Two men stepped forward, ready to pull her away, and that was when I moved.
“Back off!” I barked, stepping between them and the girl.
“Marcus, move,” Daniel said, his voice shaking. “My daughter is missing.”
“Look at her hands,” I told him.
They looked.
And then they saw it.
Celeste hadn’t been digging aimlessly—she had uncovered something.
An old iron grate buried deep in the foundation, hidden beneath years of ivy and dirt.
She wasn’t playing.
She was trying to move the heavy stone blocking it.
Her fingers slipped against the rock as she tried again, tears running down her face—not from fear, but from frustration—and Mrs. Delaney scoffed, crossing her arms.
“There’s nothing down there,” she said dismissively.
“Be quiet,” I snapped, dropping to my knees beside Celeste.
I didn’t ask questions. I grabbed the stone with both hands and pulled with everything I had until it shifted, cracked loose, and rolled aside, releasing a burst of cold, foul air from the darkness below.
Celeste leaned forward, pressing her face against the iron bars, peering into the pitch-black hole, and in a voice so soft it barely carried, she said,
“I found her.”
For a moment, no one moved.