Chapter 2: The Phantom in the Living Room
Bringing Mary home felt like inviting a ghost across the threshold. The house in Astoria remained exactly as she had left it—the floral wallpaper in the hallway, the faint smell of cedar, the framed photographs mocking them with frozen smiles. But Mary was no longer the woman in those pictures.
After a scalding shower that washed away layers of city grime but left her pale skin looking bruised and translucent, she refused to go near the windows. She systematically drew every blind in the house, her movements jerky and erratic.
"Mary, you need to talk to me," David pleaded, standing in the kitchen as she paced the length of the linoleum floor. "The police—we need to call Detective Miller. He’s been looking for you for three years."
"No!" She spun around, knocking a coffee mug off the counter. It shattered, the sharp sound making Leo cry out from the living room. "No cops, David. The police are the reason I was living under a bridge. They’re listening. They’re always listening."
She dropped to her knees, frantically sweeping up the ceramic shards with her bare hands, indifferent to the blood beading on her fingertips. David knelt beside her, grasping her wrists.
May you like
"Who, Mary? Who is listening?"
She leaned in close, her breath smelling of black coffee and metallic fear. "The people who own the dark," she whispered.
