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Nine days until Halloween. Nine days until whatever is coming reaches its peak. I have the damaged sensor in my hand. Then back toward the woods.

"It knows we're here."

I close my fingers around the broken device.

"And now it knows what we're capable of."

13

CARYS

OCTOBER 22 ~ 9 DAYS UNTIL HALLOWEEN

There are moments when your entire understanding of reality has to be rebuilt. Not adjusted. Not reconsidered. Rebuilt.

Watching Rhett stand in my backyard with glowing eyes, impossible strength, and something wild moving beneath his skin should have broken my brain.

A normal person would have panicked. A normal person would have run. I have never been particularly normal. Instead, I did what I always do when confronted with something impossible.

I collected information. Which is exactly why I am furious.

"You could have told me."

Rhett looks up from the broken sensor he placed on the kitchen table.

"I know."

"No."

I step closer.

"You don't get to say that like it makes this better."

His jaw tightens.

"I was trying to protect you."

"There it is."

"What?"

"The sentence every person uses right before they make a decision for me."

His expression shifts. Not anger. Recognition.

Good. He knows exactly what I'm talking about.

"You don't understand what you saw."

"I saw enough."

"No."

His voice lowers.

"You saw what I allowed you to see."

That stops me. Because somehow that is worse.