There are moments that split a life in two: the before and the after. For sixteen-year-old Isabella Weber, that moment came on an ordinary Tuesday morning in September, when she woke to find her brother's bed empty and a hastily scrawled note on his desk: *"Don't look for me. I'm sorry."*

Marcus Weber—honor student, science club president, and Isabella's best friend—had vanished without a trace. No warning. No explanation. Just an empty room and three words that would haunt their small town of Mill Haven for months to come.

The police called it a typical teenage runaway case. They pointed to the growing statistics of kids who leave home, cited the pressures of senior year, and suggested family counseling. But they didn't know Marcus like Isabella did. They hadn't seen the strange lights he'd photographed near the old Miller factory, or heard his excited whispers about breakthrough discoveries. They hadn't noticed how his hands shook during that last family dinner, or how he'd hugged Isabella extra long before she went to bed that night.