Thud. The heavy, meaty impact against the exterior brick wall vibrated straight through the kitchen floorboards.
They were huddled together on the tile, bathed in the bright, artificial glow of the kitchen island light. Just inches away, on the other side of the wall, Mr. Henderson was mindlessly dragging his hands along the siding.
Thud. He was hunting the hum of the generator. He was hunting the light.
Justin didn't hesitate. He reached up, his hand slapping blindly against the wall until he hit the switch, instantly killing the kitchen overheads.
The transition was jarring. The room didn't plunge into pitch black—it was just before noon, after all—but with the heavy velvet curtains drawn shut, the house was swallowed by a muted, depressing grey. The overcast December daylight leaking through the cracks turned the sprawling kitchen into a cavern of hulking shadows.
Tally let out a sharp, irritated breath, immediately pushing herself up off the floor. She wasn't trembling with terror; she was vibrating with deep, highly defensive annoyance. The reality of the situation was actively trying to breach the walls of her privileged little world, and she was doing everything in her power to reject it.
"This is ridiculous," Tally hissed, aggressively dusting off the knees of her designer jeans. "We are hiding in the dark from an eighty-year-old retired accountant. He's probably just confused by the sirens. He probably needs his medication."
"Keep your voice down," Justin whispered sharply, his eyes locked on the curtained window.
Tally ignored him. She started pacing short, angry steps across the kitchen. She needed to focus on something else, anything else, to maintain her control. She yanked her dead phone out of her pocket, tapping the screen aggressively.
It flared to life. There was no service, but a push notification from an hour ago was still sitting on her lock screen, frozen in time.
Chatham County Schools ALERT: All campuses closing. Sibling dismissal protocol activated. High school drivers must collect elementary siblings immediately.
Tally stared at the text.
She had seen it in the parking lot. She had literally swiped it away without a second thought. It wasn't a big deal. Whenever she conveniently "forgot" to swing by the elementary wing, the school just put Ella on the transfer bus to the aftercare program out on Wilmington Island. It was a flawless, established routine. Why should Tally have had to sit in the middle of a screaming, honking minivan-riot just because the power grid blinked? She had her own car, her own life. Mom paid Mrs. Gable an obscene amount of money precisely to deal with these inconveniences.
Mrs. Gable will just get her from the Wilmington Island aftercare, Tally told herself, her internal monologue sharp, rational, and completely selfish. That's literally what the woman is hired to do. It's not my responsibility.
She shoved the phone deep into her bag, ready to completely wash her hands of it. But as she looked up, her eyes swept the dim foyer.
They landed on a small, pink-and-purple backpack slumped against the bottom step, decorated with glittery unicorns. Ella Belle's spare bag. The one she had left at home today because the zipper was stuck.
A sharp spike of genuine panic hit Tally's chest. The sirens wailing in the distance suddenly sounded a lot less like a traffic jam and a lot more like a slaughter. If the teachers were running, aftercare on Wilmington Island was just a locked room full of terrified kids. What if Mrs. Gable didn't make it there?
But Tally Leesburg didn't do guilt. She did deflection.
"Where the hell is Mrs. Gable?" Tally demanded, her voice loud and accusing.
Justin blinked, pulling his attention away from the window. "What?"
"Ella," Tally said, pointing aggressively toward the empty mudroom. "Where is she? We pay that woman an insane amount of money to pick her up when the schedule changes. I assumed the adults we employ would actually do their damn jobs."
Mari, still sitting on the floor, watched Tally carefully. She had seen Tally stare at her phone. She saw right through the defensive anger to the selfish, panicked teenager underneath. Mari didn't know the local school protocols, but she knew human nature. She knew Tally had abandoned her sister because it was inconvenient. But Mari was a stranger in this house, and the thing outside was a much bigger problem. She chose to keep her mouth shut.
"Have you called her?" Justin asked, pulling his own phone out.
"I tried," Tally lied smoothly, crossing her arms to hide her shaking hands. "It just goes straight to a busy signal. Everything is entirely useless today."
Another explosion boomed in the distance—farther away than the first, but much deeper. The windows rattled in their frames, a low-frequency vibration that seemed to settle in their bones.
Mari gasped. She swayed slightly, her hand flying to her mouth, the other pressing hard against her lower abdomen. She looked incredibly pale, a sheen of cold sweat breaking out on her forehead.
Justin was at her side in half a second, his entire demeanor shifting from guarded to purely frantic. He turned his back to Tally, crowding Mari into the corner by the oven.
"Hey," Justin whispered, his voice incredibly low, meant only for her. "Are you okay?"
"I feel sick," Mari breathed back, her fingers gripping the fabric of Justin's hoodie. "Justin, the cramping... it's getting worse."
"It's just the stress," Justin murmured, resting his hand gently over hers on her stomach. It was an intimate, entirely unguarded gesture that completely destroyed the "we just met at orientation" cover story. "I've got you. I'm not going to let anything happen to you or the baby. I swear to God."
Tally stood frozen by the island. Her social radar was pitch-perfect, and the whispered words carried just enough in the quiet kitchen.
The baby. The absolute shock of it temporarily overrode her panic about Ella. Her perfectionist, military-bound, straight-A brother had knocked up his TA, and they were hiding it. Tally's stomach twisted into a cold, angry knot. She was being managed. They were treating her like an idiot while having their own private crisis in her kitchen.
She laughed once, a brittle, ugly sound. "Wow. Cool. Love the secret meeting."
Justin turned quickly, stepping slightly in front of Mari like a shield. His face was tight. "Tal—"
"No, it's fine!" Tally snapped, her voice vibrating with pure indignation. She needed to be mad at them so she didn't have to face the sickening reality of what she had done. "Clearly you two have your own little survival club going on. You've got secrets. You've got your own agenda. But guess what? I don't care about your drama right now. I care about my sister. Where is she?"
Mari forced herself to stand up. Her face was pale, but her green eyes hardened. "Tally, if your nanny was out on the roads when this hit, she isn't coming."
That landed harder than anything else. Tally's eyes flashed with sudden, primal territorial fire. "Don't talk to me like that! That's my sister out there! Not yours!"
Justin held up a hand, silencing them both. He moved to the center of the room, drawing a deep breath. He looked at his pregnant girlfriend, and then at his furious sister. "Stop fighting. We're going to go get her."
Tally shook her head, crossing her arms even tighter. "No. The protocol is to stay put. Dad said in an emergency, you stay in the house. She's coming here."
"Tally, if she's stuck at Wilmington Island, she has no way home," Justin said, his voice devastatingly flat.
Tally sank onto the edge of the sofa, a frustrated, bitter sound escaping her throat. She wasn't crying because she felt sad; she was crying because she was furious at the entire situation, and completely out of control.
"She should just be here," Tally muttered into her hands, her voice tight with resentment. "I just wanted to get home. I just wanted today to be normal."
Justin knelt in front of her. He didn't see a sociopath; he just saw his terrified little sister trying to cope with a reality that was too big for her. "I know. But we have to fix it now."
Thud.
Mr. Henderson slammed against the side of the house again.
It wasn't near the mudroom anymore. He had moved. The heavy, dragging footsteps scuffed across the concrete of the back patio.
Justin stood up, reaching for the heavy Mag-lite flashlight he'd left on the counter. He didn't have a gun, but the four-pound metal cylinder felt like a weapon.
Mari backed up slowly, moving out of the kitchen and into the edge of the foyer. Her foot bumped against something hard on the hardwood floor. She looked down. It was the heavy, eight-inch chef's knife Tally had dropped when she first hugged Justin. Mari didn't hesitate. She bent down and wrapped her fingers tightly around the black rubber handle, picking it up and resting it against her leg.
Tally wiped her face with the heel of her palm and stood up. The vulnerable, crying girl vanished completely, replaced by something jagged, cold, and fiercely territorial.
"If Ella is out there," Tally said, her voice dropping into a flat, deadly whisper, "I don't care what happens to anyone else. We get her. Nobody touches her."
Justin didn't respond. He was listening.
A shadow passed in front of the frosted sidelight window next to the front door. It blotted out the pale, grey December daylight for half a second, casting a horrific, shambling silhouette across the foyer floor. It wasn't just Henderson anymore. More of them had wandered into the cul-de-sac.
The house creaked, the old wood settling—or perhaps reacting to the weight of the things pressing against the exterior walls.
"Stay behind me," Justin whispered, tightening his grip on the flashlight. "Both of you. We're going to the mudroom. We're getting in the Suburban."
Tally stepped closer without thinking, her hand clutching the back of Justin's hoodie.
They took one step toward the hallway.
The kitchen window didn't break on the first scrape, but the sound it made—that long, shrill vibration of keratin against glass—stripped away the last of Justin's composure. It was a predatory sound, a territorial claim. It said: I know you are in there. I can see the light.
"We go now!" Justin roared.
Behind him, the kitchen window exploded inward in a chaotic shower of shattering glass.