The pry bar slipped, then caught. Mara Reyes rammed it back in, harder, until metal rang off the frame—loud as a dinner bell in a dead house. The seal over the manager’s door didn’t crack. It flexed. Not rigid. Not brittle. It gave the way cartilage gives under skin. Burned sugar and rot muscled past her mask anyway, sweet enough to make her gag. Mara kept her shoulder pinned to the hallway wall. Staff corridor. No windows. No breeze. Only a narrow chute of dark, old paint lifting in flakes that looked too much like scabs. Her flashlight found dust in the beam, and the motes didn’t drift right—slow, then suddenly skittering, like something exhaled from inside the walls. “Okay,” she murmured, job-site quiet. “No naps. Not even blinking naps.” The pry bar slid into the seam again. She tested wood, then metal. Nothing gave. Her gloves squeaked with tacky residue even doubled up, and the seal bulged around the tool like it wanted to keep it. Mara yanked back. Amber-brown strands clung to the steel and snapped with a wet little sound, tendon-pull ugly. A click came from the vent above her. Then another. Teeth chatter, faint and wrong. She tilted her head just enough to look. The slats sat crooked, one bent inward as if something had hooked it from the other side. Her pulse hammered in her neck. Down the hall, a fluorescent tube buzzed and popped in time with it, like someone had run a wire straight into her chest. Mara shifted to the baseboard. The pry bar’s slim blade slid under it. She lifted. Dust fell in a soft spill. Something darker slid with it, then stopped—smear, not paint, not mold. Her outer glove brushed it by accident. Warm. Sticky. “Don’t,” she told herself under her breath. “Don’t touch stuff you can’t bag.” The corridor didn’t get hotter. It got closer. Like the corners had leaned in a fraction and pushed her breath back at her face. Mara went shallow with her lungs, sleeve up, breathing through cloth. No deep pull. No extra air for whatever lived in the seal. She braced her palm for leverage. The seal thumped once against her hand. Private. Intentional. Mara jerked away. “Nice try.” Her voice came out low and mean, aimed at the door. “You don’t get to change the story.” Then something else threaded in. Soft as fingernails on paper. Scratch-scratch. Pause. Scratch. Not vent noise. Not a pipe creak. Pen strokes. Keys. Thin, rhythmic typewriter clacks, like somebody working late with bad light and a worse conscience. Mara froze with her body already pointed toward an exit. The corridor seemed to pause with her. The sound came from behind the sealed door. Impossible. She’d watched it—sealed, no handle movement, no light leak, no gap. Scratch-scratch. Faster. Ink smell pushed through the rot, sharp and metallic, like fresh signatures on old forms. Her stomach cinched. The motel loved bait. It offered. It waited. Mara angled the flashlight at the seam. The seal shone wet, like it had been licked. The scratching stopped. A voice breathed through the frame, close as air sliding past teeth. “Mara.” Not her father. Not Eli Ashworth. Her own voice. Low. Calm in a way that made her skin crawl. Her throat locked. Mara took one step back and her boot heel tapped the tile—too loud, too alive. “What room,” she whispered. “What date. Whose hands.” Nothing. Then the scratching again, cheaper this time. Plastic-thin. Wrong, but still real enough to raise gooseflesh on her arms. Mara swallowed bile and leaned in, careful with her weight. Ear near the door, not touching. No contact. No gift of warmth. The burned sugar thinned. Ink rose up, wet and familiar like old paperwork pulled from a drawer. Click. Like a light switch. A fluorescent hum—closer. A drawer sliding. The staff corridor stayed dark, but her mind got pulled sideways, as if something inside her skull had unlatched. A desk appeared in her flashlight spill, half-formed, like a photo developing wrong. Cheap motel veneer, corners nicked. A blotter. Paper stacked. Hands resting there. Her father’s hands. Large knuckles. A faint scar on the right thumb from the kitchen accident—she’d been eight and cried harder than he did. His fingers curled around a pen. Not his pen. A cheap motel Bic. Clear barrel. Blue cap. Mara’s teeth clicked once. She clamped her jaw before it turned into a sound. “That’s not his pen.” Her words scraped out. “That’s not—” The hands moved anyway, signing. Slow, deliberate strokes, like he wanted the paper to remember him. The edges of the sheets looked damp—not wet, just softened, fibers swollen like they’d been breathed on too long. Beside the stack lay a Polaroid, face down, its white border peeking out from under a curled page. Her flashlight beam jittered. Dust swam through it heavy, spore-thick. Mara reached toward the scene without thinking, then caught herself and tightened both hands around the pry bar instead. The metal bit into her palm through latex. She forced her focus onto the wrong details—the Bic, the blotter. Her father used a legal pad. Yellow. Straight lines. A habit from before everything went bad. The lamp in the memory flicked on, warm and contained. Down the real corridor, fluorescent light popped again. Pulse. Pop. Pulse. Mara dragged her gaze to the Polaroid. The date stamp on the border was blurred, smeared like someone had rubbed a thumb across it. A sloppy edit. A rushed one. Her father’s hand paused mid-signature. Pen hovering. Then his head—she didn’t see his face, only the angle of his jaw—tilted toward the door, like he’d heard her. “Mara,” her own voice whispered again, not from the door now, but from inside the walls. “Top drawer. Red folder.” Mara worked her throat. Nothing came the first time. The second time, her words tasted like copper and detergent. “I never told anybody that.” Her voice cracked, then sharpened. “So cut the shit.” The motel held the scene steady, waiting for her to step closer. Just lean in. Just breathe deep. Get your proof. The pen scratched again. Signature finished. Paper slid across the desk toward a drawer. Fingers hooked the pull. Something flashed in her peripheral vision—too long, too pale. Not claws. Fingernails. A second hand, an overlay shadowing his, nudging the movement along. Mara blinked hard. Once. Twice. No more. The scene wavered and the corridor snapped back—narrow, harsh, real in the worst way. The seal sat on the manager’s door glossy and patient, like it hadn’t done anything at all. Mara backed away until her shoulder hit the opposite wall. Cold paint flakes pressed into her shirt. Her lungs burned from taking too little air. Overhead, the vent wheezed—not a clean HVAC hiss, but a wet gurgle, throat-full-of-spit ugly. “Open air,” she muttered. “Find a draft.” She moved fast without running. Running made noise. Noise bought attention. Her boots carried her out of the staff corridor into the vending nook near the ice machine. Wider space. A cracked exterior door let in a thin slice of breeze, held open by a warped doormat that looked like it hadn’t been moved in months. The motel didn’t like that breeze. The vent noise changed as if trying to swallow it. Cold air slid over Mara’s face. It didn’t clear the stink. Rot stayed packed in her sinuses. She dug out her phone. No signal. Battery low—red bar, red warning. She set a timer anyway. Sixty seconds. Then another. A stupid tether to time that didn’t belong to this building. “Okay.” She aimed the words at the screen. “You and me. Don’t die on me yet.” The sink sputtered when she turned it on. Water came out cold and thin, smelling like copper pipes and old pennies. Mara shoved her wrists under it. Cold snapped through her skin. Her muscles jumped like a switch had been thrown. She held her hands there until the ache turned sharp. Then she splashed her face, careful of the mask. Menthol gum sat half-melted in her pocket; she jammed a piece in and chewed hard. Sting lit her sinuses. Her eyes watered. Good. Awake. Mara pulled a small notepad from her bag—not evidence, not photos. An anchor. She wrote in block letters, pressing hard enough to bruise the paper. BIC PEN. BLURRED DATE. WRONG BLOTTER. MY VOICE LIED. Her pen circled that last line until fibers tore. The vent gurgle quieted. Not gone. Listening. Warmth slid over her shoulders, heavy as a blanket somebody tried to tuck around her. Her eyelids dragged. Lashes stuck together like she’d been crying. “Nope.” She swallowed, then said it louder. “Nope, nope, nope.” Mara slapped the sink edge. The crack of it snapped through the nook. Somewhere down the hall, a door latch clicked back into place, neat as punctuation. A memory floated up—her father in the kitchen, late night, coffee and paperwork. His hand on the back of her head while she leaned over homework. Aftershave, clean and cheap. The memory came with a pull, a warmth that wanted her to sink. Mara bit down on the gum until her jaw hurt. “Not now,” she told the memory. “Later. Not a gift. Not a trap.” She shoved the notepad back into her bag and zipped it like it could leak. The hallway beyond the vending nook looked narrower than before. Maybe the light. Maybe not. Mara patted her pockets. Pry bar. Flashlight. Gloves. Evidence bags. Phone. Keys that weren’t supposed to be hers. The timer beeped. She flinched and forced herself to breathe through it. Footsteps behind her. Mara spun, pry bar up. Eli Ashworth stood at the end of the nook, half in shadow. His hoodie looked damp at the cuffs, like he’d been handling something wet and gritty. He didn’t lift his hands like a cop show. He just held still, eyes sharp. “Yeah,” Eli muttered. One word. Warning. Mara didn’t lower the pry bar. “Where’d you come from?” “Back way.” He nodded toward the staff corridor without turning his head. “You were at the seal.” “Was.” Mara swallowed. The gum burned. “It showed me my dad. Desk. Signing.” Eli’s face barely moved, but his jaw tightened in a small, precise way. “One thing wrong?” “More than one.” Mara held up the notepad like a shield. “Cheap pen. Blurred date. My voice telling me where to look.” Eli stepped closer, still leaving space. Like he didn’t want to share her air any more than he had to. “That’s how it hunts. Gives you meat with a hook in it.” Sweat slicked the pry bar handle. Her latex gloves squeaked when she adjusted her grip. “It said top drawer. Red folder.” She watched his eyes for any twitch. “I never told anyone that’s what my dad called his case file.” Eli’s nostrils flared once. He was tasting the same rot. Hating it quietly. “Don’t follow it,” he said. “And don’t chase the picture.” “You got a better idea?” It came out sharper than she meant. His gaze dropped to her wrists, still wet from the sink. Then to her face. Something in his shoulders shifted, like he’d made a decision and didn’t love it. “Two choices,” Eli said. “We push open air, or we get dragged under.” Mara let out a short laugh that sounded like brittle plastic snapping. “Cool. Both suck.” Eli’s mouth almost lifted. Almost. Then it died. He reached past her and shoved the exterior door open another inch. Cold night air poured in, smelling like wet gravel and gasoline. The vents reacted with a wet suck. A swallow. “That help?” Eli asked. “It helps me not pass out,” Mara replied. “So yeah. Gold star.” He glanced down the hall. “Laundry room’s better. Loud. Bright. Machines keep you honest.” “Fine.” Mara moved first, pry bar still in hand. “But I’m not done with that office.” Eli didn’t argue. That scared her more than if he had. They walked fast. Lights buzzed overhead. Carpet underfoot stuck slightly to her soles, tacky like dried syrup. Each door they passed leaked its own stale breath—old smoke, bleach, sweat. Passing the manager’s door turned Mara’s stomach. That sweetness again, like burnt candy on a stove too long. She kept her eyes forward. Eli’s hand brushed her elbow when she drifted too close to the staff corridor. Not a grab. A redirect. The contact lingered longer than it had to—steady pressure, a handhold on a ledge. Mara jerked away by reflex and hated herself for it. Eli didn’t comment. He just kept walking like nothing happened. The laundry room door stuck when Mara shoved it. The handle came away cold and greasy. Inside, harsh fluorescents didn’t pretend to be kind. Dryers thumped. Washers sloshed. Noise filled her skull and shoved the motel’s whispers back. Detergent bit her nose—fake floral trying to cover decay. It almost worked. Eli crossed the room and slapped the change machine like he expected it to talk. It stayed dead. Mara dropped her bag on a folding table. The metal vibrated with the machines, a constant tremor under her hands. “Timer,” she muttered, setting her phone down. “Every minute.” “Yeah.” Eli leaned against the far wall, arms crossed. “Stay standing.” Her shoulders rolled. The bruise on her arm ached where finger-shaped marks lived under skin. A dryer door hung ajar; inside, a towel lay twisted and damp from being forgotten. Mara grabbed it, shoved it in, and hit start. Heat. Motion. More noise. A small fortress. Eli watched without comment, like he understood the ritual. She dug out beef jerky—emergency salt, emergency chew—and ripped it open with her teeth because the gloves made everything stupid. A soft scrape came from the vent near the floor. Mara’s head snapped down. The cover was bent, one screw missing. The gap behind it looked black and tight. Something shifted in there. Two eyes caught fluorescent glare—greenish, narrow. A cat slid out like smoke, ribs sharp under dusty fur. It moved careful, nose twitching, whiskers forward. Mara held still. The motel had teeth. This time the teeth belonged to something that could bleed. The cat’s ears flicked toward the dryers, then toward Mara. It smelled the jerky and decided hunger outranked fear. Mara crouched slowly. Knees cracked. She held out a strip between gloved fingers. “Hey,” she whispered, softer than she’d spoken to anyone all night. “You live here? Yeah. Of course you do.” One step. Another. Silent paws on tile, pads dark with grime. Mara kept her hand steady even as her muscles trembled. The cat lunged, snatched the jerky. Teeth grazed her glove—tiny, sharp points. Mara barely flinched. “Okay,” she breathed. “Fair. I’d bite me too.” It backed off a foot to chew, jaw working fast and desperate. Eli shifted his weight. The smallest sound. The cat’s head snapped up, eyes hard. Eli went statue-still. “Yeah,” he murmured, like he was talking to a bomb. Mara lowered her free hand, palm down. “It’s fine. It’s not gonna rat me out.” Eli’s mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. The cat finished chewing and licked its lips, tongue dark as old blood. It stared at Mara like she owed it. “Don’t look at me like I’m the weird one,” Mara told it. “You climbed out of a wall.” She tossed another strip closer. The cat crept in, grabbed it, retreated again. Mara exhaled through her sleeve. The air stayed cleaner in here. Not clean. Just less shared. The machines kept up their steady thump, a rhythm she could lean on. The timer beeped. Mara killed it and reset it with wet fingers. Eli pushed off the wall and stepped closer, careful not to crowd her. Still, he filled the room—another body, fewer places to pretend there was space. “You good?” he asked. “I’m awake.” Mara stood, legs stiff. “That’s what counts.” Eli nodded. “Get warm. Heat keeps your hands working. Just… don’t let it turn soft.” Hot air leaked around the dryer seal. Mara cracked the door and pulled the towel out. Warm. Almost too hot. She looped it around her neck. Her shoulders dropped before she could stop them. The towel pressed damp-warm against her throat, the kind of touch that usually meant nothing bad. The dryer rumbled behind her, loud and constant, drowning out the smaller creaks of the building. The cat watched from the corner on top of a rolling cart, blinking slow—not sleepy. Measuring. Mara tore the last jerky strip into bits and laid them on the tile in a little trail. The cat hopped down and ate in quick bites, glancing up between each one. Its body stayed coiled, ready to bolt. “Don’t make me regret this,” Mara whispered. She slid two gloved fingers toward its back. The cat didn’t run. Mara touched. Dusty fur, thin and warm underneath. A purr started low and steady, vibration traveling through her glove into her bones. Her chest loosened. Not safe. Not relieved. Just… not braced for teeth for one small pocket of time. “Okay,” she rasped. “Deal. You purr, I stay awake.” The purr deepened, like it understood the terms. Eli stopped near the folding table, leaving her space. His eyes stayed on the door, not the cat, like he refused to trust anything gentle. The timer beeped again. The sound stabbed, then steadied her. Time still moved. “How long you been doing this?” Mara asked without looking back. Eli’s shoulders rose and fell once. “Too long.” “Helpful.” She stroked the cat again, a little firmer. It leaned in, then pulled away like it remembered to be wary. His voice dropped. “You got rules?” Mara snorted. “Yeah. Rule one: no sleeping. Rule two: don’t trust anything that knows your name.” Eli shifted closer by half a step. “Rule three—if it offers comfort, it’s trying to get close.” Mara’s fingers paused. The purr faltered, then stubbornly returned. “Not everything warm is a trap,” Mara muttered, then snapped her mouth shut like she’d said too much. Eli didn’t answer. His gaze flicked to the towel around her neck, then away. A washer clunked. Water drained with a wet rush. Then a pause. That pause made the hair rise on Mara’s arms. The cat’s ears turned toward the vent. Its body went tight, claws hooking the cart’s lip. Mara stood fast. The towel slid; she tightened it around her neck like armor. “Okay. Break’s over. Small win. Still alive.” Eli nodded once. “Use the room. Stage from here.” Mara dumped tools onto the table in a neat line: pry bar, flashlight, extra gloves, alcohol wipes, a small screwdriver set. She scribbled one more note. CAT = GOOD ALARM. Eli glanced at it. “Yeah. Better than me.” “Don’t get jealous.” A short huff escaped her. His almost-smile flashed and died. He rubbed a hand over his face like fatigue itched. Mara swallowed. Her body wanted to sink into the warmth and the noise and pretend she wasn’t hunted. She didn’t let it. “Alternate route,” Mara said, voice turning practical. “Office wall shares plumbing with this room, right?” Eli didn’t ask how she knew. He just pointed. “Utility chase behind those dryers. Panel’s screwed in. Might get you near the office’s backside.” “‘Might’ is doing a lot of work,” Mara muttered. Eli shrugged. “It’s a motel. Everything’s shortcuts and rot.” Mara moved to the dryers. The cat followed a few steps, then stopped as if an invisible line had been drawn. Smart animal. She knelt at the metal panel. Four screws, rusted. Her screwdriver squealed as it turned. The smell behind the panel hit her like a slap—copper, mold, and something papery and old, like a file left to dissolve in a flooded drawer. The panel came free. A narrow cavity yawned open. Pipes ran through it, sweating condensation. The metal felt slick under her glove, cold and vibrating with the machines. When she dipped her head into the utility chase, the dryer noise shifted. Muffled. Tighter. Like sound got shared differently in there. Mara set her phone timer where she could still hear it. Eli crouched behind her but kept his distance. “Don’t go deep. If you start yawning, you back out.” “Copy that.” She slid her arm in, tracing the pipe route. It ran toward the manager’s office wall—the same direction as the staff corridor. Her flashlight bounced off damp metal. Droplets shivered like tiny insects. A scrape came from farther in. A soft drag. Mara went still. The scrape stopped. Vent hiss shifted from dry to wet. Gurgle. The building trying to close its throat around her. Warmth pressed at her eyelids, persuasive and heavy. Mara bit her tongue until pain bloomed bright. Awake. She pushed deeper, shoulders twisting to fit. The towel snagged. Mara yanked it free and left it hanging on a dryer handle behind her. Air inside the chase tasted used. Old breath layered on old breath. She pulled short sips through her sleeve. Her fingertips found a junction box mounted to a stud. Old screws. Thin seam. “Panel?” she whispered. “Come on.” She levered the screwdriver under the edge. The cover shifted. Something clunked in the laundry room. Then everything stopped. No thump. No slosh. No hum. Silence dropped so fast her skin crawled, like a predator going still to listen. Eli’s voice snapped tight behind her. “Out. Now.” Mara backed out fast and scraped her elbow on a stud. Pain flared. Good. She dropped to her feet, flashlight sweeping. The cat stood on the cart again, hackles up, mouth open in a silent hiss. Fluorescents flickered once, twice, then steadied—too steady, like somebody holding the switch down with intent. Her phone timer beeped. The only normal sound left. Something moved near the far wall by the stacked baskets. Not a person. The suggestion of one, like someone behind a fogged shower curtain. The wall across from her rippled, surface pulling tight in a way drywall shouldn’t. A doorway outline formed—too tall, wrong angle, wrong perspective. Inside the outline, a scene played. Mara stood in the manager’s office. Not the Mara in stained work pants and a sweat-damp shirt. This Mara wore a dark blazer, hair pinned back. No gloves. Bare hands. Wrong. That other Mara leaned over the desk—the same cheap veneer—and her mouth moved. Her voice came out of the wall, low and intimate, like it belonged right in someone’s ear. “It’s in the top drawer,” the wall-voice murmured. “Red folder. Don’t tell Eli.” Mara’s stomach dropped out. Eli’s breath hitched beside her. He didn’t step forward. He didn’t touch her. His whole body went rigid anyway, ready to move. Mara’s hands shook. She clenched them until her knuckles ached through latex. “I didn’t say that.” Her voice wobbled. She forced it steadier. “I didn’t. I’m not—” The wall-Mara smiled. Not happy. Practiced. The kind of smile people wear while they sign something that ruins somebody else’s life. It turned its head and looked straight at Mara. Eyes too bright. Like someone had cut holes and stuck lights behind them. Mara’s mouth went dry. Copper flooded her tongue. Eli moved, fast and controlled, stepping between her and the wall like he could starve it by taking her line of sight. “Yeah,” he said flatly. “That’s bait.” Her nails dug into her palms. “It’s using me,” Mara hissed. “It’s using what you bring,” Eli replied. “And what other people brought. It mixes. Makes you chase.” In the wall-scene, the other Mara opened the top drawer. Folders, papers—red folder visible for half a second. Then the image jittered like corrupted footage. Red became green. Then yellow. Then red again. Edited. Recombined. Wrong on purpose. Mara swallowed, throat scraping. “You want me in there.” Her voice dropped, aimed past Eli, into the dark behind the wall. “You want me to breathe it. You want me to sleep.” Fluorescents buzzed louder, offended. The wall-Mara’s mouth moved again, but the sound that came out wasn’t her voice. Her father’s. Thin. Off. Like it came through a cheap speaker. “Baby girl, just sign it,” the wall said. “Then we can go.” Mara’s jaw locked so hard it hurt. Her eyes burned. “Don’t use that,” she whispered. “Don’t—” Eli lifted his hand, palm out. Not touching her—close enough that she could choose it. A line in the air. “Look at me,” he said. Mara forced her gaze to his hoodie first, then his face. His eyes stayed steady. Practical. “Name five things,” Eli said. “Real things.” Her lungs scraped. She dragged in a shallow breath. “Detergent. Metal table. My phone timer. That… towel.” Her voice shook. “Your boots.” Eli nodded. “Yeah. Good. You’re here.” The wall kept playing at the edge of her vision, trying to hook her focus and pull. Mara stepped sideways to keep Eli between her and it. She grabbed the towel from the dryer handle and wrapped it around her neck again. Heat. Anchor. The cat’s eyes stayed on the wall. Tail lashed once. “We’re not doing this,” Mara whispered. The building answered with air. The floor vent blew out a warm breath, thick and sweet—burned sugar and rot so strong she tasted it. Mara coughed into her sleeve. The machines stayed dead. The room felt sealed, like jaws closing. Her eyelids dragged. The warmth pressed down heavier. A second on the tile. Just a blink. Mara slapped her own cheek. Hard. Sting bloomed. Eli flinched, then nodded once like he approved. “Move. Open door. Breeze.” Mara snatched up her bag. “Cat,” she snapped, pointing. “Come on. If you wanna live, you’re with us.” The cat stared at the wall, then at Mara, then bolted for the door, slipping past Eli’s legs. Smart. Open air. Mara yanked the laundry door wide. Cold hallway air rushed in like water. The warm breath recoiled. The wall-outline flickered. Inside, the wrong Mara froze mid-lie, mouth open. Mara stepped into the hall and hauled in air in short, ugly pulls. Her hands shook so badly her flashlight beam stuttered like a dying firefly. Eli followed, propping the door with his boot. The cat crouched near the baseboard, ears flat, eyes wide. Mara crouched beside it and touched its back. No purr. Just a tremor. “Yeah,” she whispered. “Me too.” Her phone timer beeped from inside the laundry room. Small. Stupid. A lifeline. Eli’s gaze fixed down the hallway where the staff corridor waited—an open mouth you didn’t want to step into. “It showed you a drawer,” he said. “Next it showed me betraying you,” Mara shot back. His expression stayed flat, but his fingers flexed once. “Yeah. That’s new.” Mara swallowed against copper. “I’m not doing that.” Too fast. Too loud. Eli nodded once. “Okay.” The simple agreement hit harder than any argument. Mara blinked hard and forced the wetness back. She dug out the notepad and wrote another line, pressing until the pen threatened to snap. OFFICE SCENE: ME WRONG CLOTHES. ME LIES. IT WANTS SPLIT. Mara held it up for him. “Reality anchor. In case I start… repeating.” Eli’s jaw tightened. “Yeah.” She forced herself upright. Knees wobbled. The hallway looked longer than it should, stretched like taffy toward the green EXIT sign at the far end. She kept her eyes on it anyway—promise, maybe fake, but something to aim at. “Alternate entry still matters,” Mara said. “Plumbing chase can get me near the office wall. I just—” “It’ll push harder,” Eli cut in. His voice stayed low. “I know.” Mara licked dry lips. “But I can’t leave without trying.” He studied her for a beat, weighing risk and person, and whatever he saw made him answer plain. “Yeah. We try. We don’t sleep. We don’t bleed.” Her pulse jumped. “No bleeding. Great. Let’s add ‘no screaming’ too.” Eli’s almost-smile twitched. “No screaming’s optional.” A wet gurgle rolled through the vents overhead. The building adjusting its throat again. Mara’s scalp prickled. From inside the wall near the laundry room—close, intimate—her own voice whispered through the drywall. “Third tile from the drain,” it said. “Lift it. Hidden will. Mara, please.” Mara went still, breath snagging. She’d never said those words. Not to anyone. Not even in her own head. The cat turned toward the wall like it understood. Eli’s shoulders went rigid. Mara tightened her grip on the pry bar until her hand cramped. The voice came again, softer. Closer. “Third tile. Hurry. Before you forget.” Her throat closed. Heat stung behind her eyes—stubborn tears she refused to spend. Mara didn’t move toward the wall. Not yet. But the motel had her voice now, and it was hunting with it.