Ryan’s hand brushed my arm as all the equipment wound down. His fingers circled my elbow, and I felt his body pressing closer, his fingers holding firmer—as if he wanted us both to be sure.
“Just a sec,” I said, and then I turned everything back on. The house came to life. The lights, the hum of the freezer along the back wall, air moving through the vents up above.
Then I went to the main alarm box on the wall, pushed the reset button, and listened as the house let off a low beep—ready to arm. “Everything should be back up now,” I said.
“So,” he said, “everything’s okay?” His face like the moment before we fell, when I reached for him—on the cusp of relief.
Then there was silence, and suddenly in the stillness it occurred to me that I’d been overreacting. That there must be some simple explanation—an electrical surge, the police showing up at the gate, my mother letting them in. Maybe she’d had a health scare. Maybe she was in the hospital at this very moment, and someone was trying to call—but with the electrical surge, they couldn’t reach me.
“The alarm works fine. Which means—”
“What’s that?” Ryan asked, his head tilted to the side. He walked slowly toward the steps.
I thought he was talking about the alarm beep, or the vibration of the equipment above, coming back to life—but then I heard it, too. The faint hum of an engine revving. The slow crunch of gravel under tires, getting nearer.
“Oh,” I said.
I pictured the police, coming to tell me something about my mom. Something I wasn’t ready to hear. Maybe she’d been hurt, or felt sick, and called 911. Maybe she’d panicked about me, called 911, and they came, couldn’t calm her, took her away.
I placed a hand to my stomach as I walked up the stairs. This was it. This was the moment my life would change. I could feel how pivotal it was, the police showing up—my mom not okay and everyone learning the truth. The only place I’d ever known would no longer be mine.
I pulled back the front curtains, but I didn’t see any car.
The night was dark—darker, because of the lights reflected in the windows. But I thought I saw a shadow moving toward the front gate. I flipped on the outside lights on instinct, and whatever I thought was moving stopped. Everything within me turned on edge. Something prickled at the back of my neck, and for once, I didn’t try to ignore it.
“Turn off the lights, Ryan,” I said.
Slowly they shut down, one by one, my image dimming, and then disappearing, in the reflection.
There it was, just beyond the ring of light shining at the front gate—a shadow. From a tree? Or a person, watching the house?
My fingers fumbled at the alarm pad beside the door. I pressed and held the Arm key, listened to the house beep twice, letting me know we were safe. The gate was locked. A current was running once again through the wire at the top of the fence, with its high, spiked bars.
“What is it?” Ryan asked. I could feel his breath on the side of my face in the darkness.
I backed away from the window, not wanting to be seen.
I tried to talk myself out of the impending panic: I see the danger everywhere. I see the danger in everything. It isn’t real. Irrational fears.
I tapped the glass with my index finger. “Tell me what you see,” I whispered.
Ryan frowned, then leaned close to the window, his breath fogging the glass. “The bars of the gate. Trees.” He leaned toward the side. “I can kinda see the edge of my car.”
“That’s it? Look at the shadow at the edge of the light.”
He shook his head. “I don’t see anything.”
I stood beside him at the window, shoulder to shoulder, to point it out—but the shadow was gone.
I backed away from the window, panic lodged in my skull, words stuck in my throat. I ran to my room, fumbled for that key in the top drawer, and pulled the window grate shut, turning the lock and pushing the glass shut.
“Kelsey? What’s happening?” Ryan had followed me to my room, and he was watching me, focusing on my shaking hand, still gripping the key. And I wondered whether he was asking what was happening outside, or what was happening to me.
Paranoia. A trick of light. My mind making me see things that weren’t there. This was the fear talking. Crawling out from the corners, turning the safe into every different horrifying possibility. Impractical fears of things that would never happen. I was falling apart in front of Ryan Baker, and I couldn’t even stop myself.
But my mother was missing.
My mother was gone….
I ignored the question in his voice and ran back to the front window. There was nothing there. I moved from window to window, tracing the perimeter of the house—my eyes tracking the iron bars, a familiar comfort. I pulled open the living room curtains, and turned on the back lights, just as a shadow darted quickly behind the rails of the back gate.
The entire room was buzzing.
I saw it. I was sure.
“Ryan,” I said, my voice wavering. “Call the police.”
I had my back against the wall while Ryan still stood at the window with his phone in his hand, peering out into the dark between the gap of curtains. The difference between me and Ryan could be best summed up right here. I was hiding, imagining the worst, and he was curiously assessing the scene. He was not panicking unnecessarily, imagining all the terrible things people might do to each other.
I craned my neck to see the alarm console beside the front door, the red light, the word Armed, and let out a slow breath.
Ryan held the phone to his ear, his face pressed into the beige curtains, like he was about to give a practical, firsthand account of what he was looking at. There are shadows moving around the house. Right, no big deal, but you don’t understand, someone is missing.
Maybe my imagination was running away with me—maybe these were just a slew of illogical fears that I’d succumbed to, with nobody here to pull me out. Maybe I was taking Ryan down with me. Fear was contagious like that.
Two minutes later, and I was already second-guessing what I saw. How could I trust myself, when I heard my mother’s words echoing back? It could’ve been the wind moving branches, a trick of the light, clouds moving across the moon, an animal even.
I looked at Ryan, about to voice my thoughts. “Maybe…,” I began.
But then he pulled back from the window, lowered the phone, frowned at the display. The light of the phone display lit up his face in the dark, an eerie, unnatural glow. He tried again. Frowned again.
“What?” I asked.
“The call won’t go through. I can’t get any service,” he said.
My phone was on the kitchen table, where I’d wasted time staring at it, debating what to do. Doing nothing.
Move, Kelsey. Do something.
I walked across the room, feeling for the furniture as I passed—dark shapes in a darker room. My limbs tingled like they had when I’d woken in the car, hanging upside down—like they understood, even before I did, the wrongness of the situation.
I squinted against the bright display in the dark and dialed 911, but as soon as I hit Enter, the call dropped. I looked at the display—Searching for service. I shook my head at Ryan, then said, “Same here,” in case he couldn’t see me. I picked up the corded phone hanging from the wall, but all I heard was the faint click, the dead air.
“Try sending someone a message,” I said. Jan. I’d text Jan. I need help, I wrote, but a message popped up in response: Failure to send.
I looked over at Ryan, and from the way he was staring at the phone, he was getting the same result. I walked toward him, half his body in shadow. His eyes were wide, his body still and contained, and I recognized his expression from the moment we felt the cable snap. The knowledge that we were falling. The realization that it was all out of our control…
“What’s happening?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, going back to the gap between the curtains. I stared at the alarm beside the front door, still flashing Armed.