Tessa's POV:
Leaving the girls and heading to my room, I didn't notice the time fly, my mind too preoccupied on everything, from the mysterious figure in the hood to the way the rumor had spread like wildfire. It was almost enough to distract me from a very discomforting fact.
The room was quiet. No, wrong way to put it.
The room was too quiet.
It was the kind of quiet that wrapped around you too tightly, like a wool blanket soaked in ice water. I’d been asleep – I was sure of it – but now I was sitting up, heart thudding against my ribs like it was trying to escape.
A noise again.
Soft. Barely there. But deliberate.
Scratch.
Tap.
Huh?
My eyes darted toward the window. For a split second, I thought maybe it was a tree branch, a bird, a trick of the wind—
Then I saw the shadow m
