Cautiously, she took one step away from the door, then another, moving back into the center of the living room. She listened so intently the blood pulsed in her own ears. The house had returned to its tomb-like quiet. No thuds. No running. Just the faint, normal creak of a settling structure. The longer the silence held,
The more doubt seeped in, the more foolish she felt. Sabrina’s dismissive calm now seemed rational. Perhaps it really was all in her head, a phantom born of the previous day’s tension and her own lingering unease.
With a final, uncertain glance upward, she turned and reached for the doorknob. Just as her fingers made contact with the cool metal, a new sound froze her solid.
It wasn’t a thud or a footstep.
It was a click.
Clear and precise—the unmistakable sound of a door latch being carefully, quietly engaged from upstairs. Not a slam, nor an accidental catch, but the deliberate, soft *click* of a door being shut and locked.
All her doubt evaporated instantly. Pipes didn’t turn locks. Furnaces didn’t close doors. Someone was up there. Someone who had waited in silence until hearing her by the exit, and who was now securing a barrier between them. The blood drained from Kayla’s face, leaving her cold and lightheaded. Sabrina’s practiced calm, her deflection, her focus on Kayla’s mistake rather than the threat—it all curdled into something sinister. This wasn’t a misunderstanding. It was a cover-up.
Stripped of all hesitation by pure terror, Kayla fumbled with the door, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps. She finally yanked it open and stumbled out into the blinding normality of the sunny afternoon. She didn’t stop until she was a full block away, leaning against a sturdy oak tree, her heart a frantic drum against her ribs. She stared back at the house, which sat serene and picturesque in the daylight, its windows like placid, unseeing eyes. The polished calm she had always admired was now a veneer, and she had just heard the terrible reality stirring beneath it. She had the spare key in her pocket, the text message on her phone, and a single, terrifying certainty: Sabrina had lied.