Page 102 of In the Dark of the Past

“They waited until morning. They could have sent it at 2:47, and they waited.”

“They wanted us to have the morning first,” I said. “So we’d know they could reach it.”

She set her jaw. “Then we take back the reach.” She turned and walked toward my office.

I watched her go for half a second and then I followed.

We had a plan to build.

Chapter Thirty-One

River

Stonybrooke looked worse than I remembered.

Which was saying something, considering Dad always called it a cautionary tale. “Places like this were meant to help people, River. But it’s not a place you ever want to be. Remember that.”

Seeing it up close as an adult, all these years after my mother…the place didn’t look like somewhere a person could be helped.

It looked like somewhere a person went to disappear.

The massive main building hunched against the mountainside, eaten alive by mildew and time. Broken windows like punched-out teeth. A roof bowed with rot. Floodwater scars climbing the walls like bruises that never healed.

It shouldn’t have been standing. And yet here it was, albeit leaning and groaning. Waiting.

Finn parked far enough back that the cruiser could pivot and flee in a single turn. Smart. Necessary. The kind of detail you only learned after walking into too many traps.

“Flashlights low,” he said, checking his weapon with his good hand. “No shouting. No wandering. And if I say run⁠—”

“We run,” Atlas finished. “Yeah, boss, we’re aware the floor plan looks like a demon designed it.”

I murmured, “Feel free to volunteer yourself as the sacrifice.”

Atlas shot me a look. “Offering rejected.”

Finn moved closer, lowering his voice. “Stay between us.”

I lifted my chin. “I’m not breakable.”

“That’s not why,” he said quietly. “I just need to know where you are.”

Something in me fluttered. It wasn’t really romantic or soft, it went deeper than that. Recognition. A remembering of how it felt to be someone’s priority.

“Then keep up,” I whispered.

He did that half-laugh he only let me hear.

And we went in.

The doors groaned open like the building resented being disturbed.

The smell hit first: damp rot, rust, mold, and something sharp beneath it, the unmistakable chemical sting of institutional cleaners baked into concrete over the decades.

Our flashlights carved thin slices of visibility through hallway after warped hallway. Paint peeled in strips. Ceiling tiles sagged like blistered skin.

“Good,” Finn murmured. “Main hall’s still intact.”

“Define intact,” I whispered, stepping around a collapsed filing cabinet.