Chapter 9 - The GarageThe garage was pitch black except for the amber light of the security camera blinking above the workbench. Standing by the driver’s side of Dad’s sedan was a figure holding a red plastic jerrycan, pouring a steady stream of fuel across the concrete floor toward the interior door.
It wasn't Julian. He was still locked in the county holding facility sixteen miles away.
The person froze, slowly turning around with the gas can still tilted in their hands. The overhead security light caught the side of their face, revealing a sharp, unfamiliar grin that looked terrifyingly like Julian’s.
“You’re late, Leo,” a voice said—not Julian’s voice, but a synthesized, metallic echo bouncing off the concrete walls through a small speaker clipped to the intruder’s collar. “Julian sends his regards. He said you always were terrible at checking secondary variables.”
It was one of Julian’s online acolytes—someone from those encrypted chat rooms who had spent the last three days waiting for the signal to execute the final phase of Project Hearth.
Before the intruder could raise the lighter in his other hand, I lunged across the slick, gasoline-soaked floor, my boots sliding out from under me before I slammed my shoulder directly into his chest. We went down together in a heap of tangled limbs, the plastic gas can flying across the floor and splashing fuel against the drywall.
“Chloe, run!” I screamed, gasping for air as the intruder’s hands locked around my throat with terrifying, unnatural strength. “Get out of the house! Call 911!”
She didn't run.
Instead of heading for the front door, I heard the heavy thud of footsteps behind me, followed by the metallic clatter of the iron tire iron Dad kept in his toolbox hitting the concrete floor.
The intruder tried to twist away from my grip, but before he could clear his footing, Chloe swung the heavy iron bar with both hands, catching him squarely across the shoulder blade with a sickening crunch of bone.
The man screamed, releasing his grip on my throat and collapsing onto his knees in a puddle of gasoline.
I scrambled backward, coughing violently as the fumes burned the lining of my lungs, and grabbed the red jerrycan, tossing it safely out through the open garage door into the rain.
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“Are you okay?” Chloe asked, her voice trembling violently, but her grip on the tire iron was rock-solid as she stood over the writhing intruder. She wasn't hiding her arms in her sleeves anymore. Her bruised wrist was fully exposed, dark and angry in the amber light, but she wasn't flinching.
“I’m fine,” I gasped, wiping fuel and sweat from my forehead. I pulled my phone out of my pocket, dialed three numbers with shaking fingers, and hit speakerphone as the sirens began to wail in the distance, cutting through the rainy night like a blade of light.
