Page 21 of Shadow Burn

The old, familiar horror reached for him with Deacon’s hands. His friend, gone in an instant. Too late. Missed it. Didn’t see the signs. Didn’t stop a fatal mistake.

No. Not this time.

“Is there a piece of furniture you can drag into the bathroom and brace the door with?”

“There’s a flimsy chair.”

“Take it and⁠—”

The door cracked again, louder. Katherine shrieked. “He can see me.”

Jasper’s vision tunneled.

“He’s wearing a mask.” The words trembled from her mouth. “A black ski mask. He’s looking through the crack.”

“Bathroom. Now.”

“He has a gun.”

The words went through him clean. Cold. Final.

Her voice was so small, so scared. “Jasper⁠—”

“I’m almost there.”

He took the next curve too fast. The back end fishtailed, gravel spitting under the tires as he corrected and punched the accelerator again.

A man’s voice came through the phone. Too close to her. “You should’ve stayed in the archives, Ms. Townsend.”

Jasper stopped breathing. The intruder knew her name.

Katherine made a strangled sound. The phone jostled, fabric dragging over the microphone.

“Katherine, listen to me,” he barked. “Get in the bathroom. Now.”

The man hit the door again. The crack of wood came through like a shot. Katherine screamed.

A gunshot cracked through the phone. Breaking glass followed, violent and bright even through the tiny speaker. Priss shrieked somewhere under it all.

“Katherine!”

The phone hit something hard.

“Katherine!”

The line filled with static, a scuffle, one sharp cry, and then nothing.

CHAPTER FIVE

For three full breaths, Katherine had truly thought the intruder was leaving.

She’d stood frozen beside the bedroom window with Priss clamped against her chest and Jasper’s voice low in her ear. Her phone was slick in her hand from sweat. Panic did strange things to the body. It made her fingers damp and her throat dry. It turned a familiar room into a diagram of exits, obstacles, failures.

You should’ve stayed in the archives, Ms. Townsend. The words swam in her head, thick and haunting.

Her mind had split in two. One half had understood the distance from the door to the bathroom, the angle of the gun, the partial obstruction of the dresser, the likelihood that he would have to squeeze sideways to enter.

The other half had stood barefoot and useless, clutching a phone as if Jasper could reach through it and pull her out.