“What if she catches me?” Kaye whispered.
“She won’t,” I said, and I meant it. “Aurora doesn’t actually look at people, Kaye. She looks through them. You can do this.”
“I’m scared.”
“I know.” My throat tightened, but my voice stayed calm. “Be brave for two minutes. If you do this, I promise I will get us both out of there tonight.”
Another beat.
Then a shaky exhale. “Okay. I’m doing it.”
“Good girl,” I said softly. “Delete this call when we hang up.”
I ended it and sat there for a second, staring at the lab paperwork in my lap. The word lucid felt strange. Like a label I’d forgotten I was allowed to claim.
Then I started the engine.
The drive to Big Sur usually felt like an escape into paradise. The coastline, the cliffs, the expensive quiet—Aurora loved to call it healing.
Tonight, it felt like deployment.
The highway wound along the edge of the continent. The Pacific crashed hundreds of feet below, violent and gray, the sound more like an argument than a lullaby. Fog rolled in thick as wet cotton, erasing the world until all that was left was the narrow tunnel of asphalt ahead of me.
Aurora had chosen the location perfectly.
No neighbors close enough to hear you scream. Spotty cell service. A house perched on a cliff like an expensive threat.
Isolation was her favorite ingredient.
But she didn’t know everything.
In the lining of my purse, the satellite hotspot pressed against my palm like a secret. In my rearview mirror, far back but steady, an unmarked car kept pace—Henderson had insisted on calling in a favor with a county sheriff he trusted. I’d told him not to follow too close. Aurora would notice anything too obvious.
The fog thickened as I climbed toward the house. Trees appeared and disappeared like ghosts. Every curve in the road felt like stepping deeper into someone else’s story.
When the modern glass house finally emerged, it looked unreal—clean angles and bright windows suspended over darkness. The driveway was swallowed by fog behind me, a white wall that made it feel like the world had ended right at the property line.
No signal.
Just as Henderson warned. Somewhere inside, a jammer hummed, cutting me off from the outside like a lid sealing on a jar.
I stepped out of the car. The cold hit my cheeks hard. The ocean boomed below, a rhythmic thunder that vibrated through the soles of my shoes.
The front door opened before I reached the steps.
Aurora stood there in cream cashmere, hair glossy, posture perfect—every inch the concerned matriarch she liked to perform.
“Emma,” she breathed, pulling me into a hug that felt more like a frisk for a wire. “I was so worried you wouldn’t make it. You know how you get driving at night.”
“I made it,” I said, and let my voice waver just a fraction. I pulled back, wrapping my arms around myself in a gesture I knew she’d interpret as anxiety. “The fog was really thick. I think I got turned around twice.”
Aurora’s eyes flicked past me, fast and sharp, taking inventory of the driveway, the darkness, the absence of witnesses.
Then she smiled bigger.
“See?” she said over her shoulder, loud enough for someone inside to hear. “I told you she shouldn’t be driving. She’s confused.”
A figure hovered in the hallway.
Chad.
My brother-in-law looked like a ghost in his own house—tall, handsome, hollow-eyed, wearing a sweater too expensive to look comfortable. His gaze met mine for half a second, then slid away like he couldn’t bear the weight of it.
The house was freezing, temperature set to a sterile sixty-eight, the kind of chill that makes you aware of every hair on your arms. Aurora guided me toward the dining room like a handler steering an animal.
The table was set for four.
Candles. Linen napkins. The kind of beauty Aurora liked because it photographed well.
“I want you to meet someone,” she said, voice soft like a lullaby with teeth.
A man stood near the window.
Thick-set. Slightly sweaty despite the cold. Not a dinner guest energy. More like security dressed up to pretend.
“This is Dr. Vance,” Aurora said brightly. “An old friend of Chad’s. He just happened to be in the neighborhood.”
Dr. Vance stepped forward, and the way he looked at me wasn’t friendly. It was clinical. Predatory. Like he was already writing his conclusion.
“Nice to meet you, Emma,” he said. “Aurora has told me so much about you.”
“I bet she has,” I murmured, eyes down, shoulders slightly hunched—playing the part she’d been writing for me for years.
“Sit, sweetie,” Aurora said, pushing me gently into the chair facing the floor-to-ceiling window. Outside was pitch black. All I could see was my own reflection trapped in the glass under the chandelier’s light.
On the sideboard, the wine decanter waited. The red liquid glinted like a warning.