The next morning, Lynn returned to the library, clinging to the illusion that books and sunlight could make the previous night less real. She didn't plan to look for Cyrus.
But he found her anyway.
"What happened last night?" he asked, stepping out from behind a row of tall shelves.
Lynn stiffened. "Why do you assume something did happen?"
Cyrus didn't smile. "Because no one moves into that building without… experiencing something."
Her stomach dropped. "You know about it?"
He didn't answer right away. Instead, he looked down at his notebook, fingers tightening around it.
"Did you see anything?" he asked. "Hear anything?"
Lynn hesitated. Her rational brain begged her to deny it.
But the memory of those slow, deliberate footsteps made her voice small.
"Something walked in my kitchen," she whispered.
He exhaled, not in surprise—almost in confirmation.
"You should stay with someone tonight."
"I'm not running away from a noise," she insisted, though her voice wavered.
"Lynn," he said quietly, "that building doesn't make noise by accident."
There was something in his eyes—knowledge, fear, guilt—that made her skin prickle.
He wasn't just curious.
He was involved.