Day Nine
Clara kicked the door shut with the back of her heel, arms brimming with a bulging sack of two-week-old laundry and the lingering haze of someone else’s warmth. Her cheeks were sun-flushed, lips tender and dry from too much kissing, her skin still scented with her boyfriend’s cedar cologne and the musk of lazy, love-drunk mornings. She was humming tunelessly and lightheartedly as she shrugged off her jacket and called out without much thought.
“Hav?”
No answer.
She froze.
The silence in the flat was… wrong. A leaden, haunted hush that pressed against her ears like something breathing just out of sight.
Clara set her duffel down slowly, her heartbeat starting to stutter in her chest.
“Havana?” she tried again, softer this time.
Still nothing.
The living room greeted her li
