Then silence fell dark. Scratching did not continue. The desperate, possessive whine was gone. Selena continued frozen against the far wall, body rigid, every muscle screaming with tension. The silence that fell felt more horrible than the assault that preceded it. It was like a silence that listened and waited. She held her breath, straining her ears, expecting the last, flamboyant crash of the door breaking inward, but it never came. Minute after agonizing minute ticked by, measured by the frantic, painful thudding of her own heart. Nothing. Slowly, cautiously, as if moving through a minefield, she pushed herself off the wall. Her legs felt like jelly. She crept toward the door, blur of movement, using columns as shields, gaze fixed on the small, brass peephole. A trembling finger lifted the cover. The hallway was empty, cast in that dim, eerie glow of the emergency lighting. There was nothing there. But the evidence of its presence was undeniable. The deep, dark gashes in the wood of her door like knives seemed to carve them.
Impossibility dubiously passes for sleep the remainder of the night. Sitting wrapped in a blanket of conviction yet oblivious to his tremors, he saw muddled images of a living room as he gazed at his array of bookshelves in the vivo. However, for over half a dozen hours, the noises of the city such as cars, trains, and even air traffic were her only companions. That glaring chill felt frozen inside her; because even though someone had silenced the rest of the world, Evelyn could still feel the eyes pricking both her hair on the back of her neck and from what she felt, it seemed as though several held upon her every movement. A dozen times, her intrepid curiosity overcame terror, and she crept, peering into a space between the blinds of the window. Outside, on the deserted street dimly illuminated in orange by the streetlights, shadows threw deep and menacing gloom into the alley across the street, imbattled by the knowledge that nothing could be seen but felt there. The monster was still out there: waiting. Like this, watching. But then, terrifyingly, a thought popped in her mind. It hadn't even broken her door down; with that apparent, terrifying strength it could have been inside in seconds. It had chosen not to. It had gone away. This thought did not instill her with safety; it made her confused, as if she were totally misunderstanding the nature of the threat.
An early blush in dawn made pale that dull grey line across the horizon - a glorious reprieve, like divine intervention, shone so cheerlessly from behind the gathering clouds. Beyond the first oozings of light of dawn spilling into the city and driving back the deepest shadows, the heavy weight of watchfulness began to dissipate. With it came the softening of the last edge-worn confidence within the daylight. The fear remained there, a cold knot in the stomach, but there came something else: the brutal, unyielding resolve of a journalist who has just stumbled upon the story of a lifetime. The beast was gone, but the example remained. She began with her door, tracing with her fingertips the deep claw marks. They were real, solid, undeniable. Taking a long breath, she unbolted it and opened the door carefully. The hallway was empty, but everyone had a clear view of mess created in the communal stairwell. The front door of the building hung off one twisted hinge. Outside, the large metal dumpster was tipped on its side, its contents spilled across the alley. The roof of a car parked at the curb was terribly crushed in, as if something very big had landed on top of it. And there, in a small patch of damp earth beside the building's entrance, was a footprint. It was like that of a wolf, but impossibly large, sunk deep into the ground, a testament to the immense weight of the creature that had made it.
Selena was flanked by wreckage; cool morning air nosed above her face, and her mind began to put things together: the feverish, desperate David, banging at her door; his ominous warning about the full moon; the otherworldly howl which paralyzed an entire city; the rampant anecdotal rumor of a gigantic beast on social media, passing right through her area; and finally, this: the physical, undeniable evidence. The conclusion screamed by her rational mind against it, the one which belongs in folklore and nightmares, was the only one that fit. Insanity. Impossible. But it was true. Damien Voss, the cold, ruthless billionaire CEO, was the monster, the werewolf. It didn't make her want to run away. It didn't make her want to hide or call the authorities. All except the first jolt of shock was melted away and replaced by that kind of fallout, a concentration into something else entirely. A focused and needle-pointed obsession. This would be the secret he warned about, the one that had teeth. This was the story of the haunted look in the man's eyes. Not just a corporate predator; he was also a literal one. She looked back at the deep, violent gouges on her apartment door, but when she looked at them again, they had transformed in her mind. She could now see them through the journalist's lens as if she had just discovered the hidden truth. He had been here. He could have killed her, but he hadn't. Why? The question burned in her brain, eclipsing her fear. It was no longer about hostile takeovers and financial ruin. It was about saving a man from the monster inside him, or perhaps, understanding the monster itself. She took a step in the opener direction. Spotting him, she approached cautiously, but he had already turned away. She pretty much did this with her powerfully trembling hands as she lifted her phone. She was not going to run. She's doing the exact opposite. She had to corner him. She had to know everything.