I froze; every movement stilled the moment she said that name.
Sera Thorne.
I hadn't heard it in ten years. Not since the day my mother died. Since then, I'd gone by Sera Jones—through all high school, through everything that came after. It was my mother's final request, her last insistence before she passed: never use Thorne. Keep it buried. Let it fade.
But there was one exception.
"If anyone ever calls you by that name," she once told me, her voice serious, unwavering, "say mine."
So, I stood up, my hands slightly trembling, and walked toward the nearest empty conference room. Closing the door behind me, I pressed the phone closer to my ear and spoke clearly, just as she'd instructed all those years ago.
"Genevieve Thorne."
Silence. Again.
No voice came from the other end of the line—only that heavy, suffocating quiet. My heart pounded so hard I thought it might tear through my chest.
I gripped the edge of the table, knuckles white, grounding myself in the stillness of the empty conference room. But the silence only made it worse. It pressed in around me, thick and stifling, feeding a rising sense of dread.
Something was coming. I could feel it. And whatever it was, I had no control over it.
"Oh, Gen... it's been a long time," the voice whispered, laced with eerie familiarity. "Ten years, hasn't it? Not a word from you all this time. I imagine little Sera is all grown up now... which means, I must be speaking to her—aren't I?"
My grip faltered. The phone slipped from my hand and hit the floor with a sharp crack, shattering like fragile glass.
In an instant, the conference room door burst open. Two security guards rushed in, alarmed by the noise.
"Ma'am, are you alright? What happened?" one of them asked.
But I couldn't answer. My mind was spinning, trying to make sense of the voice, the words, the way my mother's name had opened a door I didn't know how to close. She never told me what to do after—never warned me what saying her name would trigger.
Was I in danger now? Had I just awakened something I wasn't ready to face?
I stood frozen, caught in the blur of fear and confusion, until Jane appeared beside me. Her hands gripped my arms firmly, grounding me.
"Sera," she said, her voice cutting through the fog. "Are you okay? What happened?"
And just like that, I snapped back to the present—still shaken, still breathless, but here. For now.
The rest of the day passed in a blur, going through the motions of what should have been routine—but nothing about it felt normal. And deep down, I knew it never would be again.
The morning's call still echoed in my mind, unraveling any sense of control I thought I had. I couldn't make sense of it, and worse, I had no one to talk to. I lied to Jane—again—mumbling something about a headache, using it to explain away my off mood and the incident earlier. She didn't press, thankfully. But I could feel her eyes watching me, concerned.
As soon as the workday ended, I rushed home. I needed the comfort of our walls, of familiar shadows. Anything to silence the growing paranoia that clung to me like a second skin. I kept glancing over my shoulder, the hair on my arms prickling with each step. I couldn't shake the feeling that someone was following me—lurking just out of sight, waiting.
When I finally reached our street, my heart sank.
Someone was standing at our front door.
She had her back to me, unmoving. Even from a distance, I could tell she wasn't young—there was something mature, seasoned in her posture—but her skin, what little I could see, was flawless. Ageless. She wore an elegant green dress that hugged her form and fell just below the knees, the sleeves long, the fabric rich.
There was an air about her—refined, commanding. The kind of presence that whispered of old wealth and older secrets.
And she was waiting.