Selah Reece's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Selah Reece had sworn no one could reach her inside the manor. The fifteen-foot wall proved her wrong at dawn. A white envelope lay on the floor of her bedroom, half under the door, where only she slept. She had spent three weeks hunting the stalker who mailed threats to every friend she had. Now the stalker had found the one room she thought was safe. She crouched in her robe and read without touching the paper. The letter named the color of her sheets. It named the stone lion on her wall and the horse in her stable by sight. Whoever wrote it had stood close enough to watch her sleep. Selah did not scream. She did the thing she always did when fear tried to own her: she got sarcastic. "Lovely," she whispered. "A pen pal with excellent taste in trespassing." Then her hands shook, and she balled them into fists. The front gate was the only formal way in. But Selah had built this house, and she knew what the builders did not finish. Behind her wardrobe ran a narrow passage, one of several she kept secret. If the stalker used it, the dust would show a trail. She lit a lamp and slipped inside. The passage dust lay smooth. Untouched. No footprints, no handprints, nothing dragged. Whoever delivered the letter had not come through her hidden ways. That left one answer, and it was worse. They had come through the front. Past the gate. Past the walls. Someone with a key, or someone she had let inside herself. Selah climbed to the roof where the cameras fed their screens. She scrubbed the night footage frame by frame. At three in the morning, the stone lion on the wall turned its head. The vigilant beast that guarded her gate swung its gaze toward the drive, then held still. Something had passed below it. The camera caught no face, only a gloved hand pressing the gate's keypad with the right code. Her chest went cold. The code was new. She had changed it four days ago and told no one but the two people she trusted most. One of them had betrayed her, or one of them was next. Down in the dark stable, the horse with the soft inner glow stamped and snorted. Selah ran to it. The animal's light fell on fresh boot prints in the straw, leading to the tack room where she kept the house keys. The ring hung in its place. But the spare gate key was gone. Selah stood very still. The stalker was not outside her walls anymore. The stalker had a key to everything and a code only three people knew. She pulled her phone from her robe and stared at two names in her contacts. One of them had let the monster in. She pressed call on the first.