A scream.
My heart stopped. I knew that voice.
Of course she did.
I didn’t think. I just ran. Left my heels behind on the edge of the stone.
I can see them—abandoned. Forgotten.
I followed the sound around the back of the hotel, past the palms and the hedges. The air smelled like magnolia and salt, sweet and suffocating all at once.
My chest tightens.
“McCullough?” I called, but my voice came out too quiet. Too small.
I can feel it—the fear threading through every word now.
The fairy lights lit the path, but only barely. Beyond them, everything fell into shadow.
A pause.
Then I heard it again.
Branches shifting.
Not alone.
I moved slowly then, barefoot in the grass, trying not to make a sound.
My heart is pounding now, in sync with hers.
“McCullough?”
Nothing.
For a second, I thought maybe I imagined it. Maybe it was nothing. I’d had a little of my mom’s champagne… maybe?—
“Please… stop. Don’t do this.”
I freeze.
The fear in those words is unmistakable.
I pushed through the magnolias, the branches catching at my dress, my skin. The lights didn’t reach that far—the darkness thicker, heavier.
My breath comes shallow.
“Stop. Stop. Stop.”
She’s crying.
I could hear movement ahead—shapes shifting in the dark. I looked around for something—anything—and spotted a cluster of decorative rocks at the base of a palm. I grabbed one, my hand slick with sweat.
My pulse roars in my ears.
I didn’t know exactly what was happening.
But I did.
