I stepped onto the first wooden stair. It groaned loudly under my weight.
Down in the cellar, the sound of pouring gasoline instantly stopped. My father froze. Slowly, his head snapped upward, his eyes locking directly onto mine through the gap in the hatch.
The warmth in his eyes that I had known my entire life was completely gone. There was only a cold, dead void.
“Leo,” he said, his voice dropping to a terrifying, quiet whisper. “You shouldn’t have come here.”
He didn’t hesitate. He dropped the jerrycan, grabbed the heavy iron crowbar from the floor, and lunged toward the stairs.
I panicked. I turned and sprinted back across the rotting floorboards of the main mill floor, heading for the exit. But the storm outside had worsened, throwing a violent gust of wind through the broken windows, slamming the heavy wooden entrance doors shut with a deafening crash. The rusted latch clicked into place, locking me inside.
I threw my weight against the doors, rattling the handle furiously, but it wouldn’t budge. It was jammed from the outside by a fallen beam or a shifting frame.
Behind me, the wooden hatch to the cellar splintered as my father kicked it completely off its hinges. He stepped out into the dark, cavernous room of the mill, the iron crowbar dragging along the concrete floor, creating a horrific, metallic screech that echoed off the high ceiling.
“There’s no point in running, son,” his voice echoed from the shadows. “You think you know the whole story because of what your sister said on a television screen? Valeria doesn’t know anything. She only knows what I let her see.”
I backed away from the locked door, pressing my spine against the rough, splintered wood. I pulled out my phone, my fingers shaking violently as I tried to dial 911, but the screen flashed a cruel message: No Service. The storm had knocked out the nearby tower. I was entirely on my own.
“Dad, please,” I pleaded, my voice cracking. “Drop the crowbar. The police are already on their way to the house. It’s over.”
A low, mocking chuckle erupted from the darkness. The metallic scraping stopped. He was close. Somewhere in the shadows just twenty feet away from me.
“The police won’t find anything at the house, Leo. And the people who helped me seven years ago? They are the ones handling the dispatch tonight. No one is coming to save you.”
A beam of moonlight broke through the fractured roof, illuminating my father’s face. He wasn’t looking at me with anger. It was a look of profound, chilling pity.
“I did what I had to do to protect this family,” he said, taking a slow step forward. “Seven years ago, Valeria found out what was really hidden under our house. She was going to ruin us. She was going to put me away. I couldn’t let her destroy everything I built for you and your mother. So I gave her a choice. Her life, or her identity.”
“And Chloe?” I screamed, tears finally cutting through the dust on my face. “You killed her! You buried her and pretended she was my sister!”
My father stopped. He tilted his head, a strange, twisted smile spreading across his lips.
“Chloe?” he whispered. “Oh, Leo… you still don’t understand, do you? I didn’t kill Chloe to fake Valeria’s death.”
He took another step closer, the crowbar raised slightly, his knuckles white around the iron grip. The shadows cast by the moonlight made him look like a towering monster.
“Chloe died because Valeria asked me to kill her,” he whispered, his voice dripping with a malice that froze the blood in my veins. “The bones in that urn aren’t a cover-up for my crime, Leo. They were a cover-up for hers. Your sister isn’t the victim you think she is. And right now… she’s leading you straight into a trap.”
Before the words could fully sink into my brain, a loud, violent smash shattered the silence. The window directly above my head exploded inward in a shower of deadly glass shards.
Through the shattered frame, a hand reached in, grabbing me tightly by the shoulder. I screamed, twisting around, expecting one of my father’s accomplices.
But through the jagged glass, illuminated by a flash of lightning, was a pale, scarred face.
It was Valeria.
She wasn’t at a police station. She wasn’t safe. Her eyes were wide, bloodshot, and frantic. In her other hand, she held a heavy, rusted hunting knife.
“Leo, move!” she shrieked, but she wasn’t looking at my father. She was looking directly at me, her grip tightening on my shirt like a vice, pulling me toward the broken window, while behind me, my father roared in fury and lunged forward with the crowbar raised to strike.
