7
DAWN
“Hide, Dawn.” My mother’s voice is a hissed whisper. “Beneath the bed. Don’t. Make. A sound.”
I slide under the mattress on my belly, my nose itching with dust bunnies, the wood hard on my cheek. The air around me crackles with electricity, but not the kind you feel when you’re excited — it slithers up my spine, leaving needles of gooseflesh prickling in its wake. And my bones …
I feel them in my marrow.
But I don’t know who they are or why they’re here. It’s crazy, I know it is, a nightmare, my imagination, but my mother’s whispered plea is not the stuff of fantasy. The blade in my hand is hot.
The door crashes open.
I can only see the bottom of the dresser, a backdrop for the intruder’s feet. Black boots advance on my mother’s bare toes, but the rubber treads barely make a
