In 2027, brilliant quantum engineer Samantha Chen starts hearing a voice in her head - one that knows far too much about the string of unexplained deaths sweeping across small American towns. The voice claims to be Lelah, a young girl whose consciousness was somehow stolen and digitized. But as Samantha and her colleague Ethan investigate bodies marked with strange puncture wounds, she begins to question everything: Is Lelah real? A manifestation of her own fracturing mind? Or something more sinister? Powerful organizations are hunting for this a mysterious energy source. Now Samantha finds herself at the center of a deadly conflict, never sure if the voice guiding her is friend or foe. With reality itself seeming to unravel, she must uncover the truth about Lelah and the dark forces behind these deaths - before she becomes the next target. In this haunting near-future thriller, Steven Ochs blends cutting-edge science with psychological suspense to ask the ultimate question: When you can’t trust your own mind, who can you trust? ”Brilliant, terrifying, and impossible to put down. THE HIDDEN CHILD will make you question the nature of consciousness itself.” —Ruby Nguyen