The Hunt

The metal floorboards of the Butler’s Void were a cold, vibrating skin beneath my palms. I crawled forward, my breath hitching in a throat raw from wood smoke and the sweet, lingering stench of natural gas. Every movement was a jagged calculation of pain. I didn't have a weapon. I didn't have a plan. I only had the sensory map of a house that was currently being cleared of its history.

Aris was in the guest room. I could hear his boots thudding on the sub-flooring, a slow, rhythmic gait that told me he wasn't hunting. He was pacing. Measuring.

"I know you're in there, Elena!"

The voice boomed through the lath, distorted by the hollow spaces. It didn't sound like a man; it sounded like the house itself was screaming at me.

A heavy, wet *thump* vibrated through the wall. He had punched the plaster.

I froze, pressing my cheek against a vertical stud. The wood was warm. The fire downstairs was breathing, its lungs expanding into the crawlspaces, waiting for the structural integrity to hit zero.

"You're a preservationist, El! You want to save the bones!"

*Thump.*

A fist burst through the drywall six inches from my face. I saw the glint of his wedding ring, the same timelss band Leo wore, caked in white plaster dust. The fingers curled into a claw, grasping at the empty air inside the wall.

"I can smell the copper, dear," Aris crooned. His voice was right at the opening. "I can smell the leak. Subject 15 is bleeding out. Why don't you make it easy on yourself? The Institute has such a nice room waiting. No doors. No windows. Just the sequence."

I scrambled backward, my heels dragging through the soot and the discarded BreathEasy lozenge wrappers. The void was narrowing. I was moving toward the central shaft, the spine of the house where the chimney chase met the grand staircase support.

I reached a junction where the insulation had been ripped away. I looked through a jagged gap in the lath.

I was looking into the master ensuite.

The room was a kaleidoscope of orange and black. The steam from the broken pipe had turned the air into a shimmering veil. Aris was standing by the vanity, his tweed jacket shredded, his face a map of soot and absolute, clinical focus.

He wasn't looking for me anymore. He was looking at the monitor on the wall.

The feed from the Folly was still live. It showed the black SUV. It showed my father—or the man who looked like him—standing over the open earth.

"Subject 16 is viable," Aris whispered to the empty room.

He reached into his medical bag and pulled out a small, glass vial. He held it up to the flickering light, his thumb on the stopper.

"Magnificent," he said.

He turned toward the wall, his eyes searching the plaster for the exact spot where I was hiding.

"Did you hear the end of the tape, Elena?" Aris asked. He walked toward the wall, the vial held out like a peace offering. "The part where the daughter finally understands that the monster wasn't at the door? The monster was the choice to stay inside."

He raised his fist again.

*BANG.*

The plaster disintegrated. This time, he didn't just punch a hole. He used the short-barreled shotgun as a hammer, the heavy steel barrel shattering the lath.

I dived deeper into the dark. My shoulder hit a cross-brace, the impact sending a jolt of white-hot pain through my shattered arm. I rolled, falling onto a section of the floor that felt soft.

Dry rot.

I looked down. Below the floorboards of the void was a thirty-foot drop into the burning foyer. I was balanced on a single, compromised joist.

"Gotcha," Aris whispered.

He was leaning through the hole in the wall, his head and shoulders inside the void. He shone a high-intensity Maglite into the dark, the beam blinding me.

"Look at the heart rate," Aris said, checking his watch. "174. You’re approaching the limit, Elena. The structure is about to fail."

He reached out, his hand inches from my ankle.

"Leo was a contractor," Aris said, his eyes tracing the path of my blood on the timber. "He wanted to own the song. But the song is a measurement. And I’ve finished the set."

I looked at the joist. I looked at the Maglite beam.

I was a preservationist. I knew how to read the stress on a beam. I knew exactly how much weight it could take before the wood gave way.

"You forgot one measurement, Aris," I rasped.

I didn't pull back. I lunged forward, grabbing his wrist with my good hand.

I wasn't trying to pull him in. I was trying to add my weight to his.

"The load-bearing capacity of the lie," I screamed.

I kicked the rotted floorboard with both feet.

The collapse was instantaneous.

The timber snapped with a sound like a thunderclap. The floor beneath us vanished.

Aris let out a short, sharp bark of surprise as we both tumbled into the abyss.

I hit the plastic sheeting of the second-floor scaffolding first. It acted like a net, the heavy industrial material stretching and then tearing, slowing my descent just enough. I rolled off the ledge and hit the dining room table, the mahogany top shattering under my weight.

I lay in a sea of broken crystal and white dust, my lungs screaming for air.

I looked up.

Aris hadn't hit the table. He was dangling from the edge of the second-floor void, his fingers clawing at the jagged lath. The shotgun was gone, lost in the fire below. The medical bag was tangled in the chandelier above him.

He looked down at me, his face a mask of primal, unadulterated terror.

"Elena!" he shouted. "The vial! I have the cure!"

The vial was still in his hand, the stopper loose.

"There is no cure, Aris," I wheezed, my voice a ghost in the roar of the flames. "There's only the clearing."

The chandelier groaned. The final link of the chain was cherry-red, the heat from the foyer liquefying the iron.

The chain snapped.

The three-ton crystal monster dropped. It hit Aris's shoulder first, the force of it tearing him from the wall before the whole mass crashed into the floor beside me.

The house shook. The sound was total, absolute, a wall of noise that turned the world to black.

I woke up in the snow.

The air was silent. The fire was a dying ember on the hill, a skeleton of glowing rafters against the Hudson Valley sky.

I was lying on the nature preserve road. My hospital gown was soaked with blood and soot.

A pair of headlights swept over me.

The black SUV was idling five feet away.

The back door opened.

A woman stepped out. She was wearing a tattered lace dress, her hair a long, tangled nest of blonde. She was carrying a doll.

She walked toward me, her boots crunching on the ice.

She stopped beside my head and leaned down.

"It's 4:00 AM, Elena," my mother whispered.

She reached into the porcelain head of the doll and pulled out a small, digital recorder.

She pressed play.

A voice came through the speaker. It was a man's voice. Calm. Professional.

"Subject 15 is responsive. Simulation 48 successful. Initiate Level 6."

I looked at my mother. Her eyes were blue—a brilliant, terrifying blue that didn't match the woman from my memories.

"Did you like the house, baby?" she asked.

She pointed toward the gate.

A white van was pulling up. The side door slid open.

Standing inside, wearing a bespoke suit and holding a silver tray, was Aris Thorne.

He didn't have a scratch on him. He wasn't bleeding. He wasn't burnt.

He walked toward us, his boots making no sound on the snow.

He stopped next to my mother. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a single, green lozenge.

"Magnificent," Aris whispered, looking down at me.

"The belief in the fire is the strongest reinforcement we’ve seen yet."

He knelt down and grabbed my wrist, checking the hospital ID band.

"Tell me, Elena," Aris asked, his watery blue eyes reflecting the moon.

"Do you still think the door was locked?"

He raised a silver needle.

And then, from the back of the white van, a second Elena stepped out.

She was wearing a silk robe. She was holding a framing hammer.

The second me looked at the me in the snow, a slow, predatory smile touching her lips.

"Subject 15a is awake," the second me whispered.

She raised the hammer and aimed it at the woman in the lace dress.

"Run, Mom," the second me screamed.