89 minutes now.
The feeling that something’s wrong crawls up my spine in cold little increments, until I can’t sit still anymore.
Sox appears in my doorway, meowing. Not her normal meow—the plaintive one. The one that means something’s wrong.
She pads to the bathroom door. Sits. Meows again at Harper’s side.
No response.
Sox looks back at me, tail swishing in agitation.
Even the cat knows something’s wrong.
That’s what tips me over the edge. If Sox is worried?—
Sox winds between my ankles, still meowing.
“Shh,” I whisper. “I know. I’m checking.”
I cross to the bathroom we share, cool tile under my bare feet. Her door is closed, but that’s normal.
But the lack of light from the line beneath the doorway isn’t. And the fact that there are no noises. Of any kind.
It’s eight-eighteen. She’s never asleep this early.
“Harper?” My voice is barely above a whisper, ear pressed to the wood. “They’re gone. It’s just me.”
Nothing.
I press my ear harder against the door. Listen for breathing. Footsteps. The rustle of sheets. Anything.
Silence.
I knock. Three times. “Harper?”
Count to ten. Nothing.
Knock again. Four times this time. Even number. Better.
Count to ten again. Still nothing.
My heart is hammering now. Four beats, eight beats, twelve, sixteen.
“Harper, please.”
Sox meows again, louder. Insistent.
Nothing.
“Harper, please. We could just… Look, we don’t have to talk. We could just watch some YouTube. Or a movie. Or…” My eyes flick toward the French doors to the balcony I can’t see from here. “We could climb down the tree and go for a walk. Mom and Da—Mom and Silas don’t have to know.”
I freeze mid-sentence.
And frown.
The tree.
That massive oak outside the balcony with thick limbs like a ladder. I noticed it the day we moved in. Twelve major branches. Intervals of roughly eighteen inches between them. Perfectly climbable. I made a mental note without even thinking—escape route, emergency access, structural integrity good.