CHAPTER 19 #3
Quinn got out of bed, her bare feet hitting the cold hardwood with a soft slap. Her hands were shaking—fine tremors that made her fingers twitch. What was happening?
She moved to her bedroom window, her heart pounding so hard she could feel it in her throat, in her temples, in her fingertips. The old floorboards creaked under her weight—sounds she’d known her whole life but now seemed deafening.
Quinn reached the window and pulled back the lace curtain just enough to see, the fabric rough and dusty against her palm.
The yard was dark. Too dark.
The motion sensor lights that should have been triggered—that Nathan had tested just hours ago—weren’t on. The sodium-yellow glow that usually washed across the driveway and side yard was absent, leaving everything in shadow.
Quinn’s breath fogged the cold windowpane as she pressed closer, straining to see.
Movement near the garage. A shadow that didn’t belong—too solid, too deliberate to be anything natural. Someone was out there.
Nathan’s silhouette appeared, moving toward it, weapon drawn. Even from this distance, Quinn could see the tension in his shoulders, the caution in his movements as he cleared corners, checked sight lines.
Quinn’s breath caught in her chest.
She should call 911. Should call Dax. Should do something other than stand here frozen like a useless bystander.
But she couldn’t move. Could only watch as Nathan disappeared around the side of the garage, swallowed by the darkness.
Watching.
Waiting.
The night was silent.
Too silent.
No crickets. No wind rustling the trees. Even the ambient hum of the neighborhood—distant traffic, humming power lines, the white noise of civilization—seemed to have been sucked away, leaving only a vacuum of quiet that pressed against Quinn’s eardrums.
And then…nothing.
No gunshots. No sounds of struggle. No shouts or crashes or any indication of what was happening in the dark.
Just...silence.
Quinn waited for Nathan to reappear. For him to come back around the corner and wave at her window, give her the all-clear signal. For him to come back and say everything was fine, just a raccoon or a branch breaking or something harmless.
But he didn’t come back.
Minutes passed.
Quinn counted them by the digital clock on her nightstand, watching the glowing numbers change. 11:47. 11:48. 11:49.
Five minutes.
Nathan still hadn’t reappeared.
11:52. 11:53.
Ten minutes.
Quinn’s hands were shaking so hard now she could barely grip the curtain. Her breath was coming in short, shallow gasps that made her light-headed.
Where was Nathan?
She should call someone. Do something.
But instead, she stood at her window and waited for Nathan to come back, her forehead pressed against the cold glass, her breath fogging and clearing in rhythmic patterns.
Waited and waited and waited.
But the yard stayed dark and empty and silent.
And Nathan didn’t return.
11:56.
Fifteen minutes.
Something was very, very wrong.
Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore. Quinn tore herself away from the window and reached for her phone on the nightstand, her fingers fumbling in the dark. She needed to call 911. Now.
The phone’s screen lit up, painfully bright in the darkness, and Quinn had just pulled up the keypad when she heard it.
A sound from somewhere in the house.
Quinn froze, her thumb hovering over the 9.
Not the front door—Nathan had left through there and it had never closed. The distinctive click of the latch would have carried in the silence.
Something else.
A soft creak of hinges. A whisper of movement. The back door? The one with the broken lock that Nathan had said he’d fix tomorrow?
Tomorrow.
Always tomorrow.
Quinn’s breath stopped in her chest, trapped there like a bird in a cage.
Someone was in the house.
Her mind raced, thoughts tumbling over each other in panicked disorder. Should she call? Should she hide? Should she run?
The floor creaked—an old house sound she knew intimately, the particular groan of the board just inside the kitchen doorway where the wood had warped slightly over decades.
Footsteps. Slow. Deliberate. Not hurrying.
Someone wasn’t running. Wasn’t searching frantically. They were walking with purpose. With certainty.
Someone who knew exactly where they were going.
Someone looking for her.
Quinn’s paralysis broke. She moved to her bedroom door on legs that felt disconnected from her body, pressed her back against the wall beside it.
The wallpaper was textured under her shoulders—rough, familiar, real.
Her phone was clutched in her hand but her fingers wouldn’t work right.
Wouldn’t coordinate. Couldn’t dial. Couldn’t press the buttons.
The screen went dark from inactivity, plunging her back into shadow.
More footsteps. Coming down the hallway now.
One at a time.
The third step from the bathroom—the board that always creaked. She heard it groan under weight.
Measured steps. Not hurrying. Not rushing.
Whoever it was knew she was here. Knew she had nowhere to go. Was taking their time.
The casual confidence of a predator who’d already cornered their prey.
Quinn looked around wildly for a weapon. Something. Anything.