Stevie-lou's POV

It was sometime after midnight when I heard it.

The sound wasn’t loud, but it was wrong. A soft click, not audible, then the telltale squeak of my front door swinging open…slow and deliberate, like someone was trying not to wake the dead. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I froze under my sheets, heart lurching into my throat. I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe. I just lay there, stiff as stone, eyes locked on the ceiling, as if playing dead might make me invisible.

But the door shut.

And then came the footsteps, measured, quiet, but unmistakably human. Each one landed like a...