Page 109 of White Noise

“Run tomorrow, little echo.”

She doesn’t wake.

I let the static take my hand first, then my arm, shoulder, chest, until the room starts showing through me.

My body disappears easily this time, and I retreat farther into the signal than I usually do, deliberately shutting down each way I would normally watch her.

The camera disappears.

Then the monitor.

Her television and phone.

The smart-home system.

One connection after another goes dark until I have no image of Saga at all.

Still, something remains.

Faint, steady, and alive.

I follow it through the noise without opening a single screen.

And for the first time, I know exactly where Saga is without seeing her at all.

12

SAGA

WHITE NOISE

Iwake up already knowing I’m leaving.

There is no debate this time.

No lying to myself about being able to keep existing inside a condo Silas apparently controls better than I fucking do

The front door is still locked, the security system is basically his personal fucking toy now, and I’m high enough up that climbing out a window would solve my Silas problem by giving me a much bigger gravity problem.

So, walls it is.

I shower fast, pull on black leggings, an old hoodie, and sneakers, then leave every piece of technology I own behind like I’m heading into witness protection but like, for electronics.

My phone stays on the nightstand beside my watch. No earbuds. No laptop. No goddamn Bluetooth anything.

If it has a battery, a speaker, a screen, or even looks remotely capable of betraying me, it can stay the fuck home.

I grab the cash from the emergency envelope in my dresser, shove my pink utility knife and a screwdriver into my hoodie pocket, then drag a chair beneath the large return vent in the upstairs hallway.

The screws are buried beneath about twelve generations of landlord-special paint, because apparently whoever installed this thing was confident no future tenant would ever need to crawl into the walls to escape her homicidal supernatural stalker.

Poor planning, really.

It takes twenty minutes, one cut across my palm, and enough creative swearing to get me permanently blacklisted from every maintenance department in the country, but the grille finally comes loose.

Behind it is exactly what I hoped for.

Not one of those massive movie vents where people casually crawl around without getting stuck, stabbed, or eaten by something living in the insulation.