The holding cell at the Oakhaven Police Station wasn’t designed for comfort; it was designed to strip away your humanity one hour at a time.
It was a cage of cinderblock and steel bars, painted a glossy, institutional gray that smelled of pine cleaner and old vomit. I sat on the metal cot, my knees pulled to my chest, listening to the distant rhythm of the station. Phones ringing. The heavy thud of boots. The low rumble of Sheriff Miller’s voice giving orders in the bullpen.
Surrender her passport. Don’t leave county lines.
He wasn’t just holding me for twenty-four hours. He was building a cage. By tomorrow morning, he would have a warrant to search the Glass House properly. By tomorrow afternoon, he would twist the evidence of the tea cup until it looked like a confession. And by tomorrow night, Elias would be free to finish his masterpiece while I sat in chains.
I looked at my hands. They were shaking. Not from fear, but from a vibrating, kinetic rage. I had the truth. I had the pieces. But I was trapped in a box while the monster roamed the woods.
Think, Elara. You’ve broken bigger stories than this. You’ve escaped tighter spots.
But I hadn’t. Not really. I had always had a press pass or a plane ticket. I had never been the suspect.
Footsteps approached the cell block. Heavy. Deliberate.
I stiffened, expecting Miller with a pair of handcuffs and a smug grin.
Instead, Julian appeared in the corridor.
He looked wrecked. His tie was gone, his collar unbuttoned, and his face was pale and sheened with sweat. He didn’t look at me at first. He checked the hallway behind him, his head snapping back and forth like a nervous bird.
“Julian?” I whispered, standing up.
He moved to the cell door. He didn’t say a word. He just pulled a ring of keys from his belt—not the master set, but a smaller, personal set—and slid one into the lock.
Clack.
The sound of the tumbler turning was the loudest thing I had ever heard.
He slid the door open. It groaned on its hinges, a rusted protest that made us both flinch.
“Come on,” he said. His voice was barely audible, a rough exhale of air.
I stared at him. “What are you doing?”
“I’m ending your twenty-four hours early,” he said. “Miller is on the phone with the DA. He’s pushing for murder one charges, Elara. He’s not waiting for the lab results. He wants a win before the Doll Festival starts tonight.”
“So you’re breaking me out?”
“I’m walking you out,” he corrected, grabbing my arm. “There’s a difference. One gets me suspended. The other gets me indicted. Now move.”
He pulled me into the corridor. My legs felt light, untethered.
“This is insane,” I hissed as we moved toward the rear of the building. “Julian, you’re a cop. You can’t do this.”
“I’m not doing this for you,” he muttered, though his grip on my arm was gentle. “I’m doing it because you’re right.”
I stumbled. “What?”
“The shoes,” he said, not breaking his stride. “I went back to the archive room after you left. I checked the evidence log from ‘99. The shoe found on the riverbank… the size was wrong.”
We reached a junction. To the left was the bullpen, buzzing with activity. To the right, a narrow hallway leading to the evidence lockers and the rear exit.
Julian pushed me right.
“Elias wore a size nine,” Julian whispered, the words tumbling out fast, as if saying them quickly made them less true. “The shoe in the evidence box is a size seven. It wasn’t his. My father… he signed off on it anyway. He knew. He just wanted it over.”
The validation hit me harder than the fear. I wasn’t crazy. The boy in the wall was real.
“Julian—”
“Quiet,” he snapped.
A door opened up ahead. A deputy—Officer Miller, the Sheriff’s nephew—stepped out of the men’s room, zipping his fly. He looked groggy, his eyes still glassy from whatever Elias had put in his coffee, but he was awake.
Julian shoved me into a recessed alcove that housed a vending machine. He pressed his back against mine, shielding me with his body.
“Hey, Thorne,” Miller Jr. called out.
“Miller,” Julian replied. His voice was steady, casual. The voice of a man who wasn’t currently committing a felony. “Feeling better?”
“Head feels like it’s full of cotton,” the kid grumbled. “Uncle’s pissed I let her slip. You seen the Vance woman?”
My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat against Julian’s spine.
“She’s in holding,” Julian lied. “Processing. I’m just heading out for a smoke.”
“Right. Hey, can you grab me a pack? I’m not allowed to leave the desk.”
“Sure thing, kid.”
The kid’s footsteps receded toward the bullpen. The door swung shut.
Julian let out a breath that shook his entire frame. He turned to me, his face inches from mine. In the hum of the vending machine lights, he looked terrifyingly young.
“We have to go. Now.”
We moved fast. Past the evidence lockers. Past the janitor’s closet.
Julian hit the push-bar on the rear exit. The door opened onto the alleyway behind the station.
The rain had turned into a deluge. It hammered against the dumpsters and turned the asphalt into a river of oil and grit. The air was cold, biting, and smelled of wet garbage and freedom.
Julian let the door close behind us. He didn’t let go of my arm until we were deep in the shadows, hidden behind a stack of shipping pallets.
He spun me around to face him. Rainwater dripped from his nose, mingling with the sweat of his fear.
“Listen to me,” he said, gripping my shoulders. “You are now a fugitive. As soon as Miller checks that cell, the APB goes out. Every cop in the county will be looking for your car.”
“I know,” I said. The adrenaline was sharpening my vision, turning the world into high-contrast edges.
“Your car is burned,” he said. “You can’t use it. Take my truck. It’s parked on Fourth, round the corner. Keys are in the visor.”
“Julian, if I take your truck, they’ll know you helped me.”
“They’re going to know anyway,” he said grimly. “I just unlocked a cell door with my personal keys. My career ended the second I turned that lock.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why throw it all away?”
He looked at me, his green eyes dark with a lifetime of regret. “Because I bought him the wrong shoes,” he whispered. “And because if I don’t help you stop him, he’s going to kill you. And I can’t survive that twice.”
He reached behind his back, under his jacket.
When his hand came back into view, it was holding a gun.
It wasn’t his service piece. It was a snub-nosed revolver, black and ugly. An ankle piece.
He pressed it into my hand. It was heavy, warm from his body heat.
“It’s a .38,” he said. “Five shots. No safety. You just point and pull.”
I stared at the weapon. It felt foreign in my hand, an object of violence that didn’t belong in the world of journalism. But I wasn’t a journalist right now. I was prey trying to become a predator.
“I can’t take this,” I said.
“You have to,” he insisted, closing my fingers around the grip. “Elias… he’s strong, Elara. He dragged a grown woman up a tree. If you find him, you don’t talk to him. You don’t try to reason with him. You put him down.”
“He’s your brother.”
“He stopped being my brother when he glued a teacup to a woman’s hand,” Julian said, his voice hard as stone. “Now he’s just a rabid dog. And we put down rabid dogs.”
He checked his watch.
“You have twenty-four hours,” he said. “Before the state police get involved. Before the FBI comes in and turns this town upside down. Find him, Elara. Prove it wasn’t you. And then bring me his head.”
“Where will you go?”
“I’m going back inside,” he said. “I have to buy you time. I’ll stall Miller. I’ll lose paperwork. I’ll be the incompetent small-town cop they all think I am.”
He stepped back, creating distance between us. The rain fell into the space where we had been connected.
“Go,” he said.
I put the gun in the pocket of my coat. It weighed down the fabric, pulling the hem askew.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Don’t thank me,” he turned away, his shoulders hunched against the rain. “Just don’t die.”
He opened the heavy steel door and slipped back into the station, back into the trap he had built for himself.
I was alone in the alley.
I pulled my hood up.
I had a gun. I had a truck. And I had a theory.
Boys always have a hideout.
I pictured the map of Oakhaven in my head. The ridge. The river. And the dead space in between.
The old lumber mill wasn’t just a ruin. It was a labyrinth of tunnels and basements, remnants of the industry that built this town and then abandoned it. If Elias had survived the flood, he would have needed shelter that was underground, below the frost line, but above the water table.
He had lived in my walls because he wanted to be close to me. But he had to have a place where he kept the rest. The things that didn’t fit in a crawlspace.
The victims.
I started running toward Fourth Street, my boots splashing in the puddles.
I wasn’t running away this time. I was running toward the center of the maze.
The Oakhaven Shroud was thick tonight, swirling through the streets like living smoke. It tasted of cedar and rot.
Come and find me, the fog seemed to whisper.
I touched the cold metal of the gun in my pocket.
“Ready or not,” I whispered back. “Here I come.”