Chapter 1 - The Cluttered Hiding Spot
The bright, cheerful daylight pouring into the massive laundry room was a sickening contrast to the absolute, suffocating terror paralyzing the space. The room was cluttered with expensive scattered clothes and heavy woven baskets, but hiding desperately in the narrow gap beside the massive white washing machine was a tiny, trembling six-year-old girl.
Maisie wore a pretty purple dress and a soft white cardigan, but she looked like a hunted animal. On her right foot was a heavy, bulky gray medical boot.
She was shivering violently, her chest heaving with quiet, desperate panic as she clutched a cheap, plastic pink emergency phone tightly against her heart. Her big blue eyes were flooded with watery, terrified tears, locked entirely on the open door of the laundry room.
"Please don't call Mommy," Maisie whispered into the pink phone, her tiny voice cracking with sheer, unadulterated fear. "He'll pick up."
The cinematic realism of her pure childhood terror completely electrified the room. The person on the other end of the line was completely silent, listening to the little girl weep.
"Mommy is asleep at the hospital," Maisie choked out, looking down at her heavy gray medical boot. "And he's looking for me. He says I talk too much."
Suddenly, the heavy, deliberate sound of expensive leather dress shoes echoed loudly against the hardwood floor in the hallway outside. The footsteps were incredibly slow, calculating, and dripping with lethal, predatory patience.
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A tall, broad shadow violently blocked the daylight spilling through the laundry room doorway.
👉 Maisie clamped her tiny hands over her mouth, completely unaware that the man on the other end of the phone was about to burn the city down to save her.
