Chapter 26 · Loopbound - Chapter 26: The Door She Left Behind

The hatch is open and my mom is screaming.

Not from inside the restricted archive. Not from down the hall. From twenty years ago, from wherever the hell that sound is coming through, and it's her voice. I know it the way you know your own heartbeat.

Evan's wrist is still in my hand. The pages are still on the table. Vera's frozen by the hatch door, one hand on the frame, staring down into the dark like she's seeing a ghost.

"That's—" Her voice cracks. "That's the night it happened."

I let go of Evan. Move to the hatch. The scream comes again, raw and terrified, and under it there's something else. A low hum. The kind of sound that lives in your teeth.

"Callum." Evan's behind me now, breathing hard. "What the hell is that?"

"My mom." The words taste wrong. "She disappeared twenty years ago. Same night Vera—"

Vera's shaking her head. Not denial. Like she's trying to shake something loose. "I didn't remember. They made sure I didn't remember."

I look down into the hatch. There's a ladder. Rusted rungs disappearing into a corridor that shouldn't exist under the archive floor. The hum's louder now.