The air smelled like stale coffee and something metallic—like an old drawer no one had opened in years. He moved quietly, but urgency burned through his feet.
“Emma? Grace?” he called softly.
No answer.
Then he heard it—a small, precise click down the hall.
A lock.
He reached the girls’ bedroom door. Tried the handle.
Locked.
“Natalie?” His voice came out lower than he meant.
The study door opened. Natalie stepped out in a pale robe, wearing the smile that used to calm him.
“Babe,” she said lightly. “What are you doing home? You scared me.”
Ethan didn’t move.
“Why is their door locked?”
Her smile faltered—just for half a second. Enough.
“Oh… they had a cough. I didn’t want them wandering the hall. You know—rest.”
Ethan leaned down, pressed his ear to the door.
A muffled sob.
Something in him ignited.
“Open it.”
Natalie lifted her chin. “Don’t talk to me like that.”
Ethan looked at her with a calm that wasn’t calm at all.
“Open. The door. Now.”
She pulled the key from her pocket slowly, theatrically, like she was doing him a favor. The lock turned.
The door swung open.
Emma and Grace were curled together on the bed like the hug itself was armor. Dark circles under their eyes. Pale faces. Grace clutched an old stuffed rabbit to her chest. Emma looked at Ethan the way people look at someone who arrives after the fire.
He dropped to his knees and pulled them close.
“I’m here, my girls. I’m—”
Emma broke down into a deep, shaking cry—the kind that comes from days of swallowed fear. Grace trembled silently, as if she was still afraid the air might hear.
Natalie leaned against the doorframe.
“You’re being dramatic,” she said. “They’re kids. They exaggerate.”
Ethan lifted his head slowly.
“Who called me?” he asked, softly—and sharply.
Emma swallowed. “I did, Daddy… because she opens your things… says numbers… and told us if we talked, she’d separate us.”
Natalie laughed once, short and sharp. “Unbelievable. Now they’re making up stories.”
Something cracked inside Ethan—rage and guilt colliding. Laura had once told him, If you ever doubt, look at their eyes. Kids don’t know how to fake fear.
And this was real fear.
He didn’t argue that night. Not because he believed Natalie—but because he understood something dangerous:
She felt entitled.
And people who feel entitled don’t stop when asked nicely.