Directly at me.
"You emptied it already," he said.
His voice was completely flat.
"I did, sweetheart," I said carefully.
"I wanted to get your clothes put away."
He nodded slowly.
But something shifted in his face — a tightness around his eyes that no eight-year-old should have.
That night, after he fell asleep, I sat at the kitchen table and told my husband everything.
He went pale too.
"We have to call someone," he said.
"And say what?" I whispered.
"That we're going to send him back?"
Neither of us spoke for a long moment.
Then my husband said something quietly that made my stomach drop completely.
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What Leo's past was hiding is darker than either of them expected.
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