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The lights flicker again. This time they don't come back immediately. The cottage falls into darkness. Then the emergency lights activate. Dim. Red. Wrong.
My phone buzzes. I grab it. No service. The screen flashes.
CALL FAILED
I try again. Same thing. I step toward the window. Outside, the street is empty. Too empty.
"Morrow."
He is staring at the front door.
"What?"
"Someone is there."
My heart starts pounding.
I look. Nothing. The porch is empty. The security camera monitor on my desk suddenly turns on. A live feed. The front porch. Empty. Then static. The image distorts.
For a fraction of a second, something appears. A figure. Standing beneath the porch light.
Watching the house. Then the feed cuts out.
I move closer.
"Did you see that?"
Morrow nods. His face has gone pale.
"Yes."
The screen goes black. Then words appear. Not typed. Not displayed. Written across the monitor.
STOP LOOKING.
I step back. Every instinct I have tells me to do something.
Run. Call someone. Fight. But I don't get what I am fighting.
I don't think I am alone in this house.
I grab my phone again. The signal returns for half a second. One bar. One chance. One name appears in my contacts. A name I haven't touched in years.
Rhett Cambridge.
My thumb hovers over it. I don't want to call him. I don't want him involved. I don't want to open that door. But then Morrow whispers:
"Carys?"
He looks terrified. Not for himself. For me. And that decides it. I press call.
The phone rings once. Twice. Three times. Calling Rhett is not just calling for help. It is admitting that I can't handle this myself.
And I hate that.
My entire career is built on helping people untangle the things they are too close to see. I built my reputation on clarity, logic, and understanding. Yet here I am. Standing in my own cottage. A 15-year-old boy who may be my son beside me. A message on my security system telling me to stop searching. And the one person I promised myself I would never need again is the person I am calling.
The phone rings again. Then—
