The party died a slow, gentle death. It didn't end with a bang, but with a gradual, quiet exodus. One by one, couples and small groups drifted away from the beach house, their laughter and goodbyes fading into the rhythmic sigh of the ocean. Soon, the only sounds left were the distant cry of a gull, the whisper of the wind through the sea grass, and the soft, melodic hum of the DJ packing up his equipment. The fairy lights still twinkled, casting a lonely, magical glow on the empty deck, a silent testament to the joy that had so briefly filled the space.
Lucas and Carla were the last to leave. They had helped Zoya load an absurd number of presents into her car and waved her off, promising to handle the final cleanup in the morning. Now, they stood alone, hand in hand, on the edge of the dark, silent beach. The air had turned cool, carrying the sharp, clean scent of salt and damp sand. Above them, the sky was a vast, velvet canvas of impossible black, dusted with the cold, indifferent glitter of a million stars.
"Come on," Carla whispered, her voice a soft counterpoint to the ocean's roar. She tugged his hand, leading him away from the house, down the sandy path to the water's edge.
They walked in a comfortable silence, their bare feet sinking into the cool, damp sand. The waves, luminous and ghostly white in the moonlight, unfurled in long, lazy lines, hissing as they retreated over the shore. It was a moment of profound, elemental peace, a quiet so deep it felt as if they were the only two people left in the world. But for Lucas, the peace was a thin veneer over a churning sea of anxiety. The crushing disappointment of his mistake—of seeing a stranger and hoping it was Bonnie—had left a bitter, metallic taste in his mouth. The ghost was walking with them.
Carla seemed to sense his turmoil. She stopped walking and turned to face him, her hands still holding his. In the pale moonlight, her face was a beautiful, ethereal sculpture, her eyes dark, serious pools that seemed to reflect the starlight.
"You're a million miles away," she said softly. It wasn't an accusation, just a statement of fact.
He let out a long, slow breath, the air misting in front of him. "Sorry. I'm trying to be here. I really am."
"I know." She squeezed his hands. "Is it your dad?"
He thought of the glitching video call, the sound of that terrible, racking cough. The memory was a fresh wound, tender and raw. "Partly," he admitted, his voice low. "Seeing him like that… he looked so… breakable. I've never seen him look like that before."
"He's lucky to have you worrying about him," she said, her voice full of a gentle, uncomplicated empathy that made his chest ache.
"Is he?" Lucas looked away, his gaze fixed on the dark, shifting horizon. "I feel useless. I'm here, he's there. There's nothing I can do."
"Just being there to answer the phone is doing something," she insisted. "More than you think."
They stood in silence for another moment, the ocean breathing around them. He knew she was right, but the feeling of helplessness was a poison, seeping into the fragile peace of the evening. And it wasn't just his father.
"It's not just him," Lucas confessed, the words coming out before he could stop them. "It's… Bonnie."
Carla's grip on his hands tightened almost imperceptibly. "I'm worried too," she admitted. "It's so strange. She was so excited about tonight."
"It's more than strange, Carla." The dam of his carefully constructed composure began to crack. He had to tell her. Not everything. He couldn't tell her about the whispers, the seizure, the ancient, terrifying language that had poured from Bonnie's lips. He couldn't risk her looking at him with fear, with the clinical pity reserved for the mentally ill. But he had to tell her something. He couldn't carry the guilt alone anymore.
"I was the last person to see her," he said, the confession a leaden weight in his stomach. "At the shop. We… we had a conversation. I think I might have upset her. I pushed her on something, a question she didn't want to answer. And when I left, she seemed… unwell. Really unwell." The memory of her trembling, her pale face, her broken warning, flooded him. "I feel like it's my fault she's gone. Like I did something that made her disappear."
He finally looked at her, expecting to see doubt, confusion, maybe even a hint of suspicion. Instead, he saw only a deep, unwavering belief. She didn't question him. She didn't ask for details. She simply accepted his fear as valid, his guilt as real.
"Lucas, no," she said, her voice firm, resolute. She stepped closer, her hands moving from his to cup his face, her touch warm against his cold skin. "You don't have that kind of power. You don't make people disappear. Whatever is going on with her, it is not your fault. Do you hear me?"
He wanted to believe her. God, he wanted to. But he had seen it. He had felt it. He had been the catalyst. "You don't understand," he whispered, his voice cracking. "There are… other things. Things I can't explain."
"Then don't," she said, her gaze never wavering. "You don't have to explain anything to me. I trust you. If you say you're worried, then I'm worried. We'll figure it out. Together. We'll go to her shop tomorrow. We'll talk to her family. We'll find her."
Her faith in him was a staggering, humbling thing. It was a gift he felt he didn't deserve. He looked at her, at this incredible, fierce, loving woman who stood before him, offering her strength as a shield, and he was overwhelmed by a desperate, clawing urge to protect her, to protect _this_. This moment. This fragile peace. This life that felt so precious and so terrifyingly precarious.
"What are you thinking about?" she whispered, her thumbs gently stroking his cheeks.
"The future," he said, the word feeling foreign and strange on his tongue. "I was just thinking about what I want."
A soft smile touched her lips. "Oh yeah? And what's that? To take over the world, Mr. Grim?"
"No," he said, a small, sad smile of his own appearing. "Nothing like that. My dreams are… smaller now." He looked into her eyes, letting her see the raw, unvarnished truth of his heart. "I want to wake up next to you every morning. I want to argue with you about what to have for dinner. I want to watch you build your design studio from the ground up and become wildly, brilliantly successful. I want to paint. And I just… I want to be here. With you. Quietly. That's it. That's all I want."
Tears welled in her eyes, shimmering in the moonlight. "That's not a small dream, Lucas," she whispered, her voice thick with emotion. "That's everything."
She leaned in and kissed him. It was a kiss of profound tenderness, a slow, deep, searching affirmation of everything they were to each other. It was a promise. It was a prayer against the dark. In that moment, holding her on the edge of the world, he felt a flicker of real hope. Maybe they could build a fortress around their small, quiet dream. Maybe they could be happy. Maybe everything would be okay.
It was a beautiful, perfect lie.
And then his phone buzzed.
The sound was an obscenity in the sacred quiet. A harsh, vibrating intrusion that tore through the moment like a rock through a stained-glass window.
They broke the kiss, both of them startled. Lucas reached into his pocket, his heart suddenly pounding a frantic, nervous rhythm against his ribs. He pulled out the phone, the screen lighting up his face with a cold, artificial glow.
The screen read:
**UNKNOWN NUMBER**
A chill, completely unrelated to the cold night air, snaked its way down his spine. Calls from unknown numbers were rarely good news. They were the domain of telemarketers, or wrong numbers, or… something else. He looked at Carla, saw his own apprehension mirrored in her eyes.
"It's probably just a spam call," she said, though her voice lacked conviction.
He knew he should ignore it. He knew he should decline the call, turn the phone off, and retreat back into the warmth and safety of her embrace. But he couldn't. A terrible, compelling premonition told him that this was not a call he could ignore. This was a summons.
With a sense of grim finality, his thumb swiped across the screen. He lifted the phone to his ear.
"Hello?" he said, his voice tight.
For a moment, there was only silence, a dead, empty static that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Then, a voice slid into his ear, a voice as smooth and cold as polished marble.
"Lucas. It's Ada."
His blood ran cold. He felt his entire body go rigid, the warmth of Carla's presence, the peace of the ocean, all of it vanishing as if it had never existed. He was instantly transported back to her office, to the feeling of her oppressive power, to the chilling certainty that he was nothing more than a piece in her game.
"Congratulations on our new partnership," the voice continued, the professional courtesy dripping with a chilling, proprietary tone. "I trust you are settling into your new role as the Grim Enterprises representative."
It wasn't a question. It was a statement of fact. A reminder of his leash.
"What do you want?" Lucas managed to say, his voice a low, harsh rasp. He felt Carla's hand find his, her grip tight and questioning.
"I want to get our project underway, of course," Ada said, her tone light, conversational, utterly terrifying. "There are formalities to observe. As the new project lead, you are required for a preliminary site inspection. Standard procedure. I'd like you to join me at the site tomorrow morning. Ten o'clock."
The site. Property G-7. The abandoned steel factory. The place of rust and decay.
"I'm… busy tomorrow," Lucas lied, his mind racing, searching for any excuse, any escape.
Ada's soft, low chuckle was the most menacing sound he had ever heard. "I'm sure you are," she said, the amusement in her voice making his skin crawl. "But this isn't a request, Lucas. It's a requirement of your new position. Ten o'clock. Don't be late."
The line went dead.
He stood there, phone still pressed to his ear, listening to the empty dial tone. The sound was a death knell. The fortress he had dreamed of building just moments before had been breached. The monster wasn't at the door; it was on the phone, and it knew his name.
"Lucas? What is it?" Carla's voice was tight with alarm. "Who was that?"
He lowered the phone, his hand trembling. He looked at her, at her beautiful, worried face, and the desperate, overwhelming urge to protect her, to shield her from this, was so strong it was a physical pain. But he knew, with a certainty that felt like a shard of ice in his gut, that it was already too late.
The trap, which had been set the moment he shook Ada's hand, was now closing. And he was walking right into it.