Page 71 of In the Dark of the Past

“River,” I said, my voice dropping, “stay in the car.”

She stiffened. “Finn⁠—”

“Stay. In. The damn car.”

I killed the engine and moved silently around the hood.

The porch light wasn’t on. It was flickering. A strobe-like, inconsistent pulse that no normal bulb would make. Like someone had unscrewed the bulb but not far enough to kill it completely.

I stepped onto the first stair and froze. The front door was open. Just an inch.

My pulse spiked, and I flew back to the car, wrenching open the door.

“Call Atlas,” I hissed. “Tell him we’ve got a possible break-in. And lock these damn doors as soon as I close it.”

She didn’t argue, just grabbed her cell and hit a contact, her voice low and fast into the phone. When I heard the cruiser’s locks engage, I drew my weapon and headed back up the steps.

I nudged the door with the toe of my boot. It creaked inward. Inside, the house was dark. Too dark.

I lifted my flashlight in an over-under grip with my gun, and something on the floor caught the beam.

Red. Dripping.

My stomach dropped.

Paint. Thick strokes dragged in a single sweeping curve. An eye. Then another. Two red eyes stared up at me from the hardwood like a warning carved straight into the house.

And beneath them, written in smeared, dripping red:

WE SEE YOU.

Behind me, River whispered, “Finn?”

“Goddamn it. I told you to stay in the fucking car. Stay back,” I ordered. “Don’t touch the porch. Don’t cross the threshold.”

“Finn,” she whispered again, her voice shaking. “Jesus. They were inside my house.”

My jaw clenched until something in it popped. I turned toward her, my heart pounding hard enough to hurt. “This needs to end,” I said, my voice low and lethal, “now.”

River’s breath caught. “What do we do?”

I backtracked and stepped close enough that she could hear the promise in my voice.

“We’ve already started. We stop reacting,” I said. “And we go on offense.”

She nodded once, fierce despite the tremor in her hands.

I looked past her, out toward the dark street, the quiet houses, the woods beyond.

“I’m going to clear your house,” I said, “and then we’re going to root out the fucking Watcher inside my department.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

River

There are moments when the world doesn’t just shift, it tilts.

Standing in the driveway of my parents’ old house, those dripping red eyes staring from my floorboards, I felt the tilt in my bones. I felt violated. The ground wasn’t steady. The air wasn’t safe. And the story I’d been telling myself, that this town’s rot had boundaries, slipped out from under me.