roryreads93
One school project. Two names. Fifteen years of "medical" lies.
In the quiet suburbs of Keller, Texas, seventeen-year-old Tate Reed is defined by three things: his junior year at high school, his high-tech prosthetic leg, and a list of life-threatening allergies that keep his world small and safe. He's always known he was adopted, but he's been told his "biological surrender" was a rescue from a tragic situation.
Then comes the Friday in Law & Justice class that changes everything.
For a cold case assignment, Tate, his best friend Cale, and his girlfriend Amelia dig into a 2011 disappearance that stop their hearts. The file describes Tate Williams, a sixteen-month-old snatched from a grocery store cart in Austin. The baby wasn't just a name-he was a mirror. He had the same Fibular Hemimelia requiring an early amputation. He had the same rare, lethal allergies to soy, pineapple, and shellfish. And he had a distinct, bird-shaped red birthmark on his shoulder blade that Tate sees in the mirror every morning.
The trail leads to a now-shuttered, corrupt foster care facility and a biological family that never stopped screaming for him: an Australian mother who stayed in Texas to keep a fifteen-year vigil, and a First Nations father who became a Texas Ranger specifically to find the people who stole his son.
As 2026 technology bridges the gap between a toddler's disappearance and a teenager's reality, Tate must navigate a dangerous web of systemic corruption. His adoptive parents claim they were "saving" a forgotten child, but the medical records suggest he was a stolen legacy.
To find his future, Tate must unearth his stolen roots-even if it means tearing his entire world apart.