Jade ran.
But not fast enough, the hallway stretched forever as she flew down the stairs, every shadow twisting, every creak of the house sounding like footsteps chasing her.
Her dad's voice echoed faintly behind her.
"Jade? Hey! Someone's"
She didn't stop to hear the rest.
The front door loomed ahead, wide open now.
No one was standing there.
Just the cool night air slipping inside like a whisper.
She skidded to a halt, chest heaving.
The knocking had stopped. Whoever had been there, if anyone was really there, was gone. Or worse, still watching.
Her phone buzzed again.
[Blocked Number: Proximity breach avoided. Stability recalibrating.]
The numbers weren't going down anymore, but that didn't make her feel any better.
She didn't remember how she got outside.
Her brain was moving in a haze. Auto-pilot.
The stars above her swirled like oil on water. The moon looked... wrong. Slightly off-center. Like the sky itself was glitching.
Like reality was a badly coded video game and someone forgot to patch the skybox.
She kept walking, one foot in front of the other, boots crunching on gravel.
Past her neighbor's house. Past the corner store.
Past a car that wasn't supposed to be there.
She paused.
It was the same black sedan that sometimes sat across from her school.
The windows were tinted so dark she couldn't see inside.
She stood frozen for a moment, waiting to see if anyone moved inside the car.
Nothing.
But her phone buzzed again.
[Blocked Number: Unregistered Observer Detected.]
Her stomach twisted.
She turned and speed-walked down the street, pulse hammering, breathing shallow.
By the time she reached the outskirts of town, the cold bit through her hoodie.
The old observatory loomed ahead, a rusted skeleton of what used to be the town's pride back when people still cared about stars more than phones.
The main dome was cracked, leaning slightly, like it was bowing under the weight of forgotten things.
She didn't know who Noah wanted her to meet here.
Frankly, she didn't care right now.
She just wanted to be somewhere that wasn't watched.
Inside, it was darker than she expected.
The broken glass crunched beneath her boots. The air smelled like rust and damp books.
Jade pulled out her phone to light the way, sweeping the flashlight across old control panels and shattered star charts.
For a moment, it almost felt peaceful.
Quiet.
Still.
"You're earlier than expected."
The voice made her jump.
Jade spun around, flashlight beam slicing through the dark, landing on a figure standing at the far end of the room.
A girl.
About her age.
Short hair shaved on one side, baggy hoodie, combat boots.
Piercings glittered along her ear. Her expression was unreadable.
The girl raised her hand casually like this was all perfectly normal.
"You can call me Riley," she said.
"And yes... before you freak out, I know exactly who you are."
Jade's voice cracked.
"You… you're the person Noah wanted me to find?"
Riley smirked. "Technically, I found you first. But yeah."
She pulled something from her hoodie pocket, a small device that looked like a cracked pager attached to a USB stick.
"I've been monitoring your loops for a while now. You're an interesting glitch, Jade Carter."
Jade's head swam.
Glitch.
That word again.
Her breathing got shallow again.
All of this was too much, too fast. She wanted to scream or cry or just shut down.
"Why is this happening to me?" she whispered.
Riley's voice softened, just a little.
"Because you're not supposed to exist anymore."
The words hung there like static in the air.
The kind you can't hear but can feel crawling under your skin.
Riley stepped closer and crouched in front of Jade.
"But the question isn't why it's happening."
"It's how long you can survive before the Queen finds you again."