My stomach drops through the floor.
“That’s cute,” I say, trying for flippant and missing. “Definitely not unnerving at all.”
“Step back,” Bran says quietly.
“It’s just a text,” I whisper. “Words on a screen.”
“He used text messages last time,” Cotton says quietly. She’s gone pale.
She’s right. Henry never laid a hand on Shiloh before everything went sideways. He used gifts and notes and attention, little bites out of her life.
Brain first. Body later.
The cursor blinks in the message box.
“I can block it,” Bran says. “Right now. Kill the connection, change your handles, walk you away from all of it.”
“And then he finds another way in,” I say. “Maybe one we don’t see coming. Or another girl. At least here, I know the terrain.”
“Tally—”
“You said help or hinder,” I cut in, looking up at him. “This is the moment. You going to stand in front of the screen or behind it?”
His jaw clenches hard enough I can see it from here.
“Fine,” he says at last. “But I read every word before you answer. He slips once, I pull the plug. No debate.”
“Deal,” I say, even though we both know I’ll fight him if it comes to that.
The cursor blinks again.
Then words appear, letter by letter.
you really are still watching
The room shrinks.
“Okay,” Bran says softly, eyes gone flat and dangerous. “Let’s see what our monster wants to say. And then we decide how much of you he’s allowed to see back.”
TWELVE
HIM
Thelittlebirdblinksback at me from the screen.
SmartLittleBird.
It’s the perfect little inside joke. Tallulah will get it without even trying.
I watch the cursor pulse at the bottom of the chat window. The handle on the other end—Nightjar—has been quiet for ten minutes. Long enough for panic to start nipping at her heels. Long enough for her to debate and decide who, exactly, just called her back into the story.
you really are still watching
I send it and sit back, letting the words hang there. Taunting.
The laptop hums on the motel desk, a cheap thing I paid cash for in a town two hours away. The curtains are drawn. The heater rattles every few minutes like it’s choking on dust. Outside, the parking lot is a slurry of gray snow and older sedans.
It’s not glamorous. It doesn’t have to be. That’s not the point—finishing what I started is the point.
