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Nate reached the ground floor.

“Nate. I’m serious.”

“I know you are. That’s why I want to look.”

“Don’t!” Leo put himself in the basement doorway, square in the frame, arms out, an obstacle made of thin air. “Don’t.”

Nate walked through him.

Leo felt the warmth of him passing through, and then his boots were on the stairs, going down.

Leo hung in the doorway.

This could not be happening.

He couldn’t allow this to happen.

Out. Out. Out.

Nate had to get out.

Leo dove after him.

Nate stood in the basement, sweeping the beam of his flashlight along the foundation as if he had all the time in the world.

He didn’t have all the time in the world.

He had to leave.

“Nate. Go back up.”

“In a minute.”

“Now.”

The beam stopped on the far corner. It was a blank stretch of wall. Stone like all the other stone. Nothing there. Nothing.

Except that it made Leo want to take Nate’s flashlight and throw it out of the window.

Nate started walking toward the corner.

“Don’t.” Leo’s voice came out small. He couldn’t get enough air behind it. He didn’t breathe, he didn’t need air, and still there wasn’t enough of it.

“When I toured the house, you stood right here.”

“Don’t touch it.”

Nate laid his hand flat on the stone.

Something in Leo broke open.

Panic went through him and out of him, and he couldn’t stop it, couldn’t hold it, couldn’t even slow it down.

The dead light bulb above him burst, along with Nate’s flashlight, plunging the room into darkness. Leo was screaming — was he screaming?— and the stone and the beams and the whole black basement shook with it.

“Leo!” Nate yelled. “Leo, stop that!”

Stop it. He had to stop it.