The woman froze.

The man in her lap gasped again, his chest rising like someone had pulled him back from somewhere far away.

“Oh my God,” she whispered.

The boy swayed on his knees.

A thin line of blood ran from his nose to his lip, but he wiped it quickly with his sleeve like he had done this before.

The woman grabbed his arm.

“What did you do?”

He looked at the crowd gathering around them.

“Don’t ask here.”

The man opened his eyes weakly.

The woman burst into sobs and held his face.

“You came back,” she cried. “You came back.”

But the boy was already trying to stand.

His legs trembled.

The woman caught him before he fell.

“You’re hurt.”

“I’m fine,” he lied.

The man looked at the boy, confused, breathing hard.

“Who is he?”

The woman didn’t answer.

Because she had just seen the boy’s sleeve pull back.

On his wrist was a small hospital band.

Old.

Dirty.

But still readable.

Her heart stopped when she saw the name.

The same hospital.

The same night.

The night her baby brother had disappeared from the children’s ward twelve years ago.

She looked at the boy’s face again.

The tired eyes.

The shape of his mouth.

The tiny scar under his eyebrow.

Her voice broke.

“What’s your name?”

The boy stepped back, afraid now.

“I don’t have one.”

The woman’s hand covered her mouth.

Because her missing brother’s name had been Noah.

And Noah had been born with a gift the doctors told her family never to speak about.