Chapter 6 · The Door Beneath

"Don't." Kieran's hand clamps around my wrist before I can reach the door. His fingers bite hard enough to bruise.

I'm standing beside a hole cut into my apartment floor, and someone on the other side just used my sister's knock. Three taps. A pause. Two taps.

The childhood code. The one Elise used when she sneaked into my room after Mom passed out.

"That's not her," Kieran says.

"You don't know that." I pull against him. "Let go."

The black door waits below the broken floorboards. Red light crawls along its edges where my blood smeared the shard. Another knock lands against the wood.

Three. Two.

Then a voice slips through the door.

"Mara-bug? I'm cold."

My knees buckle.

Elise called me that until the night she disappeared. I haven't heard it in three years.

Kieran catches my elbow and drags me back. "No."

"Move."

"Mara—"

"Move, Kieran!"

He plants himself between me and the opening. His face has gone pale. Beneath his torn shirt, the bond mark pulses against his chest. I feel each beat in my own sternum, a second heartbeat punching under my ribs.

"The Registry records everything," he says. "Voices. Memories. Fear.