Could track her movement through the house like sonar, mapping her approach by the whisper of skin on stone.
She was coming from upstairs. Moving slowly. Deliberately.
The way Sarah moved when she'd made a decision.
My hands stilled over the cutting board. The knife rested against a half-diced tomato, forgotten. Every sense I possessed—natural and supernatural—oriented toward the hallway like satellite dishes tracking a signal.
Her heartbeat reached me before she did. Elevated. Not panicked—purposeful. The steady, accelerated rhythm of someone walking toward something they'd chosen, something they wanted, something that scared them in the way that only the most important things in life could scare you.
I was alone in my own head for the first time.
Just me.
Just the kitchen.
Just the sound of Sarah's footsteps getting closer.
She appeared in the doorway, and every thought in my head evaporated like water on a hot engine block.
