Chapter 4

"Because I'm asking."

"That's not a reason."

He stepped closer. The security light over the counter cut his face in half—shadow on one side, bruise on the other. "The first lock had your brother's voice. You want to know what's in the second?"

"Yeah. I do."

"Then you're stupider than he was."

I should've backed off. Should've put the lock down and made him explain like a normal person. But Jonah's voice was still in my head—*don't let them find you*—and Rafe had already admitted he knew something.

I grabbed my pick set.

"Nia—"

I jammed the tension wrench in. The lock didn't click. It *hummed*. Low vibration, like a phone on silent, and the frost started spreading toward my fingers.

Rafe's hand closed over mine. "Stop."

"Let go."

"You don't know what you're opening."

"Then tell me."

His grip tightened. Not enough to hurt. Enough to make me feel how fast his pulse was going. "It's a blood lock. Keyed to a pact. If you crack it without permission, every wolf in the city's gonna know where you are."

"Good. Maybe one of them will actually explain what the hell Jonah was mixed up in."

I twisted the pick. The lock opened.

No explosion. No alarm. Just a soft *snick*, and the casing split down the middle.

Inside: a rolled-up map. Old paper, crumbling at the edges. I pulled it out and spread it across the counter.

My city. But not the version I knew.

Red ink marked seven points across the grid. Parks, intersections, old buildings. Each one had a date written next to it in tight, cramped handwriting. The oldest was 1908. The newest was last year.

And right in the center, under the seventh mark, was my address.

"What is this?"

Rafe didn't answer. He was staring at the map like it might catch fire.

"Rafe."

"It's the registry." His voice was flat. "Every place the pact pulled a sacrifice."

My shop. The building I'd bought three years ago with Jonah's life insurance payout. The place I'd sanded and painted and turned into something that was *mine*.

"Why here?"

"Because your brother worked here first." Rafe's eyes flicked to me. "He was the locksmith before you. The one who opened the pact vault."

I felt cold. Not the frost-on-metal kind. The kind that started in your chest and spread out until your fingers went numb. "You're lying."

"I'm not."

"Jonah never—he worked at the university. He was a researcher. He didn't even know how to pick a damn lock until I taught him."

"He knew enough to crack the Archive seal." Rafe tapped the map. "The pact needed someone with Vale blood to open it. He was the last one left."

"Last one left of *what*?"

"The original signers." He said it like it was obvious. Like I was supposed to know my family had signed some kind of wolf-shifter blood contract a hundred years ago. "Your great-great-grandmother made the deal. Every generation since has been on the hook."

I looked at the map again. The red marks. The dates. The one under my shop.

"What happened to the people at these places?"

Rafe's jaw tightened. "They vanished."

"Vanished how?"

"Moon-eclipse nights. The pact pulls one person per cycle. Keeps the wolves contained. Keeps the city stable." He shoved the map toward me. "Your brother figured it out. He tried to break the lock before the next eclipse."

"And?"

"And he disappeared eight years ago. Same night he cracked the Archive."

The room was too quiet. I could hear the radiator ticking. Could hear Rafe breathing. Could hear my own heartbeat doing something uneven and wrong.

"You said he vanished because of you."

Rafe looked at me. Really looked, the kind of look that meant he was deciding how much truth I could handle. "I was the one hunting him."

I stepped back. The counter hit my spine.

"The Bureau sent me to retrieve the Archive key. Your brother wouldn't hand it over. We fought. He ran." Rafe's voice was still flat. Controlled. Like he was giving a mission report. "I tracked him to the old transit station. He went down into the tunnels. I followed. And then—"

He stopped.

"Then what?"

"Then he was gone. No blood. No body. Just his coat on the ground and the key smashed to pieces."

I wanted to call him a liar. Wanted to grab the nearest wrench and make him take it back. But his face wasn't doing the thing liars' faces did. No looking away. No fake concern. Just tired.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because you signed a protection deal with the guy who got your brother killed. You think I wanted to speed-run that conversation?"

Fair point. I hated that it was a fair point.

I turned back to the map. The red marks. The dates. My shop sitting right in the center like a bullseye.

"When's the next eclipse?"

"Twenty-nine days."

I traced the line of marks. They spiraled inward. Each one closer to the center than the last. "And the pact pulls someone from here."

"Yeah."

"Who?"

Rafe's eyes flicked to my wrist. To the blood contract still burning under my sleeve. "Whoever's tied to the space. Usually the person with Vale blood."

Me. He meant me.

I folded the map. My hands were shaking. I shoved them in my pockets so he wouldn't see. "Jonah tried to break this thing. That's why he left the recordings."

"Probably."

"So we break it."

"We?"

"You owe him. You just said so." I met his eyes. "And I'm not getting yanked into some wolf sacrifice because my great-great-grandmother made a bad deal."

Rafe looked at me for a long moment. Then he laughed. Short, sharp, bitter. "You really are his sister."

"Is that a yes?"

"It's a 'you're gonna get us both killed.'"

"I'll take it."

He shook his head. Started to say something.

Then the floor knocked.

Three times. Slow. Deliberate.

The exact rhythm Jonah used in the recording.

Rafe froze. I froze. We both stared at the floorboards like they might split open.

Another three knocks. Louder.

I looked at Rafe. "What's under my shop?"

"I don't know."

"You're lying."

"I'm not. The pact registry didn't list basements." His hand dropped to his side. To where a weapon would be if he had one. "But if something's knocking, it knows we opened the lock."

The knocks came again. Faster this time. More urgent.

I crossed to the back corner. There was a rug there, old and ugly, the kind the previous owner had left behind. I yanked it up.

Underneath: a trapdoor. New hinges. Fresh wood. Someone had installed it in the last few years.

Someone like Jonah.

I grabbed the handle. Rafe's hand landed on my shoulder.

"Don't."

"He's down there."

"He's *gone*, Nia. Whatever's knocking, it's not him."

"Then what is it?"

The knocking stopped.

For five seconds, nothing. Just the radiator and our breathing and the street noise outside.

Then a voice came up through the floor. Thin. Cracked. But unmistakable.

"Nia. Let me out."

I didn't move. Couldn't. My hand was still on the trapdoor handle, Rafe's fingers digging into my shoulder hard enough to bruise.

"That's not possible," he said.

"That's his voice."

"It's *using* his voice."

The voice came again, louder this time. Desperate. "Nia, please. I don't know how much longer I can—"

It cut off. Like someone had slammed a hand over his mouth.

I looked at Rafe. His face had gone pale. Not scared-pale. Worse. The kind of pale that meant he knew exactly what was down there and didn't want to say it.

"What happens if I open this?"

"I don't know."

"Rafe."

"I *don't know*." He grabbed my wrist, pulled my hand off the handle. "But if your brother's been down there for eight years, he's not the same person who went in."

"You don't know that."

"Yeah. I do." His grip tightened. "The pact doesn't just take people, Nia. It keeps them. Uses them. And if it's knocking now, right after you opened that lock, it means it wants something."

"Like what?"

"Like you."

The trapdoor rattled. Once. Hard enough that the hinges creaked.

Then Jonah's voice again, quieter now. Softer. The tone he used to use when I was eight and scared of the dark.

"I'm sorry I left. I didn't want to. But I can fix it now. Just open the door."

My throat was tight. My eyes were doing something hot and stupid.

Rafe's hand slid from my shoulder to my jaw, turning my face toward his. "Look at me. Not the floor. *Me*."

I did.

"That's not your brother," he said. "I don't care what it sounds like. Jonah's gone. And if you open that door, you're gonna be gone too."

"But what if—"

"There's no what-if. You open it, the pact gets you. Twenty-nine days early. And I can't stop it."

The trapdoor went still. The voice stopped.

For a second I thought maybe it was over. Maybe whatever was down there had given up.

Then the knocking started again. Not slow this time. Not deliberate.

Fast. Frantic. Like fists pounding. Like someone buried alive and running out of air.

And under it, muffled and desperate:

"Nia, don't leave me down here. Please. *Please*—"

Rafe yanked me back. Shoved the rug over the trapdoor with his boot. "We're leaving."

"We can't just—"

"Yes. We can." He grabbed my arm, hauled me toward the front of the shop. "You want to break the pact? Fine. But we do it smart. Not by opening random trapdoors because something's crying your name."

The pounding got louder. The whole floor was shaking now.

I let him pull me toward the door. Let him shove me outside into the cold.

Behind us, through the windows, I could see the rug starting to shift.

Rafe slammed the door. Locked it. Pulled me down the street.

"Where are we going?"

"Somewhere it can't follow."

"And where's that?"

He didn't answer. Just kept walking, his hand still locked around my wrist, his pulse hammering against my skin.

Behind us, the lights in my shop went out.

All of them. At once.

And in the darkness, I swear I heard my brother's voice one more time.

Not calling.

Laughing.