But the worst part—The part that makes my stomach twist and my heart pound and my mind fracture—is that somewhere, deep in the woods surrounding this resort, Kai is close.
And the man I thought I feared most—might not be the monster waiting at the door.
It might be the man already inside it.
The bathroom is too bright.
Too clean.
Too white.
The kind of sterile luxury that looks expensive in photographs and suffocating when you’re standing inside it with shaking hands and a tightening throat.
The mirror fogs slightly as the shower steams up the room, warm air rolling over my skin like a slow exhale from something unseen.
My robe slips off my shoulders.
It feels lighter than it should.
I should be stepping into the shower.
I should be breathing.
I should be steady.
Instead, I stand there, frozen halfway between the sink and the shower, because something in the room feels…
wrong.
Not loud-wrong.
Not obvious-wrong.
Just a strange, quiet shift in the air, the same way a forest feels different after something big moves through it.
My pulse picks up.
I swallow, throat tight.
“Get a grip,” I whisper to myself.
I reach for the shower handle?—
Stop.
There’s something on the tiled floor behind the glass partition.
Small.
Dark.
Not where anything should be.
I push the glass door open slowly, breath stuttering, the warm steam curling around my legs as I step inside the shower stall, each footstep cautious, as though the tiles themselves might bite.
At first, I think it’s a piece of shadow.
Then I realise it’s fabric.
