Chapter One: 12:44 A.M.

Sometimes it meant disappointment, sometimes forgiveness. On my worst nights it said only: You saved strangers. You did not save me. “What do you do with it?” I asked. “The pain we give you?” “Pain is life force placed in the wrong location,” Bai Zhi said. “We let it rest where it belongs.” She guided my finger to the bottom of the form. The paper was warm as skin. I should have left, called the police, or at least taken a photograph. Instead, I pictured the reflection due at nine, another night shift, another dawn listening to my heart pound in the dark. I signed. The chair closed gently around me. Bai Zhi attached silver threads to my temples and told me to find the moment I most wanted to lose.