My fingers twisted in the scarf.
I looked up at Wolf—his steady eyes, his warmth grounding me—and finally whispered:
“Soon.”
Trigger straightened. “What the hell does that mean?”
Saint froze. “Wolf… combine that with the countdown—”
“It means he’s been building to something,” Wolf murmured. “Not months from now. Not someday.”
Havoc’s voice dropped low. “Soon.”
I swallowed. “But… there’s something else.”
The men went still again.
I forced myself to breathe, to let the memory surface—not the nightmare, but the whisper behind it. Faint, muffled, buried under months of fear.
“He wasn’t alone that night,” I whispered. “At the library.”
Wolf’s entire body went rigid.
Trigger stepped forward. “What do you mean—someone else broke in?”
“No,” I said. “Not inside. Outside.”
I closed my eyes, feeling the memory crack open like ice.
“It wasn’t one whisper,” I said. “It was two.”
Saint lowered his tablet slowly. “Two voices?”
I nodded.
Trigger muttered, “Oh, hell.”
Havoc rubbed his jaw. “We’ve been tracking a single perp…”
Sheriff Tate stiffened. “But there might be two.”
Wolf’s hand tightened around mine. “Tell me everything you remember.”
I took a shaky breath. “The second voice was deeper. Not words. More like… a grunt. Like someone angry.”
Tate’s face hardened. “They’re working together.”
Saint swallowed. “And we have absolutely no idea who the second one is.”
Wolf stared at the scarf in my hands, then at the men, then toward the window overlooking the dark alley.
His voice dropped into something lethal.
“Then we find out.”
Before anyone could respond—
Another sound cut through the room.
