CHAPTER 4
I don’t sleep.
Every time I close my eyes, I hear the knocking again. Not loud. Patient. Like whatever’s in the walls knows I’ll come back on my own.
At 2:17 a.m., my phone lights up.
JACK: you awake
I don’t answer.
The mattress dips.
Not enough to see. Enough to feel.
My breath freezes in my chest.
“Jessica,” he says. Out loud this time.
I sit up so fast my head spins. He’s there—half-formed, like the room hasn’t agreed to him yet. His shoulders are solid. His edges aren’t.
“You can’t do that,” I say.
“I know,” he says. “I won’t again.”
“You said that like you’ve been here before.”
He looks at the wall. Not at me. “I have.”
My hands are shaking, but I keep my voice even. “You said something grabbed my ankle.”
“Yes.”
“What was it?”
His jaw tightens. “Not me.”
Silence stretches. It feels expensive, like every second costs him something.
“Why me?” I ask.
He finally meets my eyes. “Because you noticed.”
“That’s it?”
“You listened,” he says. “Everyone else comes in loud. You came in careful.”
That shouldn’t matter. But it does. I feel it settle somewhere deep.
“You said they kept you asleep.”
“They don’t like change,” he says. “And you’re… very loud to them.”
“I barely talk.”
He smiles. It hits harder than it should.
“You do,” he says. “Just not with your mouth.”
Something thuds downstairs. Heavy. Deliberate.
Jack turns toward the sound, posture shifting—protective without thinking.
“You need to promise me something,” he says.
“What?”
“If the house tells you to leave,” he says, “don’t.”
The light flickers.
“And if it asks you to choose,” he adds quietly, “choose me.”
