One minute, everything is quiet.
Tildie's in the kitchen, making popcorn, the smell of butter and salt drifting through the main room.
Porter's at the front desk, monitoring the security cameras, his face lit by the blue glow of multiple screens.
Bracken's doing a perimeter check, his footsteps echoing somewhere in the distance.
I'm on the couch, staring at a movie I'm not really watching, my hand resting on my stomach where the baby has finally settled down.
The next minute, the lights go out.
Not just dim—completely out.
The TV dies.
The hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen stops.
Even the emergency lights take a moment to kick in, and in that moment of total darkness, I feel the first spike of real fear.
"What the hell?" Tildie's voice comes from the kitchen, high and nervous. "Vanna? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. Just—" I stand up, my heart already racing, my eyes straining to see in the blackness. "Porter? What's going on?"
No answer.
The emergency lights flicker on, casting everything in a dim red glow.
It's enough to see by, but barely.
Enough to make every shadow look like a threat.
The common room looks wrong in this light—unfamiliar, dangerous.
"Porter?" I call again, moving toward the front desk.
My voice sounds too loud in the silence. Too scared.
That's when I hear it.
A thud. Heavy. Final.
The unmistakable sound of a body hitting the floor.
My blood turns to ice.
And then footsteps.
Heavy. Fast.
Multiple sets, coming from different directions, coming down the hall.
"Vanna, run!" Tildie screams from somewhere behind me.
I hear a crash—furniture overturning, glass breaking—and then another scream, this one cut short.
I don't think. I just move.
My body takes over, survival instincts I didn't know I had propelling me toward the back of the clubhouse.
