It’s not just the words—it’s her expression. She’s not smirking. Not performing for once.
Maybe there is a Sephora gift card in it for her, but this part is real. She genuinely wants me to come out and spend time with her. And I don’t know why, but that gets me.
“You look really pretty, Ambs,” I say, reaching out and tucking a shiny curl behind her ear. It’s awkward and unfamiliar, big sister energy I didn’t know I still had. “Have a great time today.”
“Ally—”
“Please, just go. I’ll be fine.”
I turn away, cranking up the volume onBuffyuntil the sound drowns everything else out.
After she leaves, I search for something darker to watch. Something to match my mood.
I scroll through Netflix until I land on some old horror movie about a creepy kid who might be the Antichrist. Apparently, he kills people just by looking at them. The plot feels vaguely familiar, though I’m not sure I’ve seen it before. Probably just the usual trope. There are so many devil-child stories—Rosemary’s Baby,Little Evil,Deliver Us. This one isn’t half bad, from what I can tell, but I’m too distracted to really follow.
All I can think about is Hayes.
Sometime after a mysterious dog shows up and a Catholic priest starts warning the parents their child might not be human, I shut my laptop and drift off to sleep.
I’m running.
My bare feet slap against wet sand, lungs burning, heart pounding like a war drum. The wind howls, tugging at my hair. I can smell the ocean, taste the salt, feel the dusk thick and heavy on my skin.
I’m little—maybe five or six. My mother is screaming something I can’t quite hear, clutching Amber to her chest with one arm, the other gripping my wrist so tightly it hurts.
Behind us, something snarls.
The sound makes my blood freeze. It’s low and savage and not like any animal I’ve ever heard. It’s wrong. Unnatural.
I glance back, and the shadows stretch, flickering. There are eyes in the dark, low to the ground. Glowing red. Hunting us.
“Faster, Alysander!” Mom cries. “Don’t stop. Don’t look back!”
I run harder, tears streaking down my cheeks.
Then—out of nowhere—he’s there.
Hayes.
Standing at the edge of the rocks. Hair wind-tossed, face mostly hidden by the twilight. He steps forward and raises one hand, palm out, like he’s telling the monsters to stop.
And they do.
They squeal in fear… and then everything goes still.
I blink—and Hayes is gone. The monsters, too.
And then I’m in Mom’s car speeding away.Just road and sky and darkness...
I wake with a start, Mom’s screams still echoing in my head.
The room is dim now, my laptop dark beside me. For a second, I’m not sure what’s real. The air still smells faintly of wind and sea salt.
Just a weird dream, I tell myself. But the image of the monsters with the red eyes… and Hayes—his face, his hand raised like a command—lingers longer than it should.
I roll over, re-fluffing my pillow. It was probably that stupid horror movie. Or something I read in my mother’s letters—that last one, the one about the beach and running from hellhounds.
Still… it felt so real.
