Chapter 28 – When Walls Learn to Protect
955 Words
Rori – POV
The sound rising through the house wasn’t mechanical.
It wasn’t electrical.
It wasn’t even loud.
It was intent.
A low vibration—like a warning growl from something that didn’t have a throat.
Ren reached the hallway door first, shoulder against it, testing the resistance.
“It’s locked,” he said.
“It doesn’t have a lock,” Sandro shot back.
“Exactly.”
The humming deepened.
The floorboards under Rori’s feet warmed—not burning, not painful—but alive, like heat pulled upward from the bones of the house.
Kael pressed his palm to the wall. “She’s rerouting current. Not to shock—she’s bracing the frame. She’s fortifying the structure.”
Sandro raised a brow. “Against what? Evan? The man’s a parasite, but I doubt he can punch through drywall.”
Kael didn’t smile. “She doesn’t know who the threat is. She just knows Aurora is afraid.”
Rori’s pulse skipped. “She’s reacting to my emotions. My fear is triggering her.”
Kael nodded once, slow.
“Your fear is the signal.”
Ren turned toward her. “Then we need to calm you down.”
But the house disagreed.
The hum sharpened—
Not painful.
But urgent.
Rori felt it before anyone said it.
“She’s choosing offense,” Kael whispered.
The heartbeat panel pulsed red again.
Then every light in the house snapped on at once—bright, blinding—
and then died completely.
Pitch-black swallowed the room.
Ren swore low and fierce. “Kael—talk to me.”
Rori’s hand found Kael’s wrist instinctively; he wrapped his fingers around hers as if he’d been waiting for it.
“She’s scanning,” he said. “Not for threats. For pathways. She’s trying to figure out how to intercept whatever she thinks is coming for Aurora.”
Sandro exhaled. “And how does a ghost AI intercept a man who drives a BMW and has trauma responses shaped like toxic masculinity?”
Kael didn’t answer.
Because footsteps echoed outside the front porch.
Real ones.
Human ones.
Too heavy to be the wind.
Too slow to be a raccoon.
Too purposeful to be anything but—
Ren stiffened. “Someone’s outside.”
Rori’s breath froze in her lungs.
Evan? Already? No—impossible—
Kael’s grip tightened. “Not necessarily. The fragment might have triggered an external alert. Or the other signal—the one that piggybacked. It could be—”
Three knocks.
Measured.
Calm.
Wrong.
Sandro whispered, “He wouldn’t knock. Evan would kick the door until it cried.”
So—not Evan.
Rori swallowed hard. “Then who?”
Ren’s stance changed—lower, lethal, the way he moved when the threat was unknown.
“Stay behind me,” he murmured.
The humming in the walls softened suddenly.
Shifted.
Tilted.
Kael’s head snapped toward the panel. “She recognizes the new presence. She’s trying to categorize it.”
“How?” Rori whispered.
“By mirroring your emotional response.”
The panel flashed:
Red → yellow → a warm, uncertain blue.
The color of hesitation.
Someone knocked again—
gentle.
One beat.
Then silence.
Ren approached the door. Kael stayed with Rori, as if he knew better than to let her breathe alone.
Sandro positioned himself beside the window, peering through the gap in the curtain.
Then—Sandro froze.
His voice dropped to a hush.
“Rori… you need to see this.”
Her stomach twisted. “What is it?”
But before anyone could answer—
A man’s voice came through the door.
Clear. Low. Steady.
“Aurora?”
A pause.
“It’s Eli.”
Rori’s heart slammed upward.
No.
It couldn’t be—
Eli Barlow.
Her brother’s best friend.
Her almost something when she was nineteen.
The man who disappeared into federal contract work and never resurfaced.
And the one person who knew her ex-husband’s real face long before she admitted it out loud.
Ren whipped toward her. “You know him?”
Sandro muttered, “The plot thickens.”
Kael’s gaze sharpened—not with jealousy, but with analysis.
Outside, Eli spoke again.
“I heard a distress ping from your network. I came to make sure you’re safe.”
Ren swore softly. “A distress ping? From this house?”
Kael’s face drained.
“That wasn’t Maeve,” he whispered. “It was the second signal.”
Rori felt everything inside her tilt sideways.
Eli knocked once more.
“Aurora… please. Open the door. I need to see you.”
Ren looked at her. “It’s your call.”
Sandro nodded. “But if he breathes wrong, he’ll have three men and one AI to answer to.”
Kael’s hand tightened around hers—steady, anchoring. “Whatever you choose, we stay with you.”
Rori breathed once. Twice.
The house hummed in her ear like a heartbeat pressed against her shoulder.
She stepped toward the door.
Ren unlatched the deadbolt.
Eli stood on the porch—
drenched from rain that hadn’t begun falling yet,
jaw tight,
eyes locked on her like she was the first warm thing he’d seen in years.
She opened her mouth to speak—
And the heartbeat panel behind her turned red again.
Then—
in a voice softer than breath but unmistakable—
Maeve’s fragment whispered from the speaker:
“Threat. Confirm?”
Everyone froze.
Eli blinked.
His jaw flexed.
And he looked at Rori—not the men, not the house—
and said the last thing she expected:
“Aurora…
Please tell it I’m not here to hurt you.”
And behind him—
at the end of the driveway—
a second silhouette stepped into view.
- Writer
