Chapter 5 - The Midnight Shift
The house plunged into absolute darkness as midnight rolled over the sleepy suburb. Vanessa had locked us inside the guest bedroom upstairs, sliding a heavy deadbolt from the outside that clicked into place with finality. Through the thick oak door, I could hear her footsteps pacing the hallway—meticulous, rhythmic, and terrifyingly calm. Downstairs, Julian was presumably back in his subterranean cell, locked away until Vanessa decided what to do with her new human livestock.
I sat on the edge of the guest bed, whispering softly to Lily, who had finally cried herself to sleep.
"Daddy, are we going to live in the wall too?" she had mumbled before drifting off. The thought made me want to tear the walls down with my bare hands.
I gently laid her across the pillows and crept toward the room's en-suite bathroom. The window here was slightly larger than the ones in the main living areas, but it faced the backyard, dropping a sheer twelve feet onto the concrete patio below. There was no trellis, no ivy to climb down—just hard, unforgiving stone.
Think, Arthur. Think.
I searched the bathroom drawers with my fingertips in the pitch black. Soap bars, spare toothbrushes, a bottle of aspirin, and—my fingers brushed against something cold and metallic. Vanessa’s backup set of electronic gate openers and the master key ring for the entire house, which she must have tossed in here during her cleaning frenzy.
My pulse spiked. If I could pick the lock on the bedroom door using a bobby pin from the vanity, I could slip downstairs, grab the spare car keys from the kitchen hook, and—
Click.
The bedroom door handle turned.
I froze, my breath trapped in my lungs. I slipped back into the bathroom just as the heavy oak door swung open with a soft groan of hinges. The ambient moonlight cut a harsh white stripe across the bedroom floor.
"Arthur?" Vanessa’s voice purred into the dark. It wasn't angry; it was laced with an eerie, mocking curiosity. "I know you're awake. Don't bother looking for exits. The window sensors are armed, and the local security company is set to my secondary passcode."
I stepped out of the bathroom, keeping my body positioned to shield the doorway. "You can't keep doing this, Vanessa. Sooner or later, someone will look closer. The IRS, the police, my business partners—"
"Let them look," Vanessa stepped further into the room, moonlight glinting off the silver blade of a kitchen knife she held casually in her right hand. "By tomorrow morning, you won't be around to answer their questions. And Julian? Well, Julian was officially declared dead five years ago. Dead men don't file tax returns."
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Before I could process the threat, a sudden, violent crash echoed from downstairs. It wasn't a subtle noise—it sounded like the entire living room bookcase had been ripped straight out of its moorings.
Vanessa’s head snapped toward the hallway, her color draining instantly. "What did he do?"
