Page 42

Malak crumples the letter in his fist. “He knows.”

“He’s going to expose us.”

“Let him try.”

The growl in his voice makes me shiver. This is the predator. The guardian. The thing that lives in the Hollow and hunts.

“We can’t fight the whole town,” I say quietly.

“We won’t have to. The town doesn’t know what they’re defending yet.”

We stand there in the bakery. Surrounded by bread that can change people’s emotions. Carrying a baby that can shatter windows with a kick. Knowing that someone is coming for us and we can’t hide anymore.

The fragile peace is over.

And I don’t know if we’re ready for what comes next.

I need air.

The bakery feels too small suddenly, too hot, like the walls are pressing in. I tell Malak I’m going for a walk. He looks like he wants to argue but doesn’t. Just watches me go with that careful expression that means he’s tracking every step.

The evening air is cool against my face. I walk without direction. Just moving. Processing.

Preston knows. The Health Department is coming. Everything I’ve built could be gone in a week.

I should be panicking. Making plans. Calling a lawyer.

Instead, I’m looking at this town like I’m seeing it for the first time.

The antique shop on the corner. Closed sign in the window like always. I’ve walked past it a hundred times. Never once seen it open. Never once wondered how it stays in business or who owns it or why the display never changes.

The doctor’s office two blocks down. Dr. Reeves. He delivered half the babies in this town, including the teenager with the vertical pupils. He doesn’t take insurance. No one ever complains about the bills. I thought it was just small-town trust. Now I’m wondering what services he’s actually providing.

I pass the small cemetery at the edge of town. The one I visited once when Dan died, looking for a plot even though we ended up cremating him. The headstones stretch back centuries. Further than they should for a town this size.

I stop at the gate. Read the names visible from the street.

Chen. 1847.

Rodriguez. 1789.

Patterson. 1923.

Another Rodriguez. 1654.

Chen again. 1702.

The same families. Always the same families. Spanning centuries. Impossible unless...

Unless this town isn’t what I thought it was.

I keep walking. Past the library with its restricted section that requires special permission. Past the historical society that guards its archives like state secrets. Past houses I’ve seen every day for five years without ever questioning why some of them have symbols carved into the doorframes, or why certain streets have names that aren’t English, aren’t Spanish, aren’t any language I recognize.

And then I’m at the edge. Where the pavement ends and the marsh begins.

The Hollow.

The chain-link fence is rusted. Bent in places. Warning signs bolted every ten feet: NO TRESPASSING. DANGER. KEEP OUT.