Chapter 42
DANIEL
Daniel watches the taillights shrink into the distance and feels the heat behind his eyes that used to be easier to disguise as irritation. It’s not the walk-off that stings so much as the performance of it — Tom’s little moral grandstanding.
He stands on the pavement and lets the city breathe around him. A slow, precise anger fills him up, the kind that cools and hardens into something dangerous when you don’t let it out.
Tom’s become stubborn, dismissive, disrespectful of what they once had. He was trying to help, to warn him. And what does he get: a slammed door and the smell of burnt rubber.
How does he know Emma?
Emma Christianson had been a surprise he hadn’t expected. His heart took a taxi to his mouth when she’d walked away from Tom’s house as Daniel had been watching from the shadow of the poplar.
But, as ever, he smelt an opportunity. He thought this would be his way back in. He thought this could be the connection he was looking for, the ignition to bring them back together.
Emma was trouble. She was a fraud, a liar.
Dangerous.
His time in her presence back then was enough to recognise that. And now she’s here, sniffing around Tom.
What’s her game? Is this about him? Daniel cannot think of a viable situation where they would become friends.
But here we are.
He thought he could use Tom’s relationship with Emma to get back inside, but that ship has sailed.
And now he’s out of time.
No more time to reignite a relationship with Tom.
No more searching through Tom’s house.
Daniel jumps into his car and speeds off home. When he reaches his street, something feels off immediately.
It’s subtle. A wrongness more than a detail. The usual quiet hum of the road is there, the orange glow of streetlights, the familiar outline of his building — but his front door is ajar.
Just an inch.
Enough to notice.
His body reacts before his brain catches up. He stops. Listens. The air feels thick, stale, as if the house itself is holding its breath.
He doesn’t move straight in. Instead, he steps to one side, scans the windows. No lights on. No movement. His heartbeat thuds hard and steady, each beat a reminder of how much he has to lose.
He pushes the door open with two fingers.
Inside is quiet.
The hallway smells wrong. Sweet and rotten at the same time.
His shoes stick slightly to the floor as he steps inside.
“Fuck,” he murmurs.
The living room is untouched. Kitchen the same. No drawers pulled out. No obvious chaos. That almost makes it worse — the deliberateness of it. Whoever’s been here wasn’t searching. They already knew where everything was.
He moves toward the bedroom.
The door is open.
The smell hits him first, sharp enough to make his eyes water. Then the sight lands, heavy and irreversible.
There is a fox laid out on his bed.
Its body is twisted unnaturally, fur matted dark with blood. The tail — impossibly bright, almost theatrical — has been severed and placed carefully across the pillow, like a gift. The sheets are soaked through, red blooming outward in obscene patterns.
Daniel doesn’t scream.
He doesn’t move.
His gaze drifts past the bed, to the wall beyond it.
Smeared there, in uneven, dripping letters, are two words.
DEADLINE
TONIGHT
Written in the fox’s blood.
Something inside him finally fractures.
A sound escapes him — not a sob, not quite a laugh. His hand comes up to his mouth too late, his stomach lurching as the reality of it crashes in. This isn’t a warning. It’s not a reminder.
It’s a promise.
He stumbles back, knocking into the doorframe, breath coming shallow and fast now. His phone vibrates again in his pocket, but he doesn’t need to look. He already knows.
From the bedroom window, he sees them.
A car idling at the end of the street. Dark. Unremarkable. Watching.
The brake lights flare red.
Then the car pulls away, taillights shrinking into the distance, as calm and unhurried as if they’ve just dropped off groceries.
Daniel sinks down onto the edge of the bed, careful not to touch the body, hands trembling now despite himself. The heat behind his eyes returns, sharper this time, no longer masquerading as irritation.
This is fear.
Pure and undeniable.
Tonight is no longer a deadline—it’s a reckoning.
Tonight is his final chance to get what he needs.
And he will get it by any means.