Chapter 6: The Wolves at the Door
1475 Words
I woke with a gasp, like I’d been yanked from deep water—lungs burning, chest tight, heart thundering against my ribs.
My fingers clawed at the quilt wrapped around my legs—Grandma’s old patchwork. The frayed threads caught on my skin, grounding me in this world, even as the dream still echoed through me like a scream swallowed by silence.
The house was too still.
Gray morning light filtered through the rain-slick window, casting ghostlike streaks across the wooden floor. The air felt wrong. Off. Like the moment before lightning strikes. Like something was waiting.
My breath hitched.
Something’s here.
I sat up slowly, the cotton nightshirt clinging cold and damp to my skin. The dream was already fading—but the feeling it left behind... that stayed.
A whisper of Grandma. Not words. Just presence. Protective. Urgent. Afraid.
I rose on trembling legs and stepped onto the icy floor. Each creak beneath my bare feet echoed too loudly in the silence. I pressed my fingers to the wall, grounding myself in the familiar—even though the house didn’t feel familiar anymore.
It felt like a memory gone sour.
I moved down the hall, through shadows that clung to the walls like they didn’t want to let go.
In the kitchen, faint light spilled across the counter, barely enough to chase the dark from the corners.
My hand reached for the mug I’d left there last night. Cold ceramic. Normal. Real.
Creak.
I froze.
The sound came from the study.
Soft. Too soft. Too deliberate.
I wasn’t alone.
The mug slipped through my fingers and shattered on the floor, the crash cutting through the silence like a scream.
My breath caught in my throat.
My grandmother’s cane stood near the doorframe, where I’d leaned it the day before. I grabbed it instinctively.
It was heavy in my hand… and then, just for a heartbeat—it vibrated. A low pulse. Like it recognized me.
I didn’t stop to question it.
The study door was cracked open.
I moved toward it, every step louder than the last. The hallway stretched endlessly ahead, each breath tighter than the one before.
Then—
Crash.
Something fell. Hard. Fast.
I ran.
The front door slammed open with a gust of wind that threw rain and fog into the house like ghosts come to collect.
I burst outside barefoot, heart slamming, adrenaline roaring in my veins.
The world was soaked in silver mist. Rain clung to my skin. The fog coiled thick and low across the yard, curling around my legs like something alive.
And then—I saw them.
Two figures in the mist, moving fast.
One tall, powerful. The other lean, agile.
My voice cracked. “Hey! Stop!”
They didn’t.
I chased them. Not because I meant to—because my body moved before my brain could stop it.
The fog swallowed me whole, thick and cold on my skin, clinging like fingers. I barely saw where they went, but something pulled me forward.
Then he turned.
The tall one. Dark-haired. Broad-shouldered.
His eyes met mine—and the world stopped.
Amber. Deep as flame, sharp as lightning. And they knew me.
A breath left my lungs like he’d punched it out with a look.
I knew him.
They're the same amber from my dreams.
Time stilled.
His gaze hit me like a wave. A thousand silent memories crashing all at once. My breath caught, chest rising like I’d been struck.
It’s him, I'm sure of it.
His dark hair clung to his face, his jaw tight, eyes burning gold through the mist. The sight of him—real and unreal all at once—sent a shiver through me so deep it ached.
Beside him, the other man smiled. Lighter hair. Sharper eyes. A kind of wildness behind them.
“Hey!” I shouted again. My voice was steadier this time. “What the hell were you doing in my house?”
The smaller man laughed. “Persistent, isn’t she?”
I took a step forward. “Answer me!”
His voice was low, rough—like gravel laced with velvet. “I’m Kaelen.”
His eyes never left mine. I felt the pull of him—intense, magnetic. Wrong and right, all at once.
The other man stepped forward, his movements smooth—too smooth.
“Sebastian,” he said, flashing a grin that was all teeth and no warmth. “Didn’t mean to scare you. We were just… finishing some work.”
Grief crashed into me, violent and sudden. My knees almost buckled, but I forced them straight.
“Work?” My voice trembled, thick with more than grief now. “For my grandmother?”
Sebastian’s smile flickered. A pause. “Yeah. She asked us to handle a few things last week.”
A chill crawled up my spine. My throat closed around the words as they fought their way out.
“She died yesterday.”
I threw the truth like a blade.
“I don’t care what she asked. There's no reason for you to be here.”
The mist swirled. A silence bloomed—heavy. Waiting.
Sebastian’s grin twitched again. “Must’ve been a... mix-up.”
“You’re lying,” I said, my voice cold and sharper.
Kaelen flinched. Just barely.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” he said.
“Then tell me what it is.”
He didn’t.
The fog thickened around them. A wind stirred, and in it—I heard it.
A whisper.
“Layla.”
A voice—cold, otherworldly—slithered through the mist:
“I’ll always find you.”
Not Kaelen’s voice.
Not Sebastian’s.
Something else. Older. Hungry.
I froze.
Kaelen’s head snapped toward the woods, eyes sharp, jaw clenched. Sebastian’s smirk vanished.
They heard it too.
The wind picked up, twisting through the trees like breath through teeth.
I backed away. My skin prickled with the unmistakable sensation of being watched—not by Kaelen, but by something else.
Something’s still out there. Watching. Waiting.
Kaelen stepped forward, his voice low, urgent. “Get inside, Layla.”
I didn’t move.
His eyes locked on mine.
“You don’t know what that was, but I do.”
I stiffened.
Then it hit me—
I never told them my name.
Not once.
Not during the shouting, the chasing, or the confrontation.
My breath caught in my throat.
How did he know it?
The thought chilled me more than the rain.
Kaelen had said it like it was nothing, like it was obvious—but it wasn’t.
It couldn’t be.
Sebastian stepped closer, his tone easy. “It’s just the wind,” he said smoothly. “Strange things happen in these woods.”
I held his gaze, unblinking.
He sounded casual, like this was nothing.
But the air was thick with lies—and I wasn’t buying any of them.
Kaelen shifted, the muscles in his jaw flexing.
But before he turned, his gaze found mine again. Unflinching. Worried.
Sebastian straightened his coat. “If you need anything... we’re around.” He smiled. “Your grandmother should have our details written down somewhere.”
A message.
A warning.
A thread just waiting to unravel.
They turned together, fading into the mist like ghosts. Gone.
I stood alone.
The world fell quiet.
Neither of them looked back.
But Kaelen’s eyes... they stayed with me.
I turned around and made my way back toward the house, but stopped when I reached the porch.
There, in the rain-drenched gloom, lay a slip of paper.
It hadn’t been there before…
A shiver ran down my spine, and I reached for it, fingers trembling despite myself. The rain dotted its surface, and I could already see the ink bleeding, running like dark veins into the paper.
I knelt to pick it up, my heart hammering in my chest.
One line. Scrawled in a hand I didn’t recognize, but it was a hand that sent shivers of recognition down my spine.
The cane slipped from my fingers.
It hit the porch with a crack—sharp and sudden, like thunder breaking the silence.
I stared at the paper.
“He’s not the only one looking for you.”
The words swirled in my mind, too heavy to process, too unreal to believe.
I spun around, my pulse roaring in my ears, and for a moment, I thought I heard something—a rustle in the mist—something just out of reach.
My heart slammed against my chest, and every instinct screamed at me to run, to get back inside, to lock the door and pretend this nightmare wasn’t real.
But my feet didn’t move.
I stood frozen, staring at the paper.
My mind was racing, every thought twisted in knots.
What the hell is happening to me?
- Writer
