The Neighbor's Scream

The morning after the Neighbor's Scream felt like a hangover without the fun part.

I sat at my kitchen island, staring at the empty space on the counter where I usually put my keys. They were gone.

Not misplaced. Gone.

I checked my purse. My coat pockets. The key hook by the door. Nothing.

"Looking for something?" Julian asked, walking into the kitchen. He was wearing a fresh shirt, crisp and white. He looked like he hadn't spent the night patrolling my hallways with a gun.

"My keys," I said. "For the Porsche."

"Oh," he said, opening the fridge. "I moved them. To the safe."

"Why?"

"Because you were sleepwalking last night, El. I found you standing by the front door at 3 AM. I didn't want you driving off a cliff."

I stared at him. "I haven't sleepwalked since I was twelve."

"Stress brings it back," he said, pouring himself orange juice. "You were muttering about the rose. About the man in the mask."

He took a sip, watching me over the rim of the glass. "You need to rest. The launch is tomorrow. You can't look like this in front of the cameras."

I didn't argue. Arguing with Julian was like arguing with a algorithm. He just recalibrated and hit you with a new angle.

I went to my office. I needed to work. I needed to focus on something I could control.

I opened my laptop.

*Access Denied.*

I frowned. I typed my password again.

*Access Denied. Account Locked. Contact Administrator.*

I was the Administrator.

"Julian!" I shouted.

He appeared in the doorway, leaning against the frame. "Problem?"

"I'm locked out of my own system."

"I know," he said. "I revoked your admin privileges."

"You what?"

"Until the threat is neutralized," he said smoothly. "If someone has compromised your credentials—and we know they have—we can't risk them using your account to open the gates again. I'm the only admin now."

"This is my company! My code!"

"And it's my job to protect it," he said. "And you."

He walked over and closed my laptop. Gently. Firmly.

"Take a pill, Elena. Go lie down. I'll handle the prep."

He pulled the bottle of Xanax from his pocket and set it on the desk.

I looked at the bottle. Then at him.

"You're enjoying this," I whispered.

"I'm doing my job," he said. "And right now, my job is to keep you from destroying everything you've built."

He turned and walked out.

I sat there, shaking. He had taken my keys. He had taken my access. He had taken my agency.

I was a prisoner in a glass box.

I needed proof.

I remembered the missing minute. The gap in the footage from the night the rose appeared.

If I couldn't access the system from my laptop... maybe I could access it physically.

The backup drives were in the server room. The Core.

But Julian had the code to the Core.

Unless...

I remembered something Leo had told me once. A workaround he used when he forgot his badge.

*The HVAC maintenance hatch.*

It was in the garage. Behind the water heater. It led directly into the ventilation shaft that fed the server room.

It was tight. Dangerous. But it was a way in.

I waited until I heard Julian on a conference call in the living room. Then I slipped out to the garage.

It was dark and smelled of gasoline. I found the hatch. I unscrewed the bolts with a dime I found on the floor.

I crawled in.

The shaft was freezing. The metal pressed against my shoulders. I dragged myself forward, dust filling my nose. I could hear the hum of the servers getting louder.

Finally, I reached the grate. I peered down into the Core.

It was empty. The blue lights hummed.

I pushed the grate open and dropped down.

I went straight to the physical backup array. I pulled the drive for the night in question. I plugged it into the offline diagnostic terminal—the one that didn't require a login.

I scrubbed through the footage.

11:41 PM. Empty living room.

11:42 PM.

Static.

But not just static. A pattern.

I zoomed in. The static wasn't random noise. It was a loop. A single frame of "empty room" repeated over and over to mask movement.

Someone had edited the feed in real-time.

I looked at the metadata.

*User ID: Admin_00.*

Julian.

But then I looked closer.

The edit wasn't clean. There was a artifacts. A glitch in the corner of the frame.

I enhanced it.

For a split second, in the reflection of the window, I saw a face.

It wasn't Julian.

It wasn't the man in the mask.

It was Leo.

My apprentice.

He was holding a tablet. He was tapping the screen, his face illuminated by the glow. He looked... terrified.

And behind him, in the shadows...

A hand. Resting on his shoulder.

A hand wearing a vintage Rolex Daytona.

I gasped.

Julian wasn't just doing it. He was *making* Leo do it.

Leo was the tech. Julian was the director.

I ejected the drive. I shoved it into my pocket.

I had to find Leo. I had to get him to talk.

I climbed back up the vent. I crawled back to the garage.

My Porsche was there. But no keys.

I looked around. Julian's Range Rover was blocking the driveway.

I was trapped.

Then I saw it.

In the corner, under a tarp.

Leo's electric scooter. He left it here sometimes when he caught a ride with the construction crew.

It was fully charged.

I grabbed it. I hit the garage door button.

As the door rolled up, I heard footsteps running in the house above me.

"Elena!" Julian's voice.

I jumped on the scooter. I gunned it.

I shot down the driveway, the wind tearing at my hair.

"Elena, stop!"

I didn't look back. I wove around the Range Rover and hit the switchback road.

It was steep. Dangerous. The scooter wasn't made for this.

I leaned into the turns, terrified.

I had to get to Leo's apartment in the city.

I made it to the bottom of the hill. I ditched the scooter in the bushes and ran to the bus stop.

An hour later, I was pounding on Leo's door.

He lived in a basement apartment in Capitol Hill. It smelled like weed and old pizza.

"Leo! Open up!"

The door cracked open.

Leo looked like a wreck. Dark circles. Shaking hands.

"Elena?" he whispered. "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be in lockdown."

"I know," I said. I pushed past him into the apartment. "I saw the footage, Leo. I saw you."

His face went white.

"I didn't want to," he stammered. "He made me. He said he'd tell everyone about the crypto mining. He said he'd send me to jail."

"Julian?"

Leo nodded. "He's crazy, Elena. He has a plan. For the launch."

"What plan?"

"He's going to crash the system live," Leo said. "While you're on stage. He's going to make it look like a catastrophic failure. And then..."

"And then what?"

"And then he's going to 'save' everyone," Leo said. "With his new system. Vance Sentinel. He's launching it tomorrow too."

"He's destroying my company to launch his," I whispered.

"It's worse," Leo said. He walked to his computer. "Look at this."

He pulled up a schematic.

It was Aerie Point. But there were red dots everywhere.

"What are those?"

"Explosives," Leo said.

"What?"

"Small charges. In the smart locks. In the breaker panels. He's not just going to crash the system, Elena. He's going to blow the doors off. Literally. To prove how 'unsafe' your tech is."

My blood ran cold.

"There will be people inside," I said. "Investors. Press."

"He says the charges are small. Just for show. Pyrotechnics."

"He's insane."

"We have to stop him," Leo said.

"We need the police."

"He *owns* the police," Leo said. "Sheriff Gorski is on his payroll. I saw the transfers."

"Then who?"

My phone buzzed. The burner.

*Asset in position.*

I looked at the text.

"Who is that?" Leo asked.

"I don't know," I said. "But they know everything."

I typed back: *I'm with Leo. We know about the explosives.*

Three dots.

*Good. Now ask him about the girl.*

I looked at Leo.

"What girl?"

Leo flinched. He looked away.

"Leo," I said. "What girl?"

"The one before you," he whispered. "Julian's first wife. Sarah."

"What about her?"

"She didn't just leave him, Elena. She disappeared."

"Disappeared?"

"He told everyone she went to Europe. But I found her file on his private server. It wasn't a flight itinerary."

"What was it?"

"It was a death certificate," Leo said. "Dated three years ago. Cause of death: Accidental fall. From a cliff."

I felt the room spin.

"But... the woman in the gray car," I whispered. "She said she was his ex-wife."

"What woman?"

"The one who gave me the envelope! She said her name was Sarah!"

Leo stared at me.

"Elena," he said slowly. "Sarah is dead. I saw the autopsy photos."

My phone buzzed.

*He lied about her death too.*

I looked at the screen.

*Who are you?* I typed furiously.

The answer came instantly.

*I'm Sarah.*

I dropped the phone.

"She's alive," I whispered. "She's helping me."

"Or," Leo said, his voice trembling, "someone is pretending to be her to lure you out."

A knock on the door.

Three sharp raps.

*Thump. Thump. Thump.*

We both froze.

"Leo?" a voice called. "It's the landlord. Water leak upstairs."

Leo looked at me. He shook his head. "My landlord is a woman."

He grabbed a baseball bat from the corner.

The door handle jiggled.

Then, a sound.

*Click.*

The sound of a lock picking gun.

The door swung open.

It wasn't Julian.

It was the man from the coffee shop. The one with the limp.

He stepped inside. He was holding a silenced pistol.

"Mrs. Vance," he said. "Your husband is very worried about you."

Leo charged him with the bat.

The man didn't even flinch. He raised the gun and fired.

*Thwip.*

Leo dropped. He clutched his leg, screaming silently.

"Next one goes in his head," the man said to me. "Come with me. Now."

I looked at Leo. He was bleeding onto the dirty carpet.

"Don't hurt him," I said.

"That depends on you."

I walked toward the door.

The man grabbed my arm. He dragged me out to the street.

A black van was waiting. The side door slid open.

Inside, sitting on a bench seat, wearing a suit and checking his watch, was Julian.

He looked up. He smiled.

"You're late," he said.

The man shoved me inside. The door slammed shut.

"Where are we going?" I asked, huddled in the corner.

"Back to the house," Julian said. "The show must go on."

He tapped the partition. The driver started the car.

"Did you kill Sarah?" I asked.

Julian looked at me. His expression was genuinely puzzled.

"Sarah who?"

"Your first wife."

He laughed. "I've only been married once, Elena. To you."

"Liar. Leo saw the death certificate."

"Leo sees what I want him to see," Julian said. "Just like you."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, black object.

My burner phone.

"You dropped this," he said.

He scrolled through the messages.

"Ah," he said. "*Asset in position.* Very dramatic."

"Who is it?" I asked. "Who is texting me?"

Julian smiled. He turned the phone around so I could see the screen.

He typed a message.

*I am.*

I stared at him.

"You?"

"I needed you to feel isolated," he said. "I needed you to feel like you had an ally, so you would keep digging. So you would find the 'evidence' I planted for you."

"Why?"

"Because," he said, leaning back, "a victim who fights back is so much more compelling for the cameras. And tomorrow night... you're going to fight for your life. Live in 4K."

The van turned onto the switchback road.

Up ahead, the Glass Box glowed in the twilight.

It looked beautiful.

It looked like a tomb.