Dash saw a faint glint ahead in the east wing.
He stopped.
Someone smeared a fresh, deep red stain across the polished floor.
Dash muttered, "Blood," in a low and tight voice. Something else freaked him out, a stirring sound, a lurking figure.
From around the corner stepped Leo Lennox, his face pale, Amber eyes wide.
He froze when he saw the trio.
Leo said quietly, "Dash, there's been… something. I found this..."
He looked at the blood, a lot of it.
Concern tightened Maisie's features as she took a step forward. Gene clenched her jaw.
Dash said, voice firm, "We need to move fast. This just got worse."
Dash's door closed with a soft click, shutting out the restless silence of the estate. The air inside felt stagnant.
Frustrated, Maisie paced near the window, fists clenched, her jaw tight. She glanced at the others, her eyes flashing fire. "We can't just sit here doing nothing," she said.
Leo felt uneasy, leaning against the wall, his shoulders tense. He nervously glanced at the door, expecting it to burst open at any moment. "This whole place feels like it's watching us," he muttered, his voice barely a whisper.
Dash sat on the edge of the bed, hands folded, his face taut with strained calm. He spoke, "We need to keep our heads clear. Panic won't help. We gather what we know, we plan."
Gene stood quietly by the desk, pale and still, her gaze fixed on the cracked floorboards. As her face grew pale, her eyes held a fierce, silent alertness.
Maisie snapped, her voice sharp. "Plan? You think we have time to plan? Someone's been killed. There's blood in the halls. And we're supposed to sit here and act like everything's normal?"
Dash met her glare head-on. "Getting angry won't protect anyone. We need facts."
Leo shifted uneasily, eyes wide, and said, "It feels like we're being hunted. I'm afraid we don't know who's next."
Gene spoke, his voice low but steady. "The wiped footage, the glitches, none of it feels random. Someone's controlling this from the inside."
Maisie's eyes locked on Gene. "You know more than you're saying. Do you think our father had something to do with it?"
Gene swallowed, but didn't deny it.
Dash ran a hand through his blond hair and said, "We have to assume the worst: there's a traitor here. Someone who wants to keep this secret buried."
They were weighed down by fear, each of them, as the room fell into a brittle silence.
Maisie broke it. "So what now? How do we find the truth without tearing each other apart first?"
Leo watched the group, his eyes flickering to the window. "We watch each other. We trust no one."
Dash shook his head. "We have trust left," he said. "If we lose that, there's nothing."
Gene whispered, voice barely audible, "Then we hold on. Together. Even if it kills us."
Gene broke the quiet in the stout room.
She said quietly, "I've been watching," her eyes flicking toward the cracked door as if expecting it to shift or reveal a secret. "Not just the estate, but the White Angels' internal chatter."
Dash and Maisie exchanged glances, and Leo's anxiety worsened.
Gene said, her voice lowered. "Through my sources, Silas Marlow, your head human servant, is more than just a servant here. He's entrenched with the White Angels. He was supposed to be feeding them information about the happenings in your mansion."
She pulled a small device from her pocket. It was a sleek, nearly invisible, and undetectable comm unit that had been modified to avoid sending any signals, so it couldn't be traced; it only intercepted incoming transmissions. "This is how I caught it. Marlow's transmissions aren't all he reports. He never sent a message about Igor escaping his shock collar or disappearing."
Maisie asked, "Wait, didn't he report that Igor was missing?"
Gene shook her head. "No. That means Marlow is hiding something. Or maybe he's protecting Igor, but not in a way we understand."
Dash asked, "Protecting him? Why would that be worse?"
Gene hesitated, then met Dash's gaze steadily. "Because Marlow isn't shielding Igor out of kindness. If he's keeping Igor's movements secret, it means Igor's presence threatens something bigger, something Marlow wants to control or manipulate."
Leo swallowed hard. "So... Marlow could be using Igor for his agenda?"
She nodded. "Exactly. That makes him unpredictable and dangerous."
Maisie spoke, "We need to find Marlow. Before whatever he's hiding puts Igor and all of us in greater danger."
Gene nodded again. "Yes." Something was off, though, a low breathing sound in the hallway made its way into Dash's room, and Maisie was the first to hear.
Maisie's voice, barely audible, sliced through the silence, sharper than anything else. "I think he's still here," she said.
Dash asked, searching her face, "What makes you say that?"
She hesitated, then spoke slowly, her voice low. "I can feel it, the way the air shifts around us. The rooms don't feel empty like they should. There's a presence... something watching, always just out of sight."
Leo's eyes widened. "I've seen it too. Shadows moving behind the mirrors, reflections that don't match. Doors closing a moment too late, like someone's slipping away before we can catch them."
Gene replied, "The missing security footage: someone deliberately erased it. It wasn't just to cover up the escape. It was to hide something else. If Igor was gone, why would someone go to such lengths to hide his movements?"
Dash clenched his fists. "He's not just free. He's still here, waiting, watching. And whoever's protecting that secret wants it kept."
Maisie said, "Exactly. Igor's presence is still in the house. He's not just a ghost; we're dealing with something alive and aware."
The fear grew in the room, a new kind of fear, less about what was lost and more about what was waiting in the shadows. Their focus shifted from Silas to escaping alive.
The creak echoed down the hallway, breaking the tense quiet, and all four of them froze, their eyes snapping to the door.
Leo gasped. "Did you hear that?" Maisie's gaze focused. "That wasn't the wind." Dash rose slowly, every muscle taut, listening. The heavy curtains by the window moved, not from a breeze.
Gene's voice was barely a whisper. "He's here."
They held their breath with the house, the silence pressing close. Then Maisie stepped toward the door, her voice steady but fierce. "We're not alone."