By then, sirens were already cutting through the air as police cars arrived, officers shouting orders, trying to control the growing panic, and then Mrs. Delaney, the choir director—sharp-tongued and always quick to judge—spotted Celeste and stormed toward her, her voice slicing through the chaos.
“Celeste Cooper! What are you doing?” she snapped. “Your sister is missing, and you’re playing in the dirt?”
Celeste didn’t react. She kept digging.
Her hands were bleeding now, streaks of red smearing across the stones, but she didn’t stop, and the crowd began to gather, whispers rising like poison.
“What is wrong with that girl?”
“She doesn’t even care…”
Daniel pushed through the crowd, his face wild with fear, and when he saw his daughter kneeling there, covered in mud, ignoring everything, something inside him broke.
“Celeste!” he shouted, grabbing her shoulder. “Get up! We have to find your sister!”
The moment he touched her, she let out a sound that didn’t belong to a child—a raw, primal scream—and twisted violently, biting into his arm hard enough to make him stumble back.
The crowd gasped.
“She’s lost it!” someone cried.