THE AIR UNDER the willow tree was damp with the smell of turned soil and fallen leaves. Its long green fingers swayed lazily above us, hiding us from the main house like a curtain. If someone passed by the garden path, they'd only see a tangle of branches, not the three of us crouched in the grass with papers and pens, not the fourth man sitting quietly at the edge with a dog at his shoes. Harriet had been the one to pull this off.
I could still hear her cool voice in my mind: "Miss Byrd, the roses are overgrown. We'll tend them all afternoon. Don't worry, I'll keep an eye on Alice and Dwight."And Miss Byrd—bless her kind, distracted soul—had simply nodded. Harriet always carried an air of competence with that low, unshakable confidence that made adults listen. Of course she has. She had Miss Byrd's trust without even asking for it. It wasn't fair, but I couldn't deny it had gotten us here.
Now, under the willow's shade, we were free to spread out the documents from the briefcase across the grass. I brushed dirt off a paper and leaned closer, squinting at the rows of jagged symbols. They weren't letters exactly—more like marks, loops and strokes shaped like the ghosts of an alphabet no one spoke anymore. My fingertips followed them as though touching might make meaning rise from them. Dwight sat on the other side, arms crossed, eyes flicking between me and the pages. His jaw was tight, but his curiosity kept breaking through. And beside him was Harriet who sat straight-backed, her knees drawn under her, scanning another sheet with the same calm intensity she brought to everything. Riven lingered a little off to the side, feeding Hunter with the snacks I'd slipped him earlier. Hunter chewed contentedly, and his ears flicked at every sound. Riven's long fingers brushed through the dog's fur like someone trying to anchor himself.
Sebastian was above us somewhere. I could hear him, a faint rush of wings now and then, circling. He'd volunteered to scout earlier, using his sharp eyes and flight advantage to trace the coordinates hidden in the symbols. It still amazed me how he could transform so seamlessly. He could investigate to lengths that we couldn't.
I lowered my head to the paper again. The pattern was emerging. I could feel it, even if I couldn't name it yet. 'Focus, Alice. This isn't just scribbles. Someone wrote this for someone like you to understand,' I thought.
"Anything yet?" Dwight asked. His voice was rougher than usual, but not unkind.
I looked up at him, the pen still poised in my hand. "It's not a language," I said slowly. "Not exactly. It's a rhythm. Like music. Or numbers. If you read it across, not down, the symbols repeat in a way that could mark distances."
Dwight leaned in, frowning. "Like coordinates?"
"Yeah," I murmured, tracing a line. "Exactly like coordinates."
His expression softened for a heartbeat. "That's sharp thinking, Alice."
The compliment landed heavier than I expected. My lips twitched into a small smile before I could stop it. "Thanks," I said quietly.
Harriet said nothing. She simply shifted a sheet closer to me, her long fingers brushing mine briefly. Her eyes flicked to mine, then back to the paper. I didn't press her. I'd learned not to.
As I kept deciphering, the willow's shade felt almost like a roof over us. The symbols that were once storm of nonsense now were resolving into lines, directions, and tiny marks like landmarks. My heart sped as the pattern solidified. It pointed to places. Real places. Not just names, but actual locations where others—gifted like us—might be hiding. Or hunted.
"Look here," I whispered, sliding the sheet between Dwight and Harriet. "This cluster—these three marks—they repeat in different sections, but always with this one on the edge. That's not a word. That's a place."
Dwight whistled low under his breath. "You're right. This isn't just code. It's a map."
I nodded, my pulse thudding. "A map to them."
Harriet tilted her head slightly. "To whom?"
"To people like us," I said, almost whispering. "Gifted. Targets."
For the first time since sitting down, Harriet's expression flickered. She didn't speak, but the pause was louder than anything she could've said.
I sat back on my heels, exhaling. My mind was already racing ahead—what we could do with this, how to warn them, how to stop the "Others" before they got there. The weight of it pressed against my ribs until it hurt.
Riven's voice broke through, low and even. "You figured all that out already?"
I glanced at him. He'd been quiet so long I'd almost forgotten he was listening. His eyes were on me now, that very eyes catching the sun through the leaves. Not skeptical—impressed. It sent an odd warmth crawling up my neck.
"I—" I began, then stopped. "It's just patterns. Anyone could see them."
"Not anyone," he said, his mouth twitching into something like a half-smile. "It takes someone sharp."
I looked down quickly, pretending to study the paper again. "We don't have time for flattery."
But inside, my chest gave a small, traitorous flutter.
Sebastian's shadow passed over us then with a brief ripple of darker shade. He landed a few feet away, feathers settling as his form blurred and stretched back into human shape. He still smelled faintly of wind and rain when he approached.
"I found something," he said simply, brushing a leaf from his feathers. "A building that looks abandoned. Old warehouse—pre-sectioning era, judging by the rust on the siding and the collapsed signage. It's camouflaged by scrub and overgrowth, but there's movement if you watch long enough. The real entrance isn't obvious; it's a steel door set beneath the ground, half-hidden under a slab of rotting boards. I didn't risk going closer—the air felt wrong. Too many footprints in the mud, too many eyes I couldn't see."
My heart leapt. "Coordinates?"
He held out a small, folded scrap. "There."
I took it from him, unfolding it. The numbers lined up with the pattern I'd been tracing. "It matches," I said, my voice tight. "It's one of the sites."
Riven straightened. "Then that's where they're keeping something. Or someone."
Harriet finally spoke, her voice cool but steady. "Then we go."
Dwight blinked at her. "Just like that?"
She looked at him without flinching. "We've already broken rules. We might as well see it through."
I stared at her for a second. Harriet, the one who always followed the rules to the letter, was taking the lead now. Something inside me shifted, a piece I hadn't realized was loose sliding into place.
"We'll need to be careful," I said quietly. "Ryan can't know."
"Ryan won't know," Harriet replied. "That gives us a window—a small one, but enough. If we're going to move, it has to be now. No hesitation, no noise. Once she checks back, this chance is gone."
Dwight glanced at me. "Alice?"
I swallowed. The ground beneath us seemed to hum, full of unseen currents, choices I couldn't undo. But when I thought of Lucinda's pale face, of the twins clutching her dress, of my father's eyes the last time I saw him, the answer was already there.
"Yeah," I said. "We go."
Riven rose smoothly to his feet, Hunter following with a soft bark. "Then let's move. Come now, buddy," he said as he patted Hunter.
As we packed the papers back into the briefcase, my hands shook. My heart thudded like a drum under my ribs. Sebastian's gaze met mine briefly, but I just nodded. We'd started something we couldn't stop.
We slipped out from under the willow's curtain of leaves one by one. Ahead, the island stretched out with the air thick with salt and wind and the promise of secrets waiting in dark places. Inside me, two things coiled together—fear and determination. The fear whispered of punishment, of danger, of losing more than I'd already lost. But the resolve whispered louder. 'This is how you fight back, Alice. Not by waiting. By moving.'
Harriet walked at the front with the briefcase under her arm. Dwight followed close, but he didn't protest again. Riven fell into step beside me, Hunter at his heels, while Sebastian's shadow moving above us in slow, steady circles. We were out of excuses. Out of safe ground. We were going. And whatever waited for us in that underground archive, I knew in my bones that nothing would be the same after we saw it.
***
Hours of damp earth and tangled underbrush blurred into one long corridor of shadows, our footsteps swallowed by the forest. The trek to the bunker felt endless. Branches clawed at my sleeves; the smell of moss and saltwater clung to my lungs. Above us, Sebastian moved like a dark whisper across the grey sky. Harriet still led the way with the briefcase tucked tight under her arm. Dwight followed behind her. Riven stayed at my side, close enough that I could feel the warmth of him through my sleeve, and Hunter padding just ahead.
We finally broke through the last curtain of trees and stood before the bunker. It rose from the earth like a forgotten tooth—concrete cracked, moss sliding down its seams, with a rusted door half-hidden beneath a canopy of vines. There were no markings, no guards. Just the kind of emptiness that dared you to step closer.
Riven crouched beside Hunter and touched his nose to the dog's muzzle. "Stay here, buddy," he murmured, voice low but steady. "Guard the entrance. Bark if you see anyone—anything."
Hunter whined softly, his amber eyes flicking from Riven to the door. Then he nudged his wet nose into Riven's palm.
Afterward, I knelt briefly and patted his head. "We won't be long," I whispered, even though I didn't know if that was true.
The smell inside hit first. Stale air, old paper, and something sharper—chemical, metallic—like a memory of blood. Dust drifted from the ceiling when the door swung open. Harriet's fingers flicked, and a faint glow of telekinetic force slid along the walls like a searching hand.
I tightened my grip on the small flashlight. "What is this place?" I breathed.
"Answers," Harriet said simply, and stepped in.
We moved slowly, room by room. Rows of filing cabinets sagged against each other like tired soldiers with their drawers stuffed with dust-coated files. Broken glass crunched under my boots. Along one wall, shelves of vials gleamed faintly, with labels faded but still legible: Subject 14A. Subject 22C. Trial Batch Gamma. Some were empty, others half-full of clear or pale blue liquids that trembled when I passed.
A tremor of nausea rolled through me. "These are… serums."
Riven's jaw tightened. "Enhancements," he muttered. "I've seen similar setups when I was with the military—black sites where they force people through trials. But not like this."
Sebastian, now back in his humanoid form, crouched by a cabinet and flipped open a file. His avian face stiffened as he skimmed the first page. "They've been abducting kids," he said flatly in his accent.
My hands shook as I picked up another folder. The photos inside were grainy, clinical: children in sterile rooms, eyes hollow, with their arms strapped to tables. One boy had wires taped to his skull. A girl, no older than ten, was curled on a cot, her knees drawn to her chest.
My fingers trembled as I lifted the other photo from the dusty folder. At first, I didn't understand what I was looking at. It was a sterile white room with a child sitting on a cot, wires snaking from her arms into a machine that looked more like a torture device than anything medical. Her face was turned away, but her small shoulders were hunched, trembling. I tried to tell myself it was staged, old propaganda, anything but real. But when I found another photo, I froze. And another. Different children. Different rooms. All of them with the same lifeless stillness in their eyes, the same wires biting into soft skin. Some were crying. Some weren't even moving.
A hollow sound escaped my throat, somewhere between a gasp and a sob. My vision blurred as I set the stack of images back on the table, but my hands wouldn't stop shaking. These weren't just files. They were lives—stolen, broken, used up.
I pressed the heel of my palm to my eyes, trying to force the tears back, but the images clung to the inside of my eyelids. The denial cracked, and the truth flooded in, cold and merciless.
"I thought the Others were…" My voice faltered. "Gifted."
"They're not," Harriet said, her tone stripped of any softness. She stood at a metal console, papers floating around her in a slow orbit as she scanned each page. "They're ordinary. Or they were. Augmented piece by piece, stripped of what made them human until only the function remained. Broken, rebuilt, and pointed at whoever CYGNUS wants destroyed."
Dwight cursed softly under his breath. "God."
A hand settled gently on my shoulder. I startled, then turned, and Riven was there.
"Hey," he said quietly, almost a whisper, as if the children in the pictures could still hear him. "You don't have to look anymore."
But I couldn't look away. "They're just kids, Riven," I whispered back. My voice cracked, and it embarrassed me. "They're just—kids."
He crouched down beside me, one knee on the dusty floor, with his hand still on my shoulder. "I know," he said. "I've seen things like this before. Not like this, but close enough. You think it stops hurting? It doesn't. But you get stronger. And you use it to fight for what's right." His eyes flicked to the scattered photos, then back to me. "You use it to fight."
Something in his voice steadied me more than his hand did. I swallowed hard and blinked at him. He wasn't looking at the photos like they were evidence. He was looking at them like they were a promise—one he meant to keep. I then drew in a shaky breath. "I can't—pretend this isn't real anymore," I said quietly. "Not after this."
"Good," Riven murmured. "Don't."
He rose to his feet and offered me his hand. For a moment, I just stared at it—scarred knuckles, callused palm, steady as a post—and then I took it. His grip was firm, grounding. I stood, wiping at my eyes quickly, before anyone else could see.
I then moved to another console and clicked on a monitor. By some miracle, it still had power. Static flickered, then resolved into footage—old, dim, but clear enough to make my stomach turn. Children. Restraints. Machines humming. And then, one clip that stopped me cold.
A girl with her back turned, shoulders shaking. A tall man in a mask looming over her. On another table, a boy about my age—no, younger—struggling against restraints, his eyes wide and glassy. Symbols flickered on a screen beside him. The same code I'd seen in the briefcase. The boy tried to scream, but no sound came.
My hand went to my mouth. "This is…" I couldn't finish.
Sebastian stepped closer. "What is it?"
"That code," I whispered.
Before I even knew what I was doing, I was on my knees, yanking the briefcase Harriet was holding open. Papers shifted and spilled like dry leaves as I dug through them, my fingers shaking. There—tucked beneath a folder of blurred photographs. The code. The boy. I tore the file out and flipped it open, eyes racing over the text. My heart slammed harder with every line.
'Subject 042 — Gift: Transference of Consciousness.'
I gripped the page so tightly it wrinkled under my palms. The clinical language was detached, but the implications screamed. A child, used like a tool. A mind turned into a laboratory. My hands hovered over the page. The weight of it pressed down on my chest. I didn't want to read another word, but I forced myself to keep going—because if I didn't, who else would?
"That boy," I said. "That's the same boy! He could travel into the subconscious. And they—" My throat closed. "They're tearing it out of him."
Harriet's hand curled into a fist. Papers snapped in the air like angry birds. "We need to go," she said sharply. "Now."
But it was too late. A sound rolled down the hall—boots, steady and synchronized. Not one pair. Many. I snapped off the monitor. The faint glow died, leaving us in the thin beam of my flashlight.
"Others," Riven murmured. His hand went to his gun. "Patrol."
Sebastian's eyes flicked up. "Three. Maybe four."
Harriet lifted her hand. "Then we're not leaving quietly."
They emerged at the far end of the corridor like a smear of ink on paper. My breath hitched. Even at a distance, there was something profoundly wrong about them. Their faces weren't covered, but they may as well have been; their skin was pale and smooth, almost waxy, with no eyebrows, no expression, nothing human to anchor onto. Their eyes—God, their eyes—were like polished stones, flat and reflective, absorbing the corridor's glow without giving anything back. It was exactly as Lucinda had described: blank faces, empty eyes, and the kind of stillness that wasn't still at all but coiled, waiting.
One of them stepped forward, lifting a sleek device no bigger than a book. Its black surface pulsed faintly before erupting into a sharp crimson flash. Numbers cascaded across the small screen, and the pulse quickened—red, red, red—like a warning heart beating too fast.
The sound it made wasn't a beep so much as a hiss, a low, crawling tone that slithered down the walls and pooled at our feet. I felt it vibrate in my teeth. My palms went clammy against the barrier forming at my fingertips, and I knew—whatever that thing was, it wasn't for show.
They didn't speak. They didn't even look at one another. They simply advanced, like predators who had already chosen their prey. I threw my arm out and the invisible force erupted from my palm with a translucent arc, humming like a struck bell. It sprang up between the patrol and us just as their weapons lifted.
"Get the files!" I shouted. "Now!"
The first bullet struck the edge of my barrier with a sharp, crystalline snap, scattering light outward in thin veins like a spiderweb fracturing glass. The glow rippled under my palms, trembling against the impact but holding. But Riven moved almost at the same heartbeat, slipping his arm through a narrow gap in the shield. The report of his gun cracked down the corridor, thunder bouncing between the narrow walls. Out of the corner of my eye, Sebastian shifted his form into a streak of motion, a ripple of feathers tearing free from skin as his body reshaped mid-leap. His wings unfurled with a sound like sails catching wind, talons glinting as he drove himself at one of the Others, striking with an animal precision that belonged to no ordinary hawk.
Harriet didn't so much move as she commanded the space. A single flick of her wrist and two of the black-clad men lifted clean off their feet, slammed in opposite directions as though invisible hands had hurled them into the walls. The impact reverberated through the floor, bone and plaster cracking at once. One of them twitched in the wreckage, then went still, his limbs folding awkwardly beneath him.
But the third—the one at the center—moved differently. He didn't aim a weapon. He raised his hand. The floor shook. Not a normal tremor—but instead it was deeper, hungrier. The concrete itself rippled, cracks lacing out from his boots. My barrier shuddered, threads of light straining, almost splintering.
I gritted my teeth, forcing more of myself into it. 'Hold. Just hold.' Every push from him felt like a hammer against glass.
"Alice!" Riven's voice snapped like a whip. "It's breaking!"
"I know!" My arms trembled with the strain.
Sebastian raked his claws across the man's shoulder but was thrown back by a pulse of invisible force. Harriet hurled debris, metal chunks slamming into him, but he only staggered, then straightened again. His eyes were empty, colder than stone. My vision blurred. Each hit to the barrier echoed inside me like a heartbeat turned violent. I felt myself fraying. Too much, it's too much—
And then, a blur.
Someone slammed into the man from the side, shoving him so hard he flew down the hall and cracked his head against a metal pole. The sound rang out like a struck bell. He crumpled, motionless.
I dropped to my knees as the barrier dissolved. My breath came in ragged pulls. "What—?"
A familiar voice. "You're welcome."
I looked up.
Harriet stood at the far end, her hair disheveled, her chest heaving. Her telekinesis still shimmered faintly in the air around her fingers. And behind her was Dwight, who was weakened after fighting another enemy.
My heart lurched. They'd followed us. Of course they had.
"They must've seen me," I muttered.
"You were seconds from being crushed," Harriet said.
Riven helped me to my feet. "You okay?"
I nodded, though the room still swayed. "Yeah," I lied.
We were still standing in the wreckage of the underground archive when Harriet's voice snapped like a whip through the stillness.
"We should leave!"
Her tone brooked no argument. Harriet was already turning, one gloved hand steadying herself against the cracked wall.
I swallowed hard. "Harriet, wait—there's still—"
"No." Her gaze cut to me. "You've seen enough. We all have. If we stay, we're going to get caught. We don't even know how many of them are stationed here."
Riven's jaw tightened as he checked the magazine of his gun. "She's right. We're pushing our luck."
Sebastian's feathers stirred on his shoulders where his shirt tore from the earlier shift. "They'll come back."
I looked at each of them—the tension in Riven's arms, Sebastian's hawk-like eyes scanning the shadowed corners, and Harriet's fingers twitching faintly as though already calling the air to her. I didn't want to leave. Every part of me screamed to stay, to grab another file, another scrap of evidence. But they're all right.
"Fine," I breathed, finally turning away from the scattered papers. "Let's go."
We moved quickly. My heart thudded in my chest like a drum. Hunter's claws clicking on the floor behind us as he joined Riven upon leaving. We were halfway to the exit when the corridor ahead darkened. Shapes moved at the far end—three figures, black coats, blank faces, eyes like polished stones. The same facelessness Lucinda had described.
Riven muttered under his breath, "Too late."
"Stay behind me," Harriet said.
One of the Others raised his hand as if to release something. Before he could process it, the corridor echoed with the hiss of something—gas, or steam—and then objects tore through the air. The first slammed into the barrier I conjured to protect the six of us, sending a jagged ripple through the dome of light. My teeth clenched with the strain. "Go!" I hissed.
Riven ducked low, firing back through a small gap I held open for him. I almost thought we were clear. Almost. However, a flash of movement had darted close, too fast, bypassing my barrier. Harriet turned, her hand rising, but he caught her wrist and jammed something into her neck with a syringe glinting under the dim light.
"Harriet!" I cried.
She staggered. For a split second she looked less like the composed, untouchable Harriet I'd always known and more like a girl caught off guard. Then she hissed through her teeth and hurled him backward with a burst of telekinetic force so strong it rattled the ceiling.
Dwight darted forward, grabbing Harriet under the other arm to steady her. "We've got to move now!"
"I'm fine," she said, but her voice was thinner than usual.
No, she wasn't fine. I could see the color draining from her face already, a pallor creeping in under her skin. The syringe clattered to the floor, empty.
My stomach dropped. 'What did they inject her with?'
"We're running out of time," Dwight yelled.
I pressed my barrier outward, forming a narrow path down the corridor. "Go—just go!"
We bolted. Dwight half-carried Harriet, who was still insisting she could walk. I stayed at the rear, palms raised, as the barrier flared with every bullet that hissed against it.
Inside my head, my thoughts spun like a cyclone. 'We shouldn't have come. We should've left sooner. What if Harriet collapses? What if we're caught?' And under it all, another quieter voice, sharp with guilt: 'You wanted this. You wanted to uncover the truth, and now look.m
We reached the stairwell leading back to the surface. Riven's voice was tight. "Can you hold it, Alice?"
"I can hold it," I said, though my arms ached, my palms tingling from the force.
He gave a short nod, then to Harriet, "Almost there. Just stay with us."
Her eyes flicked to his, but she stayed upright, breathing hard through her nose.
Sebastian pushed ahead, scouting the next landing. "Clear," he called back.
We scrambled up the stairs. My chest burned from the strain, but the air grew cooler as we neared the exit. As we burst through the door into the forest, the sky greeted us with a cold drizzle. It felt like a baptism after the stale, chemical air of the bunker.
I dropped my hands, letting the barrier flicker out. My arms trembled, but I forced myself to steady them. We didn't stop until we reached the treeline, the shadows of Willowmere's outer woods closing around us like a cloak.
Only then did Dwight slow, easing Harriet down against a mossy trunk. "Sit. Catch your breath."
"I'm fine," she repeated, though now her voice wavered.
I knelt beside her, scanning the puncture mark on her arm. The skin around it was already reddening. "Fine isn't the word I'd use," I muttered.
Her eyes met mine. "We can't let this derail us."
Riven pulled a canteen from his pack and handed it to her. "Drink anyway."
Sebastian crouched on the low branch above us. "We bought ourselves time, but not much."
I pressed my lips together, staring at the damp earth. My pulse hadn't slowed. In my mind, the image of Harriet stumbling replayed again and again. She'd been untouchable for so long in my eyes. Seeing her falter like that made something tighten in my chest—a strange mix of fear and guilt and reluctant admiration. And beneath it all, a single, gnawing thought: 'This fight is real now. No more lines on paper, no more coded maps. They're definitely coming for us.'
I exhaled slowly, then looked at Harriet again. "We'll figure out what they injected you with," I said quietly. "I promise."
Her eyes softened just enough to make my throat ache. "I know."
Above us, rain dripped through the leaves. We sat there for a long moment in the hush after violence, our breaths the only sound, before Riven finally said, "Let's get her home."
And no one argued.
***
We stumbled out of the trees like ghosts. The rain had slowed to a mist, but every inch of me was soaked. Dwight was the last to emerge, one arm braced around Harriet's waist. Riven also assisted Harriet, with Hunter trailing low at his side. Riven's arm was around Harriet's shoulder. She was pale, almost translucent in the fading light.
Dwight tightened his grip. "Stay with me,"
Harriet's eyes flickered open. "I'm fine," she rasped.
"You're not," I whispered back.
She gave a ghost of a smirk but didn't argue.
I could still feel the echo of the bunker inside me.
We barely made it. We almost didn't.
We slipped through the back entrance of Willowmere, soaked, filthy, and silent. The hallway smelled of wood polish and herbs, the air warmer but no less heavy. Riven then grabbed Hunter's collar as they ran away to the woods alongside Sebastian. However, when we were about to take Harriet in, I was stunned to see someone standing near the door.
Lucy was already there. Her small frame was outlined by the glow of a lamp, as her hands pressed together at her chest as we entered. The moment she saw Harriet, she rushed forward, her skirts whispering over the floorboards.
"Oh, heavens," she breathed, dropping to her knees beside Harriet.
I lowered Harriet carefully, my knees hitting the floor. Dwight crouched with me. "She's been injected with something. We don't know what."
Lucy's hands were already glowing, a soft radiance spilling from her palms like poured honey. "Then let's hope light can draw it out," she murmured.
The glow deepened as she pressed her hands to Harriet's arm. I felt the warmth just standing nearby; Harriet's eyes fluttered, and a small sound escaped her lips. The light wrapped her like a second skin. I caught myself holding my breath. Healing gifts were rare. Watching one at work always felt like glimpsing something older than the world.
Slowly, color returned to Harriet's cheeks. Her breathing steadied. She blinked, the haze clearing from her eyes.
"Better?" Lucy asked gently.
Harriet exhaled. "Better," she said, voice stronger than it had any right to be.
I let go of a breath I didn't know I'd been holding. Dwight's shoulders sagged, but he kept one hand hovering near Harriet's back. There was something in his face that made me look away.
"I should have been faster," he muttered, mostly to himself.
"You did enough," Harriet said quietly, her hand brushing his as she shifted. "More than enough."
"Where were you kids at, by the way? Why was she in pain?" Lucy asked.
"Promise us you won't tell the headmaster," I said. Lucy then nodded.
I stood slowly, wiping my hands on my damp skirt. "The rest of us investigated the whereabouts of the Others, when one of them managed to jab a syringe in Harriet's neck. We were lucky enough to escape, but we have no idea what was in that syringe."
Lucy's expression turned to worry. She then promised she'll take care of Harriet. My body felt heavy but restless, my mind a churn of images.
"Thanks," all of us said to Lucy who now pressed her glowing hand to where the syringe was jabbed earlier.
***
Dinner passed like a blur. Voices rose and fell around me, the clatter of cutlery, the smell of bread and broth. I forced myself to eat, but each bite turned to ash in my mouth. Across the table, Dwight sat near Harriet. Harriet pretended not to notice but her posture softened, just slightly, like she wasn't used to anyone watching over her.
After dinner, Morgan came to me quietly. I almost didn't see him until his small hand tugged at my sleeve. When I looked down, he was staring up at me with those strange, solemn eyes of his.
"Alice," he whispered.
I wiped my mouth with a napkin and crouched beside him. "What is it?"
He held out a piece of paper. "I had another nightmare."
I unfolded it slowly. The drawing was darker than his last one. When I made sense of the drawing, I realized it was a figure looming over a house, its shape distorted, and its edges bleeding into the page. It wasn't just a shadow. It was something larger, heavier, pressing down.
"What is this?"
Morgan shifted, eyes on the floor. "I don't know."
I glanced from the drawing to him, then back. The house was familiar—the roofline, the windows. Willowmere.
My chest tightened.
"What happened in your dream?" I asked softly.
He hesitated. "I see an explosion, Alice," he said finally. "I don't know what was happening, but it felt real. It's so scary. It's so terrifying."
The paper trembled slightly in my hands.
I swallowed hard. "And this figure?"
He shook his head. "I couldn't see its face."
I folded the paper back up and tucked it into my pocket, forcing a smile that felt brittle. "Thank you for showing me, Morgan. I promise you, you'll be safe here, okay?"
He nodded solemnly and went back to his seat, as if handing me the paper had been a duty.
I sat there for a long moment. Inside, something coiled tighter. I touched the edge of the paper again, feeling the grooves of the pencil through the fabric of my skirt. A child's dream shouldn't weigh this much, but it did. Something is coming. And it's closer than we think.