[Phoebe was sick again today. The medicine Damian gave her seems pretty potent, and it''s making


    her react badly. The poor kid''s be withdrawn since she started on it.]


    Exclusive content ? by N?(v)el/Dr/ama.Org.


    [Edward took Phoebe to the orphanage today. When she got back, her clothes were torn, and I was


    worried that she might have gotten into a scrap with the other kids. I asked Edward about it, but he


    said that Phoebe was a good girl today, didn''t fight or get physical with anyone. She even cried!]


    Between the lines, I could tell my mom was thrilled about me crying. I tried to piece together those


    hazy, unclear memories.


    Before I met Colin, I indeed never cried. I didn''t cry at birth, which led the doctors to think I was


    mute, although I ended up speaking earlier than most kids my age. Eventer, when they would


    provoke me or hit me, ver cried.


    The day I first cried at the orphanage, as recorded in the diary, I was wearing a red dress. It must


    have been when those bullies at the orphanage tried to yank it off me.


    As I flipped through the journal, I noticed how meticulously my mom documented my life, missing


    not a single day. But the entries stopped cold during the days I was sent to the psychiatric hospital.


    Not a word about Damian''s treatment.


    [Today Phoebe lost her temper with the neighbors. They wereining about us keeping arge


    dog and even tried to drive Howler away.]


    ...


    My mom''s journal is filled with the mundane details of my life at home, but what''s odd is that there''s


    not a single mention of Colin and Carter, as if on purpose...


    I was close with Colin and Carter, and my parents must have known about my romance with Colin.


    So why is there no mention of it in the diary?


    It only noted that Phoebe made a friend at the orphanage who seemed to trust and like her a lot.


    And then there''s the entry that says I seemed to naturally attract kids with congenital personality


    defects, that they trusted me and yed well together.


    As I read through entry after entry, most were just boring daily stuff, but those two sentences sent


    chills down my spine.


    Putting it together with what Robin and Finn said, these didn''t seem like journal entries at all, more


    like notes from an experiment.


    I took a deep breath and kept reading.


    Why did Dexter say I was purposely forgetting Colin? And that Colin had hurt me?


    Sure enough, there was an entry from early in my eighteenth year, noting that Phoebe said she was


    an adult now and wanted her own independent life. She had started to rebel.


    And adolescence, indeed the age of hormonal surge, Phoebe was just like any other teenager,


    perhaps even more intense.


    The next entry.


    [Today we took Phoebe to get her blood drawn for tests. Her hormone levels have changed, but her


    physical and gic makeup still prevent her from having gically healthy children.]


    [March 27th: Phoebe disappeared. Today is the second day she''s been gone.]


    [March 28th: Still no clues about Phoebe''s whereabouts. That person is clever, hiding her away.]


    [March 29th: No leads today either, but Zero has also vanished. I suspect he took Phoebe.]


    I furrowed my brow, stopping my scrolling finger, staring at the screen.


    Zero? Was it the codename for the person who took me? Who was it that took me away?


    [April 8th: Atst, we found Phoebe. Zero had locked her in a cer, her hands shackled with


    chains, covered in wounds, barely clinging to life.]


    My mom had taken a photo of me tied up in the cer, battered and breathless, hands bound in


    chains. It was a harrowing sight.


    I felt a sense of panic. I had disappeared on March 26th and wasn''t found until April 8th. During that


    time, it seemed my parents didn''t even call the police.


    And from the photo, it was clear that my mom''s first reaction wasn''t to rescue me, but to take a


    photograph.


    Even more eerie was that my mom, who in my memory loved me so dearly, wrote the journal entries


    of those days without any emotion. Her words didn''t convey worry or urgency, but seemed like a


    clinical record of each day.


    My fingers trembling, I slowly scrolled through the entries on my phone.


    Who was Zero?


    [April 9th: Zero was found too. He was brought back home by Ethan who promised to discipline his


    son and not let him bother Phoebe again.]


    My gaze was locked in shock on the screen. The photo from the 9th, taken by my mom, was of


    Colin.


    Zero was Colin.


    Was that the codename they gave to Colin? Why?


    In the photo, Colin looked desperate, struggling against the Langley family''s bodyguards pinning


    him to the ground, with Ethan also in the picture.


    I looked at this man in the photo, supposedly Colin''s biological father, and frowned subtly.