Chapter 1 - The Silence of the Empty HouseThe keys clattered loudly against the hardwood entryway, a sharp, metallic echo that pierced the suffocating quiet of the house.
Cameron stood paralyzed in the doorway, his chest rising and falling in shallow, panicked gasps. The smile he had worn all the way home from his mother’s birthday bash—a smug, self-satisfied grin born from hours of listening to Pamela whine about how Sienna always tried to steal the spotlight—had vanished without a trace.
In its place was a look of raw, unadulterated horror.
The house didn't feel like home anymore. It felt like a tomb.
"Sienna?" his voice cracked, sounding thinner and more pathetic than he intended.
There was no answer. Just the low hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen and the steady, rhythmic dripping of a leaky faucet somewhere down the hall.
Cameron swallowed hard, his throat dry as sandpaper. He took a hesitant step forward, his shoes crunching on something sharp. He looked down. Shards of glass—thousands of tiny, jagged diamonds—were scattered across the kitchen tile, catching the afternoon sunlight. Next to them, a dried, dark-brown stain crusted the grout.
Blood.
His stomach violently churned. The memory of Sienna’s desperate face flashing in his mind—sweat-soaked, terrified, begging him for help—hit him like a physical blow. He had called her dramatic. He had told her she was faking it to sabotage his mother's golden anniversary. He had laughed, slammed the door, and spent the last forty-eight hours drinking champagne, eating expensive steak, and ignoring every single notification on his phone.
Five missed calls.
He pulled his phone from his pocket with shaking fingers. He stared at the screen, his thumb hovering over her contact name. With a trembling breath, he pressed dial.
From somewhere deep inside the master bedroom upstairs, a high-pitched, mechanical ringing began to play.
Vzzzt. Vzzzt. Vzzzt.
Cameron dropped his phone. It bounced off the baseboard and slid across the floor, stopping near the base of the stairs. The ringing stopped.
He didn't pick it up. Instead, he forced his leaden legs to move, dragging himself up the stairs one agonizing step at a time. Every instinct in his body screamed at him to run back out to his car and drive away, to pretend he never came home, to erase the last two days. But gravity pulled him forward.
He reached the landing. The door to their master bedroom was wide open.
Cameron gripped the doorframe, his knuckles turning stark white, and peered inside.
The bed was made, neat and undisturbed, exactly as it had been when he walked out two days ago. But resting on the center of the pristine white duvet was something that made his blood run instantly cold.
A small, silver urn.
May you like
And beside it, a pristine, unopened white envelope with his name written across the front in Sienna’s precise, elegant handwriting.
Cameron’s knees finally gave out. He slid down the doorframe, landing hard on his tailbone, gasping for air as the full, terrifying weight of what he had done crashed down upon his shoulders.
