Night settled over Crescent City with a heaviness that felt personal, as if the sky itself had lowered to press against the rooftops. Alec and Mara stepped out of Evelyn's house together, the door shutting behind them with a muted click. Neither spoke for several seconds. They were thick with everything Evelyn had confessed—Dawn's childhood, her quiet fears, the strange nights she couldn't explain. It sat between Alec and Mara like a third presence.
The air outside was unusually cold, sharp in a way that belonged more to late winter than early autumn. The kind of cold that felt wrong on the skin. Mara rubbed her arms through her coat and exhaled slowly.
"She looked like she'd aged ten years," she murmured. "Catherine. I've never seen her like that." Mara changed the subject.
Alec nodded. "Losing Elara… she shouldn't have had to see that body. No one should."
Mara swallowed tightly. "I keep thinking I'll wake up, and this will all have been a bad dream."
Alec didn't answer. His throat was too tight for words, and the wind carried something brittle through the trees lining the narrow lane: a sound like dry leaves whispering secrets to each other.
They started walking.
Evelyn house sat on the edge of town, along a road that passed the unused part of Crescent Lake—a stretch the locals avoided at night. Even the streetlights avoided it; the path was dim, lit only by the rare lamp flickering with a sickly yellow glow.
Halfway down the road, Mara stopped. "Did you hear that?"
"Hear what?" Alec asked.
She tilted her head, listening. Her brown eyes narrowed, reflecting the weak light. "Footsteps. Behind us."
Alec turned and looked back. The road behind them was empty. No cars. No pedestrians. Just the long quiet breath of the evening.
"You're tensed. Your mind's filling space with noise." He tried for a small smile. It didn't land.
Mara didn't argue. She just resumed walking, but a little closer to him.
The two moved past a cluster of crooked trees, their branches jittering in the wind. The temperature dropped again—noticeably. Mara's breath fogged. Alec's didn't.
She noticed.
"Alec." Her voice lowered. "You're not—your breath…"
But her sentence dissolved as a faint sound crawled through the air behind them.
A footstep.
Then another.
Not rushed. Not hesitant.
Measured.
Deliberate.
As though whoever—or whatever—was following wasn't afraid to be heard anymore.
Alec and Mara turned in unison this time.
Still nothing.
"Alec," Mara whispered, "That wasn't in my head. I know what I heard."
He opened his mouth, closed it, then nodded once. "Let's get into town. Quick."
They walked faster. Not running, not yet, but with purpose. Their pace matched now, footsteps hitting the pavement in sync.
The road curved left, toward the lake. Mist was beginning to roll across the surface—thin, low, moving strangely against the wind. Mara's voice thinned. "Why is the fog moving like that?"
Before Alec could answer, a sound rose from the mist.
A soft, wet dragging.
As if something were hauling itself across the lakebed.
They froze.
It came again—closer this time. A drawling scrape, like skin against stone or fabric across damp wood. It moved with unnatural rhythm, not matching the wind, not matching any animal they knew.
Then—
A breath.
Not theirs.
Not human.
A quiet exhale that felt too close.
Mara flinched and grabbed Alec's arm. His pulse jumped beneath her fingers.
"Keep walking," Alec said, forcing steadiness into his voice. "Don't look back."
They did, or tried to. The dragging followed them, growing quicker, wetter, more certain. Alec's skin prickled; something deep in his chest felt squeezed tight, like a memory trying to wake.
And then they heard it.
A woman's voice.
Soft. Crooked.
Broken around the edges.
"Alec…"
He stopped dead.
Mara stared at him. "No. Alec, don't. Keep going."
But the voice drifted through the fog again, barely above a whisper yet unmistakable.
"Alec… help me…"
It was Elara's voice.
His heart staggered. His feet moved before he could tell them not to, drawn toward the mist like metal to a magnet.
Mara yanked him back. "Alec, stop! That's not her. That can't be her!"
The mist thickened suddenly, swallowing the road ahead like a living thing. Something moved inside it—tall, too tall, with limbs that bent as if joints had been added where none belonged.
The fog parted for an instant, just enough for them to glimpse it.
A shape.
A woman's outline—but contorted, as if twisted by hands that didn't understand human anatomy. Her head lolled impossibly to one side, hair floating upward though no air stirred. And her face—
No features.
Just a smooth, blue-tinted surface.
Mara choked on a gasp. Alec felt the world tilt.
The figure leaned forward.
When it spoke, the voice was unmistakably Elara's—but stripped of warmth, stripped of soul, stripped of everything that had made her Elara.
"Alecccc…"
Mara didn't wait. She grabbed his wrist and ran, pulling him into motion. Alec stumbled at first, forcing his body to obey. Behind them, something hit the pavement with a wet slap.
Another step.
Another.
And then a long, high, keening sound rose—so sharp and cold it sliced through the night like a razor.
They sprinted until the houses began to reappear—until the first real streetlight glowed steady overhead. The temperature warmed so abruptly it felt like being plunged into water.
Only then did the sound stop.
Only then did the dragging cease.
Alec collapsed against a wall, chest heaving. Mara leaned over, hands on her knees, trembling violently.
After a long minute, she said, voice hoarse, "We're not imagining this. Whatever killed Elara… it's not done."
Alec pressed a shaking hand against his face. When he pulled it away, a faint blue smudge stained his fingers.
He stared at it, breath gone.
Not again.
Mara saw the mark and backed up a step. "Alec… that's the same color they found on Elara."
He didn't respond. He couldn't.
Because the cold, distant voice from the fog echoed inside his skull—gentle, pleading, wrong.
"Alec… help me…"
He whispered, barely audible, "It knows my name."
And for the first time since Elara's death, Alec Rowan felt fear deep enough to hollow out his bones.