Jake left his car half a mile back, just as the message had instructed, and walked the rest of the way on foot with his heart slamming against his ribs.
The building the pin had led him to sat quiet and unremarkable at the edge of the human territory, the kind of place nobody would think to look twice at. He pushed the door open slowly, half expecting an ambush, half expecting to find someone waiting for him inside.
The room was empty. A single bulb hung from the ceiling, throwing a weak yellow light over bare walls. Jake stood in the doorway a moment, listening for any sound, any shift of breath that wasn't his own, but there was nothing.
He pulled his phone out with unsteady fingers and read the message again, checking he'd got the address right, checking the time, checking anything that might give him some sense of control over what was happening to him.
That was when the door creaked open behind him.
