The forearm on Isaac's throat pressed harder for one ugly second.
Then it vanished.
The man came off him all at once, not because Isaac won anything, but because whatever he'd heard outside mattered more.
He drove one hard shot into Isaac's ribs on the way up. Pure reflex. Mean and efficient.
Isaac folded around the pain and sucked in nothing.
"Back!" Marlon barked.
The attacker didn't go for the knife.
Didn't bother with Jadah.
Didn't even look at Ty.
He kicked the overturned table into the hall, bought himself half a second of chaos, and sprinted for the kitchen.
Ty lunged after him anyway.
"Ty, no—"
Too late.
The man caught Ty with the back of his arm across the mouth and sent him crashing into the wall again, then hit the back door at a run.
Wood slammed.
The fence outside rattled hard.
Footsteps tore through the side yard.
From the front porch, the same unknown voice shouted, closer now, sharper.
"Rear. Move."
More feet.
Not one person.
At least two.
Jadah stumbled backward, eyes huge. "What the hell is happening?"
Isaac was already off the floor.
He hit the bottom stair, nearly slipped in the mess of broken wood and blood, caught himself on the banister with his bad arm and almost blacked out from the flare in his shoulder.
Didn't stop.
"Isaac!" Marlon called after him.
He kept going.
At the top of the stairs the lamp on the floor still bled that low sick yellow across the hall. His mother lay where the man had dropped her, one arm twisted under her, hair half over her face, blouse dark and ruined.
He went to his knees so hard the old boards cracked under him.
"Ma."
The word came out shredded.
He pushed her hair back.
Her skin was still warm.
That was the worst part.
Warm enough to lie.
Her eyes were half open but looking nowhere. There were stab wounds in her chest and side, narrow and deep, cloth cut open around them, blood dried in some places and still wet in others. Her wrists were rubbed raw where she'd been dragged. There was blood under two broken nails like she'd clawed at something, someone, right until she couldn't.
Isaac put his fingers to the side of her neck anyway.
Nothing.
He tried again because his hand was shaking.
Still nothing.
The whole house seemed to tilt around him.
Downstairs, voices collided.
Ty, hoarse and furious: "Who the hell are you?"
A man answered. Older. Controlled. "Where's Isaac?"
Marlon, breathless now and trying not to sound it: "Who are you?"
No answer.
Just footsteps in the front hall. Fast, then stopping.
Isaac barely heard any of it.
His eyes had dropped to his mother's left hand.
Still clenched.
Not empty.
Something black was trapped in her fist, slicked red along one edge.
He stared at it for half a second before his brain caught up.
A flash drive.
Small. Matte black. One corner cracked. Her fingers were locked around it so hard the knuckles had gone pale under the blood.
He pried gently at first.
Then less gently when her hand wouldn't open.
"Isaac," Marlon said from somewhere behind him, voice wrong now. Thin. "We need to move."
He got two fingers under hers and peeled them back one by one.
The drive came free wet into his palm.
Tiny.
Light.
Heavy enough to drag the whole night down with it.
He closed his hand around it on instinct.
Downstairs, Jadah's voice cut in, sharp with fear. "Don't come up here."
The older man said, "If he touched her hand, get him away from the windows."
Isaac froze.
That voice.
Not because he knew it well.
Because he knew it at all.
Old memory. Buried deep. A man in a doorway. Low voice in the kitchen while his mother said a name too softly. Shoes by the back step. The smell of rain on a dark jacket.
His head snapped toward the stairs.
Marlon was standing at the end of the hall, one hand pressed hard to his bleeding arm, the other braced on the wall. His face had gone gray under the skin. He looked at Isaac, then at what was in Isaac's fist, then back again.
He saw enough.
"Pocket it," Marlon said.
Isaac did.
Fast.
The drive disappeared into the pocket of his shorts just as footsteps hit the stairs below.
Measured.
Unhurried.
Not the knife man. Different weight. Different pace. Somebody coming up who already expected to be obeyed.
Ty was still arguing downstairs, voice cracking at the edges now. "I said stop moving."
The man coming up didn't stop.
Isaac stood.
His knees almost folded under him and he locked them out before they could.
Behind him, his mother stayed on the floor where he'd left her.
He hated himself for turning away from her.
He hated himself more for knowing he had to.
The footsteps reached the bend in the staircase.
A tall man came into view, dark jacket open, face lined harder than Isaac remembered and exactly enough to make the years feel like a trick.
His eyes went first to Isaac.
Then to the blood on him.
Then past him, to Isaac's mother on the floor.
Something in his face shut off.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
The man looked back at Isaac and said, very quietly,
"Tell me you didn't bring it into the light."