The Books

The warehouse loomed at the edge of town like a skeleton, its rusted siding catching the moonlight in jagged streaks, shattered windows staring out like blind eyes. A chain-link fence sagged around it, more a suggestion of protection than an actual barrier. The place breathed rot and abandonment, the kind of forgotten ground the earth was eager to drag back into itself.

I'd been near spots like this before. They always carried the same weight—half-forgotten, half-rotting, like the bones of something better left buried. But tonight, the cold claw curling in my stomach wasn't about the warehouse. It was about JP.

"Wait for me, Evelyn. Don't move until I get there." His voice had been sharp, hard as iron. The way it always was when he meant business.

And I wanted to listen. Damn, I wanted to.

But sitting out here in the dark while that building watched me back was its own kind of torture. Every creak of wind through broken glass sounded like a footstep. Every shadow stretched a little too far, like it wanted to reach for me. My pulse throbbed in my ears, loud enough that I swore something else could hear it too.

What if I really did wait, and by the time JP arrived, whatever was inside had already slipped away? What if that hesitation—my hesitation—cost lives? The thought scalded. I wasn't some rookie hiding behind his shadow. I wasn't helpless.

But a part of me—the part that still remembered fire and smoke and the way he'd pulled me out of it—hesitated anyway.

My fingers itched at the knife strapped to my boot. My body leaned forward before my mind decided. Breath quick, nerves strung so tight they hummed, I told myself the same lie I always did when I was about to do something stupid.

You've got this. You're not a kid anymore.

I slipped through the fence.

The metal links rattled behind me like a warning I refused to hear. Boots crunched on glass, echoing too loudly in the night. The warehouse loomed larger, swallowing me whole.

And I moved.

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