Days passed, but Gideon didn't come to find her. Luna didn't go looking either, but his presence clung to her like fog—always close, always just out of reach. Her world had shifted. Everything that once felt solid now seemed hollow.
She thought about the way he'd caught her. The way his voice softened around her like he couldn't help it. But she also remembered the way he looked when he said "yes"—when she asked if he had killed someone.
He scared her. But somehow, she didn't want him to disappear.
She went back to the library. Back to the same old archive folder. A different article this time. No names, just whispers of missing hikers, bodies never found. Strange markings burned into tree trunks. The kind she had seen.
She ran her fingers over the page. There were things happening in Crescent Valley that people didn't talk about. But she was starting to understand why.
That evening, she sat on the back steps of her house, staring into the trees. The sun had barely set when she felt it—that shift in the air, the quiet that wasn't natural.
"You're here, aren't you?" she whispered.
Silence answered her.
But she knew.
He was close.
Watching.
Maybe protecting her. Maybe warning her.
Either way, it wasn't over. And some part of her didn't want it to be.