Chapter 27 – Red Pulse
959 Words
Rori – POV
The red light on the heartbeat panel wasn’t bright.
That was the part that terrified her.
Danger didn’t always announce itself with volume—sometimes it whispered.
Sometimes it blinked once, soft as a heartbeat stopping, and everything inside you understood.
“Ren—” she started.
“I see it.” His stance had already shifted, weight settling on the balls of his feet, body angled toward the living room where the ping had come from.
Kael moved first—swift, silent, already calculating.
“That signal wasn’t Maeve. It wasn’t internal. It came from outside the network. Off-grid.”
“Explain,” Sandro demanded, stepping between Rori and the hallway.
Kael didn’t slow, didn’t blink.
“It means someone else heard her call home.”
Rori’s throat went tight. “Someone who knows her code?”
“Someone who knows mine,” Kael said.
The room locked into a cold, thick silence.
Then—
Her phone buzzed.
Everyone tensed.
Every head snapped toward the tin breadbox on the kitchen counter—where all their phones were sealed, powerless, unreachable.
Except the buzzing wasn’t from the box.
It was coming from the hallway table.
From her purse.
From her personal phone.
The one she had turned off.
Ren was on it in two seconds, sweeping it off the table and holding it screen-out so she didn’t have to see the number.
But she saw the name.
EVAN NORTH – Incoming Call
Her ex-husband.
Her abuser.
Her ghost.
Rori’s breath caught like a hook underneath her ribs.
Sandro cursed in Italian.
Ren’s jaw flexed.
Kael froze—like someone had just turned a gun toward him.
The heartbeat panel pulsed red again.
Ren answered before she could tell him not to.
“This isn’t a good time,” he growled into the phone.
Static.
A pause.
Then a voice she hadn’t heard in over a year—smooth, ice-calm, familiar enough to make her muscles instinctively coil.
“Well,” Evan said, “that depends on what you consider a good time.”
Rori’s stomach plummeted.
Ren didn’t speak.
He didn’t need to.
Evan continued, tone light, practiced.
“I’ve been trying to reach Aurora for weeks. The kids haven’t answered. The schools say she changed emergency contacts. No updates. No responses.”
His voice softened dangerously.
“So imagine my surprise when I finally locate a signal coming from her home… and someone else answers her phone.”
Kael stepped closer to Rori before realizing he’d moved.
Sandro’s hand slid to the small of her back.
Rori opened her mouth—nothing came out.
Evan’s voice sharpened.
“I know she’s there. Put her on.”
Ren didn’t move the phone. “You don’t give orders here.”
Evan laughed.
A short, humorless sound.
“I think you underestimate how much power I still have.”
The house’s panel blinked again—blue → red → blue.
Like Maeve’s fragment was reacting to her distress.
Kael whispered, “She’s reading your stress response. The fragment is linking. She’s listening to your heartbeat.”
Rori didn’t know who that frightened more—her, or the men.
Then Evan said something that froze the room:
“Aurora… if you don’t speak to me right now, I will come to the house myself.”
Ren straightened.
Sandro surged forward.
Kael’s face shut down.
But Rori found her voice.
“No,” she said, stepping toward the phone Ren still held.
Evan went silent.
“You’re not welcome here,” she said. Her voice trembled, but it didn’t break. “You lost the right to know anything about me the day you put a bruise on Luca’s arm because he wouldn’t sit still.”
Evan exhaled, long and slow.
“I wondered how long it would take for your new little guard dogs to tell you I was the enemy.”
Rori’s body turned cold.
“My only goal remains the same,” Evan continued. “To make sure my children are safe. Clearly, you can’t be trusted with that.”
Rori’s vision blurred at the edges.
Kael touched her arm—just a whisper of contact that grounded her.
“I’m here,” he murmured.
She didn’t know if he meant it for the fragment listening—or for her.
Evan’s voice dropped into a lower, colder register.
“I’ll be seeing you soon. All of you.”
The line went dead.
Ren threw the phone onto the couch like it had teeth.
Sandro ran a hand through his hair.
“Well. That’s a new kind of problem.”
Kael turned toward the panel—and froze.
It had changed.
The outline inside the glow—the foggy silhouette that wasn’t a person, wasn’t a ghost—had shifted.
It was taller.
Sharper.
More defined.
And something else—
The color was no longer blue.
It was red.
A deep, pulsing red.
Rori’s throat closed. “What does red mean?”
Kael didn’t answer at first.
Ren stepped forward. “Kael.”
Kael swallowed.
Hard.
“Red means the fragment has identified an external threat to its anchor.”
Sandro blinked. “The anchor meaning…?”
Kael turned to Rori.
Exactly to Rori.
“You,” he said.
Rori stepped back.
Kael stepped forward.
“She’s reacting to your fear. She’s preparing to—”
The panel pulsed brighter.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Then:
The hallway door slammed shut on its own.
Ren lunged.
Kael shouted, “Maeve, stop—!”
But the lights cut out again—
And something in the walls made a low, rising sound.
As if the house—
or the thing inside it—
had chosen its target.
And its next move.
- Writer
