Chapter 26
SLOANE
My scream ripped out of me before I could swallow it. I stood in my bedroom doorway, frozen, staring at the wall like it had turned into something else while I wasn’t looking.
A rabbit.
Painted in blood.
The ears were too long. The lines were confident. Thick drips ran down the drywall and gathered at the baseboard. Someone had been in my house. In my goddamn bedroom while I was down the hall. Same person. Had to be. The head in the fridge was a warning. This was something else entirely.
My body went cold all at once, and a sickly sweet smell invaded my nostrils.
I stumbled backward into the hallway and pressed my shoulder to the wall so I could keep the bedroom in view without stepping fully inside.
I listened. Nothing. No footfalls. No breath.
No shifting weight. The silence didn’t calm me. It made my skin crawl.
I kept the doorway in sight. I reached back inside, blindly, and hooked my fingers around the handle of the bat I kept near the bed. It felt solid and familiar.
I dragged it out into the hallway and held it tightly, the weight settling me the way a plan did.
I moved quickly down the hall to the spare room across from the war room. Boxes of old files and evidence crowded the space. I stepped inside, shut the door behind me, and locked it.
I stood a few feet back from the door, angled so I could swing if I had to, and listened again.
At first there was only the normal house noise. The HVAC humming. The faint tick of the clock in the living room I never paid attention to.
Then a soft click from somewhere down the hall. My grip tightened on the bat until my knuckles ached, and I held my breath. Nothing followed it.
My phone was already in my hand, and I called Jade first.
It rang a few times but went to voicemail.
“Jade,” I whispered when it picked up, keeping my voice low and tight. “Call me back. Now. Someone was in my house.”
I ended the call and tried again immediately. No answer.
Something thudded softly against the wall outside the room. Not a slam. Not a crash. A dull bump like a shoulder had brushed the drywall.
My heart lurched, and I blinked hard as my brain tried to give me options. A groan in the pipes. The house settling. I wasn’t buying it.
I called Eli.
He picked up on the second ring. “Sloane?”
“Someone was in my house. Might still be.” My words were hushed and clipped.
His voice snapped into focus. “Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Are you alone?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I think so.”
I heard papers rustling in the background. “Did you call 9-1-1?”
“No, don’t. We can handle it. I just need help. If the cops get involved …”
“Sloane. You’re not being smart about this.”
“I am. You’ll get here before they do anyway.”
He sighed through the phone. “Where are you?”
“In the room I use for storage with the door locked.”
“Good. Do you have something you can use as a weapon?” he asked.
I wiped the sweat off my forehead. “The bat.”
“Okay. Put me on speaker. Don’t hang up.”
I switched him to speaker and set the phone on the desk with the screen facing me. Then I stepped back into my stance. Bat up. Feet planted. Door in my line of sight.
Eli’s voice stayed steady. “Tell me exactly what you saw.”
“A rabbit.” My stomach lurched. “In blood on my bedroom wall.”
He paused, and I suspected he was processing, his brain kicking into overdrive.
Then Eli’s tone went colder. “Okay. I’m less than ten minutes. You stay behind that locked door.”
“I am.”
“Listen.” I heard his car start through the speaker. “If you hear the doorknob move, you don’t investigate. You leave. Do you have a window in that room?”
“Yeah.”
“If the handle turns, you go out the window and you run to your neighbor’s. Not your car. Not the driveway. Neighbor’s porch with a light. Do you understand me?”
“Yes.” As if I didn’t know this already, but Eli had always been protective of me.
Eli kept talking, calm and methodical. “Now tell me what the house is doing. Any noises?”
I opened my mouth to answer and heard it. A faint scrape. It wasn’t loud, but like something sliding across the tile floor. It came from the direction of the kitchen.
My pulse spiked so hard my vision sharpen. “I heard something.”
“What? Describe it.”
“A scrape.” I flexed my fingers around the bat. “It sounded like a chair leg, but quieter.”
“Okay.” His voice tightened. “Where are you positioned?”
“Back from the door. I can see the handle.”
“Good. Don’t move. Don’t announce yourself.”
I stayed still, every muscle locked, staring at the doorknob as if it was the only thing keeping the rest of the house from flooding in.
A slow creak followed. A floorboard somewhere in the hallway.
My neck muscles tightened. “It’s quiet again.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Eli replied. “Some people are good at being quiet.”
The HVAC kicked on with a soft whoosh that made my nerves jump anyway. Then a faint tap hit glass.
My head snapped toward the window, but only darkness stared back. The blind didn’t move. No shadow crossed the yard. Only my reflection and the faint glow of the desk lamp.
“What was that?” Eli demanded.
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “It sounded like something hit the window.”
“Do you see movement outside?”
I moved low, careful not to silhouette myself, and pulled the blind back a fraction with two fingers. The street looked normal. The neighbor’s porch light was steady across the way, but no strange figure in the yard.
“No.”
“Okay,” Eli nearly whispered. “Back away from the window.”
I did, and my eyes went right back to the door. A faint rattle followed from the hallway again.
My stomach dropped so hard it felt like a punch, and my grip slipped on the bat. “Eli.”
“I’m here,” he said instantly. “Talk to me.”
“I heard metal. Like keys. Or … a lock.”
“Could be nothing.” The way he said it told me he didn’t believe that. “But we treat it like something. If that handle turns, you go.”
“I know.”
“Say it,” he ordered. “Say what you’re going to do.”
My nails bit into my palm. “If the handle turns, I go out the window and to the neighbor’s porch with a light.”
“Good,” Eli said, firm. “And you don’t stop to grab anything.”
Something brushed the wall outside. A soft scrape against drywall, so close I felt it in my teeth. I didn’t breathe. I didn’t even fucking blink. The brush sound moved away, down the hall, slowly.
My heart slammed hard enough to make my vision flicker. “It’s right outside.”
Eli’s voice snapped tight. “Sloane, listen to me. Are you sure?”
“Yes.” My throat burned. “It was on the wall. Right there.”
“Okay. Okay. You stay where you are. Don’t open that door. I’m almost there.”
Then the scrape again. This time further away, like someone stepping onto tile with the sole of their shoe dragging just enough to hear.
Then the house went quiet in a way that felt deliberate.
Eli kept talking, a steady line I could grab on to. “I’m turning onto your street.”
My chest tightened.
A second later, headlights swept across the front window, a wash of light and shadow across the blinds.
“Do you see a car?” Eli asked.
“Yeah.”
“That’s me. I’m parking. Do not open the door until you check the peephole. I’m walking up now.”
Footsteps hit my porch. A knock sounded at my front door. Two quick taps. Then two more.
“It’s me,” Eli said through the phone and through the wood at the same time. “Open it but keep the bat.”
I cracked the door open and peered down the hall. Clear. I slipped out, keeping close to the wall as my heart hammered, then checked the peephole.