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Her words were jagged. Lined with the foreboding and unrest that would forever lay siege to our lives. No matter how normal we tried to pretend we were.

“Don’t see anything. Just feel it,” I muttered under my breath.

I faced her apartment complex. Glued to the darkness that emanated from the innocuous façade.

I was torn between standing directly in front of her and investigating. Not wanting her out of the semi-safety of her truck, but also unwilling to leave her downstairs alone.

The four apartments that took up her building were still, the white paint and flowering pots out front lapping with blamelessness.

But there was something there.

Something painted in the periphery.

My eyes dragged back and forth in search of anything amiss.

When you lived the type of life that we did, a sort of sixth sense developed.

If you evolved into a monster? Your perceptions evolved, too.

A natural adaptation that had kept me alive more times than I could count.

I felt it then. Crawling across my flesh like the marching of fire ants. A coming destruction that whispered on the breeze.

A muted, haunted premonition.

The hairs lifted at my nape, and I kept facing forward as I ordered, “Stick close to me.”

Stick close to me.

The number of times I’d told her that. The one thing I could give her.

My protection.

Elena was out and behind me in a flash. Without hesitation.

I could feel her wash over me from behind.

That sweet, innocent energy stilted by the fear that had arisen from the shallows.

“What do you feel?” She whispered it so quietly I more felt the words written like script at the back of my neck rather than heard it.

My heart thudded. A violent thrumming that drummed and bashed.

The atmosphere throbbed around us. Too calm. Too quiet. I flinched when a dispersion of birds fluttered overhead.

“Not sure. But something is awry.”

Or at least had been.

“On the count of three, we start moving.”

She gave a tight nod, and I started forward, moving toward the exterior stairs that cut right up the middle of the building.

My attention scanned in every direction, ready for any movement. Hand on the grip of my gun without fully pulling it out.

Elena had her hand fisted on the bottom of my cut. Anchored to me. Tacked to me like a promise.

Sweat slicked my skin as we slowly glided up the steps, and I could feel each of her haggard breaths as we ascended.