Rain began before dawn, a thin, steady fall that washed Alder Row into shades of gray. By the time Elias woke on the couch of Mrs. Calder's living room, the world outside the window looked blurred, as though someone had smeared it with an unsteady hand.
For a moment, he forgot where he was.
Then he remembered everything at once.
His chest tightened. He sat up quickly, the borrowed blanket sliding to the floor. The room smelled of lavender and old furniture polish—too clean, too calm for a world that had broken the night before.
Mrs. Calder appeared in the doorway, her face drawn and careful, the way adults looked when they were trying not to frighten a child.
"You're awake," she said softly. "Do you want some tea?"
Elias shook his head. His throat felt too tight to speak.
Outside, police cars still lined the street. Their lights no longer flashed, but the presence remained, heavy and intrusive. Elias stood and walked toward the window, his bare feet cold against the wooden floor. From here, he could see his house.
Or what it had become.
Yellow tape fluttered weakly in the rain. Officers moved in and out, their dark coats blending with the storm. The front steps were wet, streaked darker than the rest. Rainwater carried something reddish down the path and into the gutter.
Elias stared at it, unmoving.
"Elias," Mrs. Calder said gently behind him. "You don't need to look."
But he did.
Something inside him insisted on it. Watching felt like holding onto the last thread of truth before adults wrapped everything in lies meant to protect him.
Later, a man in a suit came.
He knelt in front of Elias, his shoes polished, his voice measured. He introduced himself as Detective Rowan. His eyes were kind, but they searched Elias's face with careful intent.
"Can you tell me what you heard last night?" Rowan asked.
Elias considered the question. He thought of the argument, the scream, the man across the street. He opened his mouth—and closed it again.
"I don't know," he said.
It was the first lie he ever told.
Rowan nodded slowly, as if he expected that answer. "That's all right. Sometimes memories take time."
But Elias knew the truth had already rooted itself deep inside him. He could feel it, heavy and alive.
By afternoon, they took him back to the house.
Only briefly, they said. Just to collect some things.
The inside smelled wrong. Not like home. Not like his mother's cooking or his father's cologne. It smelled like strangers and disinfectant and something else he couldn't name.
Elias walked through the rooms with a box in his hands. His room was untouched, as though the night had avoided it deliberately. He packed his clothes, his books, the small wooden car his father had carved years ago.
In the living room, he paused.
A dark stain marked the floor where his mother had fallen. It was faint now, scrubbed but not erased. Elias knelt, his fingers hovering just above it, before pulling his hand back as though burned.
Some things could not be cleaned away.
That evening, as the rain finally stopped, Elias sat on the front steps of Mrs. Calder's house and watched the sky clear. The world continued, indifferent to his loss.
Across the street, reflected faintly in a darkened window, he saw movement.
A figure.
Tall. Still.
His breath caught. He turned his head sharply—but the street was empty.
No one was there.
Yet the feeling remained.
Someone was watching.
And they always would be.