The cottage felt different after the scraping sound across the porch. Like the walls had shifted an inch closer. Like the air had thickened. I stood with my back pressed to the door for a full minute, listening so hard it made my head hurt.
Nothing.
No more dragging. No footsteps. No breathing.
Just silence.
But I wasn't stupid enough to believe silence meant safety.
I forced myself to move farther inside. The boards creaked under me, and every creak made my nerves jump. My eyes scanned the windows even though the curtains were drawn tight. Shadows filtered through the thin fabric, stretching across the floor like fingers.
I tried to slow my breathing. I needed a plan. A thought. Something. But my mind kept circling the same truth:
Something followed me.
Something crawled out of the woods.
Something stood on my porch.
And John knew about it.
That alone made my stomach twist.
I walked to the kitchen table, sat down, and rubbed my palms together just to feel something normal. When that didn't ground me, I reached for my notebook and pen—some leftover instinct from years of writing things down to stay sane. But the page stayed blank. My hand shook too much to write.
So I did the next best thing. I reached for my phone.
No signal.
Of course.
I stood and lifted it higher. No bars. I moved to the living room. Nothing. I walked from one side of the cottage to the other like an idiot waving a phone around in slow circles.
Not one bar.
Fine. Whatever. I shoved the phone back into my pocket and paced the room. My thoughts kept returning to the man in the woods—John. The way he'd looked at the trees like he expected them to talk back. The way he vanished into them without hesitation.
Why was he the only one who wasn't pretending?
And why did that terrify me more than the sheriff's denial?
Another creak echoed outside.
I froze. Then told myself it was probably just the old porch adjusting to the cold morning. But something inside me didn't buy it. Not after last night. Not after the carving. Not after John said I'd been "noticed."
Who noticed me?
What noticed me?
And why?
I walked to the window nearest the porch. Slowly. Each step careful. The curtain brushed my fingertips when I stopped. My heart thudded as I pulled it open just enough to peek outside.
Nothing.
The porch was empty. The trees were still. The forest looked innocent again, like it had wiped its mouth clean after swallowing something whole.
I breathed out, shaky.
But then I saw it.
On the porch.
Not the symbol carved into the door—this was new.
Something small and dark lay on the wooden boards. I couldn't see what it was from this distance, but the shape looked wrong. Metallic, maybe. Or bone.
My stomach turned.
I didn't want to go out there. Everything inside me screamed not to. But leaving something on my porch—after last night, after the carving—that wasn't random.
It was deliberate.
A message.
I grabbed a hoodie, slipped it on, and opened the door slowly, inch by inch. The porch groaned under me as I stepped out. The morning felt colder than before, like something had sucked the warmth out of the air.
I crouched.
The object was a rock.
No—A stone.
Smooth. Round. Darker than the porch boards. But it wasn't the stone itself that made me feel sick. It was what had been scratched into its surface. A crude line. Another line crossing it. A third curved one beneath.
A face.
A face with no eyes.
Just two empty lines where the eyes should have been.
My breath caught.
The moment my fingertips brushed the stone, a sharp crack snapped through the trees.
I shot up, scanning the forest.
Nothing moved.
But something was watching. I felt it. Deep in my skin.
A branch broke to the right. Loud. Close.
That was enough. I ran inside, slammed the door, locked it twice, and stepped back.
This wasn't prank-level. This wasn't "kids messing around." This wasn't anything human.
And no one in town seemed willing to admit it.
Except one person.
John.
He knew what the symbol meant. He knew what followed me. He knew something was coming.
But he hadn't told me what.
A knock sounded behind me.
I swear my heart stopped.
Not the same knock as last night. That had been slow. Heavy. Male.
This knock was fast. Urgent.
I approached the door with careful steps. "Who is it?"
"It's Addison!" a voice called. Bright. Female. Breathless.
I opened the door a crack.
A woman stood on my porch. Younger than me by maybe five years. Blonde braid. Freckles. Big brown eyes wide with panic. She wore a thick coat and boots, mud splattered up to her knees like she'd run here.
"You're the new one, right?" she asked, voice trembling. "The one who moved in yesterday?"
"That's me."
She glanced back at the woods like she expected something to leap out. "Can I—can I come inside? Please?"
Normally, I'd be skeptical. But the panic in her eyes wasn't fake. And she kept looking at the same part of the woods I'd been hearing noises from.
I stepped aside. "Yeah. Come in."
She hurried inside, shutting the door behind her so fast the whole frame rattled.
For a few seconds she just stood there, breathing hard, like she needed the walls around her to feel real.
"You're Addison?" I asked gently.
She nodded. "From town. My family runs the little café near the square."
"Right. I saw it yesterday."
She pushed her braid off her shoulder, fingers shaking. "I didn't know if I should come. My mother told me to leave you alone at least a week. Let you 'adjust.' But I needed to warn you."
Here it comes.
"Warn me about what?" I asked.
She swallowed. Hard.
"About the woods."
My pulse kicked up. "What about them?"
"They're not safe. Especially now."
"Now?" I echoed.
She hesitated, then stepped closer. "Yesterday, when you arrived… the air felt strange. People felt it. The wind changed direction. And the Ridge—" She cut herself off, shaking her head. "We've had incidents before, but never this early in the season."
"What incidents?"
She didn't answer.
Not directly.
Instead, she asked, "Did anyone come to your porch last night?"
I stiffened. That was too specific to be a guess.
"Why?" I asked.
She looked terrified when she said, "Because something was moving through the forest. Something our pack hasn't seen in years."
Pack.
She said pack.
My mind snagged on that, but before I could question it, she continued.
"And the mark on your door… did you see it?"
I stared at her. "How do you know about that?"
She didn't blink. "Because that mark only shows up on houses that have been claimed."
My stomach dropped. "Claimed by who?"
Her voice turned to a whisper. "By the thing that hunts here."
She backed away from the window as if expecting something to crawl through. "It doesn't choose homes at random. It chooses people. It marks them."
My mouth went dry. "Why me?"
Addison shook her head. "I don't know. But if you want to stay alive, you need to understand one thing."
I leaned in. "What?"
"There are rules in Blackthorn Ridge. Old ones. Ones outsiders never hear about until it's too late."
"Then tell me."
Her eyes filled with something close to pity. "I can't. Not all of them. I'm not allowed."
"Not allowed by who?" I demanded.
She hesitated.
"The Alpha."
I blinked. "Alpha? As in—"
Before I could finish, a crash thundered against the back of the cottage. So loud the windows rattled.
Addison screamed.
I sprinted to the back window. She grabbed my arm, shaking. "Don't look!"
But I was already there.
The trees behind the cottage swayed even though the wind was dead still. Something huge moved between them, shifting their trunks like they were toys. I couldn't see its full shape—just a shadow sliding behind bark, too fast to track.
Another crash.
Closer.
Addison clamped a hand over her mouth.
A low growl rolled across the yard.
Deep. Rough. Not human.
Not even close.
I pulled us both away from the window.
"What is that?" I whispered.
Addison trembled. "The reason you're in danger."
The porch boards at the back of the cottage groaned.
Heavy footsteps. Slow. Deliberate. Climbing the steps one at a time.
Addison grabbed my wrist. "We have to hide. Now."
"Where?"
Another step. The boards creaked under massive weight.
Then—
A shadow passed the side window.
Huge. Wrong-shaped. Walking upright.
My blood froze.
Addison's breath hitched. "It's here for you."
The footsteps stopped.
Right outside the back door.
Something dragged its claws—because they were claws—across the wood.
A long, scraping stroke.
I couldn't breathe.
The air turned thick and cold.
And then—
Something spoke.
Not in words.
In a low, rasping sound that scraped across the door like it wanted me to hear it.
Like it wanted me to understand that it knew exactly where I was.
Addison squeezed my wrist so tight it hurt.
"Don't make a sound," she breathed.
But it was too late.
The thing on the porch…
…started turning the doorknob.