WHEN HE BREAKS
I did not move.
Every instinct I had was screaming at me to move — to step out of the shadows, to say something, to make my presence known before he found the bottle in the trash and understood exactly what that meant. But I stayed flat against the wall beside Alex's door because stepping out now would tell this man that I had seen him come in, that I knew what he was looking for, that I was aware of considerably more than I was supposed to be aware of.
And that knowledge, in this house, felt like something to protect.
The sound from the kitchen stopped.
A long silence.
Then the cabinet under the sink closed.
Footsteps again — coming back toward the corridor. I pressed further into the shadow and held myself completely still and watched through the dim light as the fi
