Chapter 2
BLAIR
Iwake with the certainty that someone has just left the room.
It’s not fear. Not the sharp, choking panic of waking from a nightmare—but something quieter and more invasive. Almost like the sense of a presence withdrawing…of air settling back into place after being disturbed.
For a moment, I don’t move. I just lie there with my eyes closed, listening.
The ocean is loud this morning, crashing hard against the rocks below, a constant, unforgiving rhythm that fills the spaces silence can’t quite reach. Wind presses against the glass, a low whistle threading through the house.
There’s nothing else, no footsteps, no voices, but something in me stays alert, stretched thin and listening, as if I’ve woken in the middle of something I wasn’t meant to notice.
Which doesn’t make sense, because I don’t wake like this.
I sleep too deeply for that, I always have.
The kind of sleep that drags me under fast and keeps me there, heavy and unbroken, where hours disappear without edges and nothing reaches me once I’m gone.
My parents used to joke about how nothing could wake me, how I could sleep through anything if I needed to.
So the fact that I’m here now, hovering on the surface, aware, and pulled out of it without knowing why, feels wrong in a way I can’t quite explain.
I open my eyes slowly.
Morning light spills into the room, pale and clean, cutting through the narrow gap in the door exactly the way it always does.
The bed is wide beneath me, unfamiliar in a way that still hasn’t worn off.
The sheets twisted low around my legs indicate I was restless during the night, but everything looks the same.
My sleep mask discarded on the side table, untouched.
I push myself up onto one elbow, scanning the room, my gaze catching on corners first—the chair, the window, the shadowed spaces where something could stand if it wanted to.
There’s nothing. No one. I let out a slow breath, but it doesn’t quite settle in my chest. It was a dream, I tell myself. Not even a real one. Just a feeling. The kind that lingers when you’ve been alone too long, when your mind starts filling the silence with things that aren’t there.
When you’re hiding.
I slip out of bed, my feet settling on the cold floor, grounding me instantly. A chill travels up through my body sharply, which feels like something tangible I can hold on to.
The house is too quiet. It always is, but not the comforting quiet of being alone. More the kind that feels aware of itself. Like it’s holding its breath.
I grab the blanket from the bed and wrap it around my shoulders before moving toward the door. I hesitate just before opening it, as something pulls tight in my chest. A strange, irrational thought flickers through my mind…that if I move fast enough, I might catch whoever was here.
I push the door wide open, but the hallway is empty.
Sunlight stretches across the floor, turning the stairs into a pale path leading down. Again, there’s no movement, no sound, no sign of anyone but me. I exhale slowly, forcing my shoulders to relax.
You’re fine. You chose this place because no one would find you.
That part still holds. It has to; I remind myself. The blanket trails behind me as I pad quietly down the stairs to the kitchen. It’s exactly as I left it. The mug in the sink. The counter wiped clean. The quiet order I’ve forced onto a place that wasn’t meant to be lived in.
I start to make coffee on autopilot, the routine enough to slowly steady me. The smell fills the space quickly, softening the edges of the house, making it feel occupied and homely. Making it feel human.
Once brewed, I wrap my hands around the mug and lean against the counter, letting my eyes drift across the open space.
Nothing appears to have moved or is visibly wrong, but I can’t seem to shake the feeling.
It sits just beneath my skin, subtle and persistent, like something uncomfortable that I can’t control. That I didn’t plan. Not like this.
Running had been messy and panicked. The kind of decision you make when there’s no time left to pretend you still have choices. My father had made it clear, not directly, but implied in a way you knew was not up for debate.
There would be a dinner. There is always a dinner before something final.
He gave me the name of a man I’d met once before and never wanted to see again.
He was much older and had smiled at me in a way that didn’t reach his eyes.
I remember the way my skin had crawled then. It feels worse now, knowing why.
“You’ll be taken care of,” my father had said, his voice calm, almost reassuring, as if he were offering me something generous instead of handing me over in some unsavory deal. Like it wasn’t already decided.
I didn’t argue or make a fuss because I knew how it would go if I did.
The illusion of choice would disappear. The dinner would vanish, along with the pretence that this was just a conversation.
Whatever fictitious layer of courtesy he was offering would be stripped away, and what came next would be so much faster and cleaner.
So I said nothing. And in the silence, it settled into something inevitable. I’d waited, biding my time, and then I’d gone looking.
His office had always been off-limits—not locked, not technically, but understood. The kind of boundary you don’t cross unless you’re ready to deal with what’s on the other side.
I crossed it anyway. I rummaged through drawers and files I didn’t understand, saw names I recognized and wished I didn’t. And then I found something…a coastal house.
It hadn’t looked like much at first, just another property buried in paperwork that wasn’t meant to be noticed. But the details were different.
There were coordinates instead of an address and notes written in shorthand that didn’t make sense initially.
This house was super private. It was off the books and used for meetings only. There was a code.
I’d stared at it for a long time, working it out like a cryptic puzzle. It was a place that wasn’t supposed to exist, one where no one would think to look. I memorized what I needed, packed a small bag, and left that same night.
I take a sip of coffee now, staring out through the glass at the stretch of ocean beyond, endless and indifferent. This beautiful place was supposed to be temporary, just somewhere to disappear long enough to think. To breathe and try to figure out what came next.
No one knows I’m here. I’ve been careful. That’s the whole point. And yet—
I glance toward the stairs, and the feeling creeps back in, quiet but insistent, as if the house isn’t as empty as I thought.
I take a breath and shake it off, annoyed with myself, and carry my coffee into the living room, curling up on the couch with the blanket pulled tightly around me.
You’re imagining things. You’ve been alone too long. That’s all this is.
Still, I replay the sensation in my mind.
It’s not fear or danger…just presence. Like someone has been there, close enough to matter. Close enough that I should know.
I close my eyes and try to pin it down, but it slips through my fingers every time I get close. No face, no sound, just the certainty of it.
I open my eyes again, staring out at the horizon, but that offers no answers. The ocean doesn’t care. It keeps moving, steady and relentless, like it always has. By midday, I’ve almost convinced myself it was nothing.
By evening, I’m not so sure. The house feels different at night, bigger and darker, with too many places for shadows to gather.
I lock the doors, even though I know no one comes here, and that was the entire reason I chose it.
One by one, I turn off the lights until only a single lamp remains, casting a faint glow across the living room.
Upstairs, I pause again with the same hesitation and the same tightness in my chest. It’s ridiculous. I know it is, but it doesn’t stop me glancing down the hallway, half-expecting something I can’t explain.
I use the bathroom, shower and force myself into the bedroom, into the bed, pulling the blanket up higher than usual, tucking it around me like it might make a difference. Like it might keep something out, or perhaps keep me in.
The house settles around me slowly as the night deepens, the ocean a familiar sound, pressing in from all sides. I close my eyes, but I don’t fall asleep right away. Instead, I listen. To the wind, the walls…to the space just beyond the door.
Waiting…not because I think someone will come…but because something inside me is no longer entirely convinced that I’m alone.