Fifteen Years Back
Ralph's voice carried the weight of finality as he handed over the key and a stack of documents to Francis. "She's just a child. Drop her off at the orphanage. Lock up the papers. We're heading to the airport—the code is 1108. Make sure no one follows you." His smile was thin, perfunctory, the kind that masked calculation rather than affection. Loyalty, he promised, would be rewarded with a bonus.
The little girl beside him, only five years old, stood with a composure that unsettled him. He patted her shoulder, offering words of reassurance that rang hollow. "You're going to a very safe place. Yeah."
"I want to go with you," she said. Her voice was steady, her eyes dry. No tears, no trembling.
"You cannot," Ralph replied, forcing gentleness into his tone. "But I'll come back for you. What you saw today—forget it. Never speak of it to anyone. Understand?"
"Yes," she answered, her face unyielding.
Ralph studied her. For a child, she was too brave, too controlled. He recognized the seed of danger in her, the potential to become a threat. Yet he could not bring himself to erase her existence. He had already taken too much from her family.
"Go on, child. Never look back. Forget." With that, he left her at the orphanage gate, her small bags at her feet. Rain poured down, soaking her clothes, but she stood motionless, expressionless, for three long hours until a security guard finally noticed her.
The guard approached with forced cheer. "Hi… what's your name?"
The girl's silence stretched, her irritation hidden beneath her mask. At last, after repeated questioning, she spoke. "August."
The nannies exchanged glances. "She's cheeky, stubborn," one whispered.
"Nice name, August. You have a beautiful name," Nanny Leen said warmly. "This is home now. Go play with the others."
August rose but did not join the children her age. When they approached, she raised her hand in a silent command to leave her alone. The staff watched, defeated. Strange child, they thought.
Instead, she gravitated toward the teenagers, drawn to the shelves of books. Her eyes lingered until she selected one titled Revenge. She sat among the older children, reading slowly, her intelligence already unnerving. A disorder sharpened her mind beyond normal bounds, though she had yet to discover the darker versions of herself that lay dormant.
"Your pen," she said to the girl beside her. It was not a request but a demand. The girl obeyed, unsettled. August opened the book and scrawled 1108 on the first page, circling the number eight, then continued reading, highlighting passages with clinical precision.
"What's your name?" the girl asked, curiosity overriding caution.
"Introduce yourself properly," August replied without looking up.
The girl sighed. "I'm Cianly. Fifteen years old."
"August. I'm five. And I'd appreciate it if you stopped smiling at me." This time she met Cianly's gaze, her words cutting through the air with unnerving maturity.
"Okay," Cianly murmured, shaken. Who had ruined this child?
"She seems comfortable with Cian," Nanny Leen observed, relieved.
"We're in deep trouble this time," another nanny muttered, half in jest, half in dread.
They were right. August was no ordinary child. She was already shaping herself into something the world would struggle to contain.
•••
The rain had long since eased, but the storm Ralph left behind lingered in August's silence. She had obeyed his command to forget, yet the number 1108 burned in her mind like a brand. She did not cry, did not plead, did not falter. Instead, she carved the code into the first page of Revenge, as though anchoring herself to a secret only she could guard.
The nannies saw only a stubborn child, strange and aloof. They did not see the calculation in her eyes, the way she studied every detail around her as if cataloguing weaknesses. They did not know that her silence was not emptiness but strategy.
Cianly, the teenager who had offered her a pen, felt it most keenly. August's presence was unsettling, her words too sharp for a child, her gaze too steady. It was as though she had already lived a lifetime of betrayals.
"She seems comfortable with Cian," Nanny Leen repeated, trying to convince herself.
But the other nanny's muttered warning carried more truth than she realized. "We're in deep trouble this time."
August was not broken. She was becoming. The orphanage thought they had taken in a child, but what stood at their gates that night was something else entirely–a mind already shaped by secrets, betrayal, and the promise of vengeance.
And though Ralph believed he had left her behind, August had already begun to write her own story. One day, the code he gave her would resurface. One day, the child who never cried would become the woman who never forgot.