One of many.
“Who is it?” Penny’s voice came sleepy and muffled from her room.
“I don’t know,” Arden called back, her voice tighter than she meant it to be.
She approached slowly, staying in the shadows, the beat of her pulse hammering behind her collarbone. She pressed her eye to the peephole.
Empty hallway.
Wet footprints.
Leading away from the door. Sharp. Deliberate.
Not fading fast enough to feel accidental.
She cracked the door open, inch by cautious inch.
There it was.
On the threshold.
A rose.
Single. Crimson. Rain-slicked.
Its petals curled in perfect, silent bloom against the welcome mat.
Not left carelessly. Not dropped in passing.
Placed.
Presented.
Offered.
The scent rolled in like a wave, sickly-sweet and artificial. A chemical sweetness that twisted theair wrong.
And then she saw them, just beyond the lip of the doorway, trailing away from the threshold like breadcrumbs.
Leading toward the stairwell.
Every nerve in her body ignited.
She slammed the door.
Bolted it. Twice.
Her breath came shallow and fast, the air in the apartment too tight.
The rose now saton the kitchen counter, its silent weight heavier than it had any right to be. She could still feel it in her hands. Could smell its perfume bleeding into her skin. Felt the storm shift—not outside, but inside.
Because this wasn’t a rose.
This was a tether.
A warning.
A reminder.
