Chapter 1 - She’s Still Watching Us
Daniel heard scratching inside the old doghouse and thought an animal had gotten trapped in the yard.
Then he tore the wooden door open and found his children inside.
For one second, his mind refused to understand what his eyes were seeing.
The cold late-October air moved through the backyard.
Dry leaves scraped across the grass.
Bare branches shifted above the large tree where the weathered doghouse sat half-sunk into the dirt.
Inside it, curled into the cramped space where their golden retriever used to sleep, nine-year-old Lila had wrapped both arms around her little brother.
Noah was five.
His gray sweatshirt was dirty.
His pants were damp at the knees.
His lips trembled from cold.
Lila’s tangled brown hair covered part of her face. Her beige sweater was smeared with dirt and leaves. She had one hand pressed against Noah’s chest as if she could keep him warm by refusing to let go.
Daniel dropped to his knees.
“Lila? Noah?”
Noah lifted his head weakly.
“Daddy?”
The word nearly split Daniel in half.
He reached inside and lifted Noah against his chest. The boy locked both arms around his father’s neck and began trembling so hard Daniel could feel it through his dress shirt.
Daniel reached his free hand toward Lila.
She flinched sharply away.
Not from cold.
From him.
That broke something deeper.
“Lila,” he whispered. “It’s me.”
Her eyes filled.
“Dad… don’t make us go back.”
Daniel froze.
The house behind him glowed warm through the windows. Lamps on. Heat running. Dinner light shining over polished floors.
His children had been outside in a doghouse.
And his daughter was not asking to go inside.
She was begging not to.
Daniel stripped off his charcoal suit jacket and wrapped both children inside it as best he could, pulling them out of the doghouse together. Noah clung to his side. Lila stood stiffly, shaking, still trying to put herself between her brother and the house.
Daniel turned her gently toward him.
“Who put you in there?”
Lila’s breathing turned fast.
She looked past him.
Toward the upstairs window.
“She’s still watching us.”
Daniel turned.
The camera of his life moved with him toward the warm second-floor glass.
A curtain shifted.
Behind it stood the dark silhouette of an adult woman.
Then she disappeared.
Daniel rose immediately.
He placed both children behind his body.
His jaw tightened.
And the fear in his chest became something colder.
Controlled.
May you like
Focused.
Fury with a purpose.
