---
The house creaked in the middle of the night—old bones settling, Mom would say. But I knew the difference between a house stretching and a body pacing. Between pipes groaning and two people trying not to yell.
It was just past two a.m. I hadn't slept.
There was something about this place—this new life, these new people—that made my skin feel too tight.
I stood at the top of the stairs, in the dark, back pressed to the wall. It was instinct. Childhood instincts don't die; they just go dormant.
I used to do this in our old apartment, when Dad came home angry and Mom walked on eggshells. Hiding in corners. Listening through drywall.
Now here I was again.
---
"...she's not normal, Helen. You have to see that."
Mr. Vale's voice, low but strained. Edged with something familiar—panic trying to sound rational.
"She's a teenager, Richard. Of course she's not—"
"No. No, this is different. She doesn't cry. She doesn't feel. I've watched her since she was five and—"
The bed creaked. A thump. A sigh. Silence.
I leaned closer.
"She scares me."
Those words weren't angry. They were terrified. Real. Raw.
"She's my daughter, and she terrifies me."
---
I froze. My heart wasn't racing—it was slowing, the way it always did when danger stepped into the room. Cold blood. Tunnel vision.
Because the way he said it… That wasn't a parent being dramatic. That was a man living with a predator.
And he had no idea she was already carving at the walls around him.
---
I went back to my room eventually. Stared at the ceiling. Thought about my father's fists, my mother's flinches, the way I swore I'd never let anyone control me again.
But then there was Eliora.
And I couldn't decide what I wanted more—to run, or to belong to her completely.
---
The next morning, she was at the kitchen table before anyone else. Drinking coffee. Black. No sugar. Of course.
She looked up when I walked in, lips twitching in amusement.
"Sleep well?"
She always asked like it was a joke only she got.
I didn't answer.
I just sat across from her, studying the girl who scared her own father—and didn't even flinch when she found out.