The burner phone rang at 2:47 a.m.
Caleb blinked.
He was standing in the middle of the room, shirtless, drenched in sweat, eyes fixed on the flickering television. Static hummed from the screen, painting the cracked motel wallpaper in shifting shadows.
He didn't remember turning the TV on.
Didn't remember getting out of bed.
Didn't remember sleeping.
If he even had slept.
The premonitions were changing. Or he was.
They used to come like storms.
Predictable. Distant. A flash of tragedy through the lens of a dying man's dream.
But now…
Now the blood clung to his fingertips when he woke.
Now Rachel's voice whispered when the faucet dripped.
Now Isaac's scream — throat torn, eyes wide — came not in sleep but in the silence between footsteps.
He couldn't tell what was memory.
What was premonition.
What was real.
He'd seen a girl laughing on a bus bench earlier that day and nearly vomited — because she looked like someone he remembered dying.
Or… would remember dying.
Or maybe already did.
The Raven sat at the windowsill, feathers twitching.
Its eyes glowed like hot coals.
Waiting.
Watching.
Judging.
The phone buzzed again.
Unknown Number.
He answered without thinking.
"Yeah."
A pause.
Then her voice — low, calm, impossibly steady.
"You've been busy."
Caleb's jaw locked.
"Trench didn't scream as long as I hoped, but you still got the point across."
He didn't respond. Just listened.
The Raven made a low, rasping sound behind him — not quite a caw, not quite a hiss.
"You're good at this. Better than most. But not as careful as you think. You're slipping, sweetheart."
She said it like an old flame. Like someone who'd already decided he belonged to her fate.
"We found what was left of him. Took your signature long enough to scrub off the walls."
"Guess what? He was the bait."
Caleb's heart hitched.
"I told Trench to hang himself out there like rotten meat, and sure enough… you took a bite."
"And now I'm sure. I know who's been picking off my boys. I just don't know your name yet."
"But I will."
She paused. Then, like a lover's whisper across a blade:
"You're not the only one who dreams, darling."
"You've got, what… a few days left before your own blood tells me who you are? Before your past finishes rotting through your spine?"
"You think you're the hunter. But you're just a name waiting to be filed."
"And I'm a goddamn archivist."
Click. Silence.
Caleb's hand trembled as he lowered the phone. The sweat on his palms made the plastic slick.
He stared at the wall.
There was a photograph there — one he didn't remember taping up.
It was Rachel. Isaac. The three of them at the lakeside cabin from five years ago.
Except Rachel's eyes were hollow.
And Isaac's throat was open like a grin.
And Caleb wasn't in the photo at all.
He blinked. The picture was gone.
The TV screen still crackled with static.
Or was it screaming?
The Raven croaked again.
Its wings twitched.
"You seeing this, Isaac?" Caleb whispered.
The Raven didn't answer.
He smashed the phone into the floor. Crushed the SIM. Ground it into paste beneath his heel. Breathing like a wild animal, he staggered back, fists clenched, chest heaving.
His eyes burned.
His head felt full of bees.
He was losing time. Losing himself.
He looked at the Raven.
It tilted its head — patient. Unmoved.
"You brought this to me," Caleb said. His voice cracked. "I didn't ask for any of this."
The Raven blinked. Once.
"You want me to finish this?" he hissed. "Then show me who's next."
Nothing.
Not yet.
Just the quiet hum of static and the slow realization that he might already be dead — just dreaming his way down to Hell.
End of chapter 9.