Hospitals have a specific kind of silence. It’s not the heavy, organic silence of the woods, nor the pressurized silence of the Glass House. It’s a mechanical silence, punctuated by the rhythmic beeping of machines and the squeak of rubber soles on linoleum. It’s the sound of people waiting for the worst news of their lives.
I sat in a plastic chair that was bolted to the floor, staring at a scuff mark on the opposite wall. My clothes were stiff with dried mud and Julian’s blood. I hadn’t washed my hands. I could still feel the sticky residue of the steering wheel, the vibration of the truck’s rims grinding against the asphalt as we careened down the mountain.
Julian was in surgery.
“Tibial fracture,” the triage nurse had said, her voice clipped and efficient. “Severe lacerations. Significant blood loss.”
She hadn’t mentioned the internal damage. She hadn’t mentioned the way his skin had gone gray, the color of ash, before they wheeled him away.
I looked at the clock on the wall. 11:42 AM.
We had survived the night. We had survived the siege. But the cost was tallying up in the operating room behind the double doors.
“Ms. Vance?”
I didn’t jump. My adrenaline reserves were tapped out, leaving me hollowed out and heavy. I turned my head slowly.
Sheriff Miller stood there. He wasn’t wearing his hat. He held a Styrofoam cup of coffee in one hand and a thick file folder in the other. He looked older than he had yesterday. The lines around his mouth were etched deep with exhaustion, and the hostility that usually radiated off him like heat was gone, replaced by a grim, uncomfortable resignation.
“Sheriff,” I said. My voice was a croak.
He sat down in the chair next to me. Not too close, but not across the room either. It was a peace offering, or at least a ceasefire.
“How is he?” Miller asked, nodding toward the surgical wing.
“Still in,” I said. “They said it’s going to be a while.”
Miller took a sip of his coffee, grimaced, and set it on the floor. He opened the file folder on his lap.
“We processed the cabin,” he said. He didn’t look at me. He looked at the papers. “It’s a mess up there, Elara. Windows smashed. Roof compromised. Looks like a war zone.”
“It felt like one,” I said.
“We found the blood,” he continued. “A lot of it near the fireplace. And a trail leading out the back window, into the woods.”
I turned to face him. “And?”
“And we rushed the samples to the state lab. Put a rush on it. Called in every favor I have.”
He finally looked at me. His eyes were bloodshot.
“The blood on the hearth… it’s Julian’s. But the blood on the glass shard? The blood on the window sill?”
He tapped the paper.
“It matches the familial markers for the Thorne line. It shares fifty percent of its genetic code with Julian. But it’s not Julian. And it’s not his father.”
The air in the waiting room seemed to thin.
“It’s Elias,” I whispered.
“It’s Elias,” Miller confirmed. The name sounded heavy in his mouth, like a stone he was forced to swallow. “He’s alive. He’s been alive this whole time.”
I leaned my head back against the wall and closed my eyes. I expected relief. I expected a surge of I told you so. But there was nothing but a cold, hollow ache. Being right didn’t fix Julian’s leg. Being right didn’t bring Ms. Albright back.
“He’s hurt,” Miller said. “Based on the volume of blood at the scene and the trail he left, you got him good. Deep laceration to the upper thigh or abdomen. He’s bleeding out.”
“He won’t bleed out,” I said, opening my eyes. “He knows how to fix it. He wrapped Ms. Albright’s hand. He knows first aid. Or at least, he knows how to stop a leak.”
Miller shifted uncomfortably. “We have dogs in the woods. We have a chopper in the air with thermal imaging. If he’s bleeding, if he’s moving, we’ll find him. The state police are setting up a perimeter. Ten-mile radius.”
“He’s not moving,” I said.
Miller frowned. “What?”
“He’s gone to ground,” I said. “He’s hurt. He’s scared. When an animal is hurt, it doesn’t run for ten miles. It finds a hole. It burrows deep and it waits.”
I looked at Miller, trying to make him understand the creature we were dealing with. “He lived in a crawlspace for twenty years, Sheriff. He knows how to be invisible. Your thermal cameras won’t see him if he’s six feet under the root system of a cedar tree.”
Miller closed the file. The snap of the manila folder was loud in the quiet room.
“That’s why we need you to step back,” he said.
I sat up straighter. “Excuse me?”
“You’re a witness, Elara. A victim. You’ve done… more than anyone could have asked. You found him when we couldn’t. You survived him.” He gestured to my muddy clothes. “But this is a manhunt now. Tactical teams. SWAT. Men with rifles who know how to clear a forest.”
“I know where he goes,” I insisted. “I know his hideouts. I found the cellar. I found the journal.”
“And we have all that evidence,” Miller said firmly. “We have the journal. We have the map of the tunnels under the mill. We don’t need you to lead the way anymore.”
He stood up, towering over me. It wasn’t an intimidating stance, not like in the interrogation room. It was protective. Paternal. And it was infuriating.
“Go home, Elara,” he said. “Or go back to Seattle. We’ll put a detail on you. Twenty-four-hour protection until he’s in custody or in a body bag. But you are done. You are off this case.”
“I’m not on the case,” I snapped, standing up to meet his gaze. “I’m in the case. He’s doing this for me. Do you think a police line is going to stop him?”
“He’s wounded,” Miller argued. “He’s cornered. He’s not a supernatural force, Elara. He’s a man bleeding in the woods. And we will catch him.”
“You couldn’t catch a cold in this town,” I said, the old anger flaring up. “You let him live under your nose for two decades. You let him kill three women.”
Miller’s face tightened. The shame was there, buried deep under the badge, but he didn’t lash out. He just sighed.
“Maybe,” he admitted softly. “Maybe we failed. But I’m not going to fail Julian by letting you get killed trying to finish this. Go to the motel. Shower. Sleep. Let us do our job.”
He turned and walked away, his boots heavy on the linoleum. He joined a group of state troopers near the entrance, pointing at a map, giving orders. They looked professional. They looked capable. They looked like men who believed that guns and radios could solve any problem.
I watched them, feeling a cold knot of dread tighten in my stomach.
They didn’t get it.
They thought Elias was fleeing. They thought he was trying to escape.
But Elias didn’t want to escape. He wanted to finish the game.
The Wedding.
The journal had said the guests were waiting. The journal had said the Groom was ready.
He wasn’t running away to heal. He was retreating to prepare. He was going to his final sanctuary, the one place big enough for the ceremony he had planned.
I looked at the doors to the surgical wing. Julian was in there, fighting for his life because he had tried to play by the rules of the real world.
I couldn’t play by those rules anymore.
Miller was right about one thing: Elias was a man bleeding in the woods. But he was wrong about what that meant.
Pain clarifies. Pain focuses.
I touched the pocket of my coat. The journal was gone—evidence, confiscated by Miller. But I didn’t need the book. I had memorized the map. I remembered the entry about the Cathedral of Industry.
The Sawmill.
I wasn’t going to Seattle. I wasn’t going to hide behind a police detail that Elias would slip past like smoke.
I walked toward the hospital exit, keeping my head down as I passed the cluster of troopers. They didn’t stop me. To them, I was just a traumatized woman leaving the scene. Collateral damage.
I pushed through the automatic doors into the cool, damp air of the parking lot. The storm had broken, leaving behind a sky the color of a healing bruise.
The truck was parked in the loading zone, the tires shredded, the rims bent. It wouldn’t drive another mile.
I needed a car. And I needed a weapon.
I looked across the lot. A news van was pulling in—Channel 4 from Seattle. The sharks were circling.
Perfect.
I walked toward the van, my mind sharpening into a single point of focus.
The police were looking for a fugitive in the woods.
I was going to find the groom at the altar.
And I wasn’t going to let him say “I do.”