mads

The school had been closed for who knew how years, the sun-bleached sign still bolted to the chain-link fence out front. The mascot was a faded cartoon bobcat missing half of its face due weathering and time. Somebody had left the flagpole up, a torn and discolored flag waving in the soft wind, the rope ticking softly against metal.

"Wonder if we can get an education here." Mo joked. this time Brooke didn't tell him to stop.

She'd changed before they left the house, of the jeans and sweatshirt she'd worn all day, into her velvet cloak. It was nothing like the plain black ones Mo had already seen. She'd done it in front of the mirror without a word of explanation, and Mo hadn't asked, because some part of him understood already that this wasn't out of vanity. He knew it was to seem as if she was falling back into line, as if she was being obedient and submissive.

"Do you really gotta wear that?" he asked, quietly, standing in the doorway watching her.

"I do." She responded, jumping slightly. His voice startled her but she hadn't turned around. "If I walk in there without making an effort to make it look like I’ll listen and obey, it makes both of us a target before we're through the door."

Now, standing at the edge of the parking lot with the building in front of them, she looked exactly what she needed to look like. Untouchable, composed. She belonged to the Family, but was walking in of her own free will. At some point during the ride, she’d reached over to grab his hand. He hadn’t said anything about it, didn’t want to bring it up or make it known he could tell she didn’t want to do this. Instead he just held onto her hand and drove, quietly.

"Last chance." she mumbled, not looking at him, eyes on the double doors propped open at the end of the sidewalk, light seeping out from somewhere deep inside. "You can still stay in the car, I won’t be offended."

"No, I can't." Mo responded, following her gaze towards the metal doors.

"No," she agreed, softer. "I don’t think you can, just thought I'd offer."

The gym still had the painted bobcat on the far wall, partially covered now by black cloth that hung from floor to ceiling. It looked more tacky than if they had just attempted to paint over it. Overhead, the old fluorescent panels buzzed and flickered, one of them flickering in a broken rhythm that made the whole room feel like it was breathing. There were no candles, no warmth to the light at all, just that flat institutional glare, and thirty-some people in plain black cloaks sitting beneath it.

At the center of it all, on what had probably once been a stage for elementary school assemblies, stood Sean. He didn't look like a monster. That was the first thing Mo noticed, and it landed like a blow anyway. However, up close under the buzzing lights, something was wrong with him that hadn't come through on the phone. His hands wouldn't stay still, his eyes moved a half-second too fast, tracking things that weren't there, and there was a sheen of sweat at his hairline despite the cold in the room. He looked like a man running a fever, or coming off one.

"Brooklyn." His voice carried easily across the gym, warm in a way that made Mo's skin crawl. "You made it, and so did our guest."

"I brought him because you asked me to," Brooke said. Her voice didn't shake at all, not once despite the situation. Mo had no idea how she managed it. They had no idea what they were walking into here. "Let's get this over with, please, Sean."

"So eager." Sean muttered as eyes shifted to Mo, and something in them sharpened, curious and calculating, though his fingers kept moving against his own sleeve. "That phone call took nerve." He stepped down from the stage, making his way towards the two. "I want to talk to my sister, alone. You'll wait here."

"Uhh. . yeah, not happening." Mo said, moving to step in front of Brooke.

"That wasn't a request." Sean's tone didn't change. Two of the cloaked figures nearest Mo shifted, and he understood very quickly exactly how little say he had in the matter. "Brooke. Five minutes." Brooke's eyes found Mo's, and for just a second, her perfectly held together composure cracked.

"It's fine, I’ll be okay." she said, though it clearly wasn't. "I'll be right back."

"Brooke."

"Five minutes, Mo." Her voice hardened, yet her gaze stayed soft on him. "Let me handle this." He watched her follow her brother through a side door into what had probably once been an office. The moment it shut behind them, the two cloaked figures closed in on either side of Mo, hands firm on his arms. He understood that whatever was about to happen, it hadn't been waiting on Sean's permission at all. They were just waiting for Brooke to be out of the room.

The office still had its old fluorescent panel overhead, one bulb dead, another buzzing into the silence of the office. Sean shut the door behind them and, for a moment, just looked at his sister, the warmth from the gym draining slowly out of his face.

Up close, without a crowd to perform for, he looked worse. Younger, somehow, and unraveled at the edges. Brooke noticed everything; his restless hands, the way his weight shifted from foot to foot like standing was tiring for him. Brooke's jaw tightened at the sight of it, and a familiar grief moved across her face before she could stop it.

"How long has it been since you stepped away?" she asked quietly, stepping towards her brother.

"I don’t get to step away." Sean's voice had an edge of defensiveness that came too fast, too raw. "The Speaker, it’s a part of me, I understand things, I can’t just st-" He stopped himself, pressed the heel of his hand briefly against one eye. "You wouldn't understand. You never let yourself go far enough in to understand."

"I understand just enough, Sean. I understand that my brother isn’t who he used to be." Her voice cracked on the words, more sorrow in it now than anger. "I understand that you look like you haven't slept in a week, and I know exactly why, and it terrifies me, it always has."

"You brought a stranger into our house." He said it like it hurt him to say, jabbing his finger at her. "After everything I've done to keep you safe, you let a stranger through the door like it was nothing, and now look where that's gotten you."

"He's not a stranger, Sean! You know who he is!" Brooke crossed her arms, fighting back tears. "And I didn't let him in because I was careless. I let him in because I'm tired, I am so tired of being the only one of us who still remembers what we were like before all this, what life was like before we were bowing to some eldritch being." Something flickered across Sean's face. It wasn’t quite anger, not right away, it was something closer to hurt.

"You think I don't remember?" Sean spat, glaring now at his sister, his little sister who he’d do anything for, the one he held up on a pedestal.

"I think you remember it the way you remember everything now, through whatever bits and pieces the Speaker doesn’t corrupt." Her voice dropped. "I followed you into this, Sean. You remember that part, right? I didn’t want anything, nothing else, I just wanted my brother. I followed you because I wasn't going to let you just disappear into this alone, and I have spent every year since then watching you disappear into it regardless." Sean flinched, like the words had physically landed a blow. For a moment the restlessness in him stilled, and he looked, briefly, like the brother she was still trying to hold onto; young, uncertain, scared of something bigger than himself.

"I never wanted you to follow me into this, but what could I do, huh?" he said, quiet now. "I wanted you safe. That's all I've ever wanted, and every year it gets harder to remember how to do that without the Speaker's help, and I hate that, Brooke, I hate what it's do-" He cut himself off, jaw tightening, and when he spoke again his voice had hardened back over, defensive. "It doesn't matter. None of it matters if you're going to keep bringing fucking strangers in without warning."

"He's not the threat here though, Sean." Brooke's eyes were wet now, but her voice held steady, as steady as it could that was. "You are. You’re the threat to yourself, and I don't know how to keep saving you from that. I can’t pick though, I cannot be forced to choose between helping my brother or helping Lee’s brother here."

"Then don't." Something desperate showed through in his voice. "Walk away from him tonight. Come home, let me protect you the way I'm supposed to as your big brother, the way I promised you I would, back before-" He stopped again, breathing hard. His eyes went distant, unfocused and chasing a thought that wasn't his own anymore. When he refocused on her, his voice had gone flat and cold. "Five minutes are up, Brooke."

"Sean." She caught his sleeve as he turned to walk away. For just a moment, the fury dropped out of her voice entirely, leaving something younger and more frightened underneath it. "Please. Don't hurt him tonight. Whatever you're planning in there, please. I am begging you." Sean looked down at her hand on his arm for a long moment, something almost like grief showing across his face.

"You still don't understand, do you?" he said softly. "I'm not the one you should be begging tonight. I stopped being the one in charge of what happens a long time ago." He gently pulled his sleeve free of her hand. "I just try to make sure it doesn't cost more than it has to."

By the time Brooke came back through the side door, something in the gymnasium had already shifted. Mo was on his knees near the center of the room, one of the cloaked figures gripping his hair, forcing his head up, and there was blood at his lip that hadn't been there five minutes before.

"Mo-" Brooke started forward, and a hand closed hard around her arm, holding her back. Carol’s hand, tight and firm.

"You'll watch." Carol said quietly, not unkindly, which was somehow worse than if she had been cruel about it. "That's the price of bringing him here, dear. You don't get to look away from what it costs." Sean crossed to stand in front of Mo, crouching slightly to bring them eye to eye. Up close, under the buzzing lights, his hands were shaking again, and his voice had gone almost soft, it almost had a tinge of pity.

"Where's Lee?" Mo spat out, blood in his teeth. He refused to look anywhere but straight ahead, right at Sean. "That's all I want. Tell me where he is and I'll walk out of here and you'll never hear from me again. Hell, I won’t even speak to Brooke."

"Nah. . . I don't think that's true." Sean tilted his head, studying him with an unsteady kind of focus, like he had to work to keep Mo in it. "I think you'll keep looking no matter what I tell you tonight. I think that's just simply who you are." He nodded, almost to himself, and straightened, swaying slightly on the way up. "Which is a problem I intend to solve permanently. But,” he glanced past Mo, to Brooke, to the fury and terror openly showing on her face now that the mask had finally slipped. "Not tonight. Tonight, I just wanted you to understand something."

He crouched again, closer this time, voice dropping low enough that only Mo could hear it.

"My sister followed me into this," Sean said, grabbing Mo’s face to make sure he looked at him. "Not the other way around. Everyone thinks I built this for her, I didn't. She chose this, chose to follow me. But now I don't know how to be worth what that cost her, so I keep her close instead, because it's the only way I know how to try." Something desperate flickered in his eyes, gone as quickly as it came. "You should have asked her what that costs before you dragged her into your search too." He straightened, nodded once to the man holding Mo's hair, and stepped back. "Let him go," Sean muttered. "He's seen enough tonight."

Sean turned now, fully facing toward his sister. He could feel the lecture rising in him, his shoulders tense now, as he made his way towards her.

"You want to be angry with me?" he said. "Fine, be fucking angry. But understand what you're asking for when you beg me to let this go." He gestured toward Mo without quite looking at him. "Lee was my best friend, Brooke. Before all of this, before any of this happened. He was my friend, and I’m sorry for what I’ve had to do." His voice cracked, thin and raw under the lecture's surface. "I don't get to have friends anymore. I traded that a long time ago for something that actually keeps its promises. And if I don't get to have that, then you don't either. That's not cruelty, it’s just how it is now."

"How it is now?" Brooke's voice broke entirely as she questioned her brother, all the composure she'd carried earlier finally giving out all at once. "Sean, are you hearing yourself? You're describing a punishment and calling it fairness."

"I'm describing balance."

"You're describing loneliness, and you're trying to force it onto me as well!" Tears were running now, she didn't bother wiping them away. "I don't want balance. I don't want the Speaker, I don't want this building, I don't want any of it. I want my brother back, the real one. The one who used to sneak me dessert at night when we were little, the one who-" Her voice gave out completely. She pressed a hand over her mouth as if she could physically hold the rest of it in. "I just want you back, Sean. That's all I have ever wanted. I didn't follow you here for the Speaker, I followed you here because I was scared of losing you, but I’m losing you anyway." It all spilled out anyways.

For a moment, something in Sean's face disappeared, the anger and lecturing gone out of his voice entirely. He opened his mouth like he might say something to meet her there. Then his eyes unfocused again, chasing something only he could see, and whatever had almost surfaced sank back under.

"He's seen enough tonight," Sean said instead, quieter now, and it wasn't clear anymore whether he meant Mo or himself. The grip released. Mo swayed, caught himself on his hands against the gym floor, and Brooke didn't wait for permission this time. She wrenched free of Carol’s hold and was already moving, dropping to her knees beside him before anyone could think to stop her.

"Hey, look at me, Mo. . Are you okay?" She asked, her hands hovering over him, shaking and unsure where it was safe to touch. Blood was still beading at his split lip. There was a darker bruise already rising along his jaw. "Can you stand? We need to get you up, we need to-" Her voice caught, and for a second the fear underneath the urgency came out. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I never should have let them do this. .”

"I'm fine." Mo's voice came out thick, unconvincing, but he got a hand around her arm anyway, grounding himself against her. "I'm okay, Brooke."

Across the gym, Sean stood apart from everyone, arms wrapped tight around himself, his hands still shaking. There was something unreadable and unraveling moving behind his eyes as he watched his sister kneel on the floor, holding together a man he'd just made very sure they both understood he could hurt whenever the Speaker decided he should.

"We're leaving," Brooke said, low, urgent, already angling them both toward the doors. "Right now, Mo, come on. ."

"Wait." Mo planted his feet, swaying but upright, and looked past her to where Sean still stood apart from the crowd, arms wrapped around himself, staring at the floor now like he'd forgotten anyone else was in the room. Something reckless was flowing through Mo’s mind, the adrenaline and pain mixing into one. "No. He doesn't get to just stand there."

"Mo, not right now. . ." But he was already moving. Three unsteady steps put him closer to Sean than any of the cloaked figures seemed prepared for. Before anyone could grab him again he swung. There was more weight behind it than skill, all fueled by anger. It caught Sean across the jaw and sent him stumbling back a step, more from surprise than force, and for one suspended second the entire gymnasium held its breath.

Then hands were on Mo from every direction, hauling him back, and Sean straightened slowly, touching his jaw. He didn't give the order Mo braced for. He just laughed, short and startled. It almost sounded delighted.

"There he is," Sean muttered. "There's the brother Lee talked about."

"Let him go." Brooke demanded sharply, trying to pull the hands off of Mo. "He's hurt, he's not thinking straight, and you got what you wanted tonight already. Let. Him. Go." Sean studied his sister for a long moment, the manic edge in him falling as quickly as it had risen. He nodded once, and the hands released Mo again.

"Everyone go." Sean said, waving his hand. "Give us the gym." They filed out slowly, figures moving toward the doors. Carol hesitated before she followed, casting one unreadable glance back before the doors swung shut behind the last of them. Then it was just the three of them under the buzzing lights, and the bobcat watching from behind its shroud. Brooke rounded on her brother, some of the fury from the office bleeding back into her voice.

"Was that supposed to prove something? Letting him hit you?" Brooke quietly sneered, staring at her brother.

"No." Sean rubbed his jaw, and when he looked at her, something had flickered in his face. It wasn't softness, just a crack too tired to be held shut. "I deserved it."

"Sean. ." Brooke’s voice softened.

"Don't." The crack sealed back over fast, his voice going hard again. "I said I deserved it. That's all you’re getting out of me."

"That's not enough anymore." Brooke's voice cracked, pleading now. "Let Lee go, this can stop tonight." The temperature in the gym dropped so fast Mo felt it in his teeth before he understood why. Sean's whole body went rigid, head snapping toward the dark hallway out past the doors, and whatever control he'd been holding onto broke apart all at once. His hands began shaking again, worse than before. His breathing had gone quick and ragged, eyes darting with a jittery energy that had nothing sane left in it.

"No. . . no, it’s not supposed to-" He didn't finish. He grabbed Brooke's wrist hard, too hard, and hauled her toward the side door, moving fast and wrong, more animal than brother. "We're leaving, we're leaving now."

"Sean, you're hurting me!" Brooke cried, twisting against his grip, trying to plant her feet and look back at Mo. Sean didn't slow, he didn’t seem to hear her at all, muttering something low and frantic under his breath that might have been an apology or maybe a prayer.

The fluorescent panels overhead popped, one by one, plunging the room into a darkness broken only by the faint glow from the parking lot through the propped doors. And in that darkness, low and wet and vibrating in the base of Mo's skull, came the sound he'd hoped never to hear again.

It didn't crawl through the doorway this time. It was simply there, already among them, folded into the shadows. Sean yanked Brooke sideways, cutting close to the stage in his panic to reach the side door, and the Speaker's head turned, fast, tracking the sudden motion the way a predator tracks its prey. A claw lashed out, not deliberate, not aimed, just reflexive, like the way a dog snaps at something too close. It caught Brooke across the shoulder and upper arm as Sean dragged her past.

She screamed, short and sharp, and went down hard on the gym floor, blood already dark against the black velvet and pooling on the hardwood floor.

"Brooke!" Mo ran towards her, ignoring the ache in his ribs. Sean had frozen completely, staring down at his sister on the floor like the sight had short circuited whatever panic had been driving him, hands raised and shaking, uselessly, in the air. "Come on, dude, get her up!" Mo snarled, shouldering past him without waiting for permission, dropping to his knees beside her. Brooke's face was white, her hand clamped over the gash in her shoulder, blood seeping dark between her fingers, Her eyes were open, darting around the room She was horrified.

"I'm okay, I’m okay." she gasped, obviously a lie. "I'm okay, just get me up, we nee-"

They didn't sleep, not at first. Brooke led him through the house like she was disarming it room by room. She checked locks, drew blinds, paused at windows a half-second too long, trying to listen for something Mo couldn't hear. The photos on the staircase watched them the whole way up. Younger Sean, gap-toothed Brooke, a family that had once, maybe, been just a family.

"Guest room's out," she muttered, stopping at a closed door at the end of the hall. "It shares a wall with his room. On the off chance he is in the house, that's not a room I'm putting you in tonight."

"Where does that leave me?" Mo asked, staring at her. Brooke didn't answer right away. She just opened the door to what was obviously her own room. A neatly made queen size bed, books and frames crammed in a bookshelf, a single window with the curtain already drawn. She stood there in the doorway as if she hadn't fully decided to say the next part out loud.

"It leaves you here," she said finally. "Floor, chair, whatever. I just need you where I can see you."

"Is that an order?" He asked, smirking.

"That's the only way I get to actually sleep at all in the next six hours without checking the hallway every ten minutes." Something slipped, Mo couldn’t tell if it was irritation or worry. "So yes, it is an order. Take it or don't." He took it.

There wasn't a chair worth the name. Just a low bench under the window, too short to actually sleep on, so the floor was the winning spot. Brooke tossed him a blanket. Mo nodded, catching it as he slid down, his back against the side of her bed frame because some part of him wanted the door in his sightline. Brooke didn't argue. She lay down on top of the covers, one arm hanging off the edge of the mattress like she could keep a hand on the room even half-asleep.

For a long time, neither of them said anything. The house creaked and settled around them, an old-house language of pipes and joists of which Mo's nerves kept mistranslating into footsteps.

"You awake?" he said eventually, quietly, more to break the silence than because he expected an answer.

"Yep. ." Her voice came back just as quiet. "Haven't slept in this house without waking up at every sound since I was fifteen. Don't imagine tonight's going to break the streak."

"Fifteen? That’s when it started? The Family, I mean." A long pause.

"Thats when me and Sean joined." Brooke mumbled, staring up at the ceiling. He didn't push. He'd learned that much about her already. Figured if he tried pushing about more she would either go quiet or yell at him. So, he just lay there, staring at the wall, listening to her breathing, and thought about Lee somewhere out past there. He was in the dark, being kept alive for a meeting that might be the last thing either of them ever walked into.

He must have drifted off to sleep at some point. The next thing he knew there was early morning light coming through the curtain. Brooke’s hand had found its way to the floor sometime in the night. Not touching him, not quite, just hanging there inches from his shoulder like it had reached for something in her sleep and stopped short of admitting it. Mo didn't move. He watched her face instead, unguarded in a way it hadn’t been when she was awake, and let himself have thirty seconds of pretending this was a version of their lives where that was allowed. Then, her eyes opened and found his, and neither of them looked away fast enough to make it not mean anything.

"Morning," she said, her voice raspy from sleep.

"Morning." Neither of them moved the hand.

The day crawled. Brooke wouldn't let him near a window with the blinds up. She wouldn't let him use his phone except to call Lee's last known number, over and over, a habit that had stopped being useful weeks ago and started being a compulsion instead. She fed him toast he didn't taste and coffee he drank anyway, and somewhere around noon, standing at the kitchen counter not quite looking at each other, she finally asked the question he could tell had been sitting behind her teeth since the staircase.

"Why'd you really do it? The phone call." Her jaw was tight, but there wasn't fury in it this time, just something more exhausted. "You could've asked me to just talk to him. You didn't have to use me as leverage to get there."

"I really don’t think just talking gets Lee back." Mo set his mug down, making himself hold her gaze even though it cost him something to do it. "I don't know if anything gets Lee back at this point. But I know that the second I stop being terrifying to Sean, I stop mattering to him at all. I can’t have him disregarding me."

"And what about what it costs me?" Brooke asked, plainly.

"I know it cost you something, I won’t pretend it didn't." He exhaled slowly. "I'm sorry, okay? Not just for making the call but for not asking.” She studied him for a long moment, arms crossed, some old wall in her visibly deciding whether to hold or to let itself down.

Around three, the house's silence shifted. Brooke felt it before Mo did. She stiffened mid-sentence, set down the dish towel, and went still the way she had at the top of the stairs the night before.

"Someone's here." Through the front window, Mo saw a car he didn't recognize pull into the driveway. It wasn’t Sean's. It was older, plainer, a sedan that looked like it belonged to someone's grandmother. The woman who got out of it wore a cardigan over a floral dress and carried a foil-covered dish like she was arriving for a potluck, and it took Mo a full three seconds to understand, from the way Brooke's whole body had gone rigid beside him, that this was somehow worse than the cloak had been.

"Is she part of…?" he started, voice low.

"Carol." Brooke said, and the name came out like it hurt her to say. "She checks on me. Sean sends her when he wants me to know I'm being watched without having to say it out loud." She was already moving toward the door, smoothing her expression into something calm, something practiced. "Stay back from the window. Don't say anything unless she talks to you directly. And Mo. ." she paused, hand on the doorknob, "whatever she says, however nice she is, do not under any circumstance trust any word of it."

The doorbell rang, cheerful and ordinary, and somehow that was the most unsettling sound of the entire day. Brooke opened the door before the bell finished ringing, like she'd learned a long time ago that hesitation was its own kind of tell.

"Carol." Her voice had smoothed into something warm and easy, a version of herself Mo hadn't heard yet; pleasant, unbothered, a mask worn so long it had started to fit. "What a surprise."

"Is it?" The woman on the porch smiled, a smile so fake it scared Mo. Up close, she was smaller than Mo expected, silver-haired, soft around the edges in a way that made the stillness in her eyes land even harder. "I heard you had an eventful evening. Thought I'd bring something by, check in and make sure you were alright." She held up a foil-covered dish like an offering.

"How thoughtful." Brooke took the dish without moving out of the doorway, which meant Carol stayed on the porch. Mo understood, watching from the shadowed hall, was a small and deliberate act of resistance. "That's kind of you. I'll walk you ba-"

"Oh, I've got a minute." Carol’s gaze slid past Brooke's shoulder and found Mo standing in the hallway before he'd had time to decide whether to step back out of sight. Something in her expression didn't change so much as sharpen. "And who's this charmer?"

"Friend." Brooke said fast.

"A friend." Carol repeated it slowly, like she was turning the word over to check its weight, or maybe its validity. "Sean didn't mention a friend."

"Sean doesn't need to know every friend I have."

"No." A small, unbothered laugh escaped the older woman. "I suppose he doesn't. Though, I do imagine he'd be curious about this particular one, given everything going on." Her eyes hadn't left Mo. "You're the brother, right? Lee's brother." Mo felt Brooke go rigid beside him without looking at her.

"I'm no one you need to worry about," Mo said, trying to keep his voice level, keeping every ounce of the fear crawling up his spine out of it the best he could.

"Oh, I don't worry, sweetheart." Carol’s smile widened, gentle and terrible. "Worry's for people who don't already know how things end." She stepped forward, just slightly, testing the threshold, and Brooke's hand came up, not quite touching her, just a boundary drawn in the air.

"You are not coming in." Brooke stated firmly, and any left warmth had gone out of her voice.

"I wasn't planning to." Carol didn't retreat, yet she didn't push either. Something about the way she held that exact distance felt calculated, like she was mapping how far Brooke would let this go. "I just wanted to see his face. Sean will ask, and I like to give him accurate answers. It's better for everyone that way, you know that." Her eyes moved back to Mo, slowly examining and taking in his features. "You and Lee have the same face shape, you know that? It’d be a pity if you were the only one left with it." she taunted.

"Don't," Brooke said, low. "You don't get to talk about him like you know him. Now please, get the hell off my porch, Carol."

"I know him well enough." Carol’s tone stayed pleasant, that made it worse. "I know Sean's very fond of him, in his own way. Fond enough to keep him breathing this long, which is more mercy than most people get." Her gaze slid back to Brooke, and her voice softened into something almost maternal. "You used to be so much easier to talk to, dear, back when you and your brother first came to us, so eager to belong somewhere. It'd be a shame to see you throw this all away over a boy who's only going to get you both killed." Brooke's jaw tightened, something old and raw flickering behind her eyes.

"I’m not throwing anything away. I know exactly what I have and exactly what it costs."

"Temper," Carol said mildly. "You always did have a temper, even at fifteen. Didn't take you long to settle in, though. Sean made sure of that." Brooke went white. Mo felt the shift in her beside him, something old and wounded rising fast under the surface. Before he could think better of it he stepped forward, closing the small gap between them and the doorway, putting himself half a pace in front of Brooke before she could say anything.

"I think you got your dish delivered," Mo said. "You should head back." Carol’s gaze flicked to him, assessing, and for one long second Mo genuinely didn't know what she'd do. He didn’t know whether the pleasant mask would crack into something else entirely, whether this was the moment the porch stopped being safe. Then she simply laughed, soft and unbothered, like he'd told a modest joke at a dinner party.

"He’s protective, that's sweet." She took a step back, smoothing her cardigan. "Sean will like hearing that, actually. Gives the evening a little more shape, don’t you think?" She looked past Mo one last time, to Brooke, and her voice calmed into something almost kind. It was sickening. "Get some rest, dear. Big night ahead of you. Wouldn't want you tired for it." She turned and walked back to her car without hurrying, the same unbothered pace as the figure on the stairs the night before, and didn't look back once as she pulled out of the driveway.

Brooke shut the door and threw the deadbolt so hard the frame rattled. For a moment she just stood there with her forehead against the wood, breathing heavily.

"She's never brought up how things were back then, and how I was. Not once." Her voice was quiet, not quite steady. "Sean made sure of that a long time ago. That wasn't a slip up. He's letting me know exactly how much he's willing to use against me if I don't fall back in line." Mo reached out. This time when his hand found her shoulder she didn't pull away.

The house sat at the end of a cul-de-sac that tried too hard to look ordinary. It was a two-story with a wraparound porch, a flag hanging still in the windless night, a wreath on the door that had no business being there in the middle of summer.

"I like the Christmas decor." Mo said, and hated how his voice shook.

"Shut up." Brooke muttered as she killed the engine. "Don't do that thing where you make jokes because you're scared. It's not funny and it's not going to help."

"Everything about tonight is meant to help me find my brother. That's the only thing I care about right now." Mo said sternly. She looked at him like she wanted to argue. She got out of the car instead, Mo following her up the porch steps, his shoes too loud against the wood, the neighborhood too quiet around them. Somewhere down the street, a sprinkler system kicked on, hissing against a lawn. Brooke's hand hovered over the door handle.

"Once we're inside, I can't protect you. I want you to understand that."

"I don't need you to protect me."

"Yes, you do." Her eyes met his, dark and tired and furious all at once. "You just don't know it yet. You will later."

The inside of the house was worse than the outside, because the outside had lied and the inside didn't bother. Family photos lined the staircase wall. Brooke as a kid, gap-toothed and grinning, an older boy with his arm slung around her shoulders. Sean, younger. Human-looking, at least on the surface. Somewhere past the photos, deeper in the house, Mo could hear something, a low hum, almost like static, like breathing.

"He's here. ." Brooke whispered.

"Good."

"No, it’s not good, Mo." She glared at him, but Mo was already pulling his phone from his pocket, scrolling to the number Brooke didn’t know he had. He hit call before she could stop him. It rang once, twice. Then a voice answered, low and unhurried, like he'd been expecting the call.

"If it isn’t Mo."Something cold slid down Mo's spine, but he didn't let it show in his voice.

"Where's my brother?" He demanded, gritting his teeth.

"That's not how you start a conversation." Sean's tone was amused, almost kind, and that was worse than anger would have been. "I know who you are. I've known for a while now. However, I’m curious about why you're standing in my foyer." Mo's grip tightened on the phone. He looked up the staircase, toward the sound of that low static hum, and for the first time understood that Sean could probably see him right now.

"Because your sister's standing next to me," Mo said. "And if I’m right, that's worth something to you." Beside him, Brooke made a sound, like someone had just punched her; sharp, wounded, disbelieving. But Mo didn't look at her, he couldn’t, not yet. There was a long pause on the line. When Sean spoke again, the amusement was gone.

"You'd trade her? You would trade me my own sister, really?" He snorted.

"Actually I’d do a lot worse than that to get Lee back." Mo hated how true it felt saying it out loud, hated the way it tasted like something he might actually mean. "You send that thing to my house, you take my brother, and you think I'm just going to walk away because your sister feels sorry for me? Tell me where Lee is, or I start finding out exactly how much you care what happens to her."

"Mo." Brooke's voice cracked behind him. "Mo, knock it off. ."

"You're bluffing," Sean said, but there was something new underneath the calm now. Something Mo recognized, because he'd been living inside it for weeks. Fear.

"Try me." The line went dead. Mo lowered the phone slowly, his hand shaking, his heart slamming so hard he could feel it in his ears. He turned around, already reaching for something to say, some way to explain. Brooke hit him. Not hard, not a punch, just a hand right across his cheek that made him stumble back a step, but it was the look on her face that landed harder than anything else could have.

"You used me!" Her voice broke on every word. Anger and grief blurred together until he couldn't tell them apart. "You looked me in the eye in that car, you let me bring you here, you let me think-" She shoved him, hard. "I am not a bargaining chip, Mo. I am not something you get to hold up like a weapon!"

"I didn't have a choice.” Mo sneered, breathing heavily.

"Yes, you did!" She was crying, wiping her tears away like they'd offended her. "You had a choice and you chose this. You chose to make me a threat against my own brother, in my own house, and you didn't even ask me?"

"Would you have said yes?" The question hung between them, ugly but honest. Brooke opened her mouth, then closed it again. For a moment she just stood there, chest heaving, tears tracking down a face that had gone pale with something that wasn't quite rage anymore.

"No," she finally said, quiet now, all the fire gone out of it at once. "I wouldn't have, so that's exactly why you didn't ask." Upstairs, the static hum had stopped. The silence that replaced it was so complete it felt like someone was holding their breath.

"Brooke." Mo's voice had lost all its earlier anger. "Is he coming down?" She didn't answer. She was already looking past him, toward the staircase, toward the dark at the top of it, her face draining of whatever anger had been left in it. She knew Sean wasn’t here. It’d be a member of the Family.

"We need to leave," she whispered. "Right now."

The figure that came down the stairs didn't hurry. That was the thing Mo would remember most, later; not the fear, not even the shape of it, but the unbothered pace, like they had all the time in the world and knew it. Each step was measured, deliberate. The kind of walk that belonged to someone who had never once needed to run from anything.

They were wearing a cloak. Brooke made a sound beside him. Not quite a word, more like the air had been punched out of her, and Mo understood that this was worse for her than the Speaker had been. The Speaker was a monster, but this was something she recognized.

The cloak was plain. Black, silky, the kind of thing that should have looked almost harmless, hanging off narrow shoulders in the dim light of the stairwell. But there was nothing harmless in the way it moved. The fabric didn't hang so much as settle, like it was deciding, moment to moment, how much of the shape underneath it to show.

"Hello, Brooke." The voice was quiet, almost gentle. That was the worst part, it sounded like it could have belonged to anyone. A teacher, a neighbor, someone's mom. "Sean thought you might need company tonight."

"Get out of my house." Brooke's voice shook, but she didn't step back. "You don't get to be in my house."

"Your house?" Something in the words felt like a smile, though the hood kept its face in shadow. Mo stepped in front of her, some animal instinct taking over where his brain had stalled out completely.

"Where's my brother?" The hood turned toward him, unhurried, and for a moment nothing happened at all, just that terrible stillness and that sense of being catalogued.

"You're the one who made the phone call," she said. "Sean found that very interesting. He doesn't get threatened often, and many don’t use his sister as leverage. Few people are foolish enough to try, and fewer live long enough to regret it."

"Is that supposed to scare me?" Mo retorted, glaring at the figure.

"It's me being honest with you, there's a difference." A pause, and Mo swore he could feel the person looking at him even without seeing eyes. "Your brother is alive. For now. Whether that continues depends entirely on what you do in the next several minutes, so I'd recommend you listen carefully." Brooke's hand found Mo's arm, gripping hard enough to bruise.

"Don't listen to her. Whatever she says, it isn’t the truth. ." Brooke mumbled.

"I'm hurt," the figure said, without a trace of hurt in her voice. "I'm simply relaying a message. Sean would like to speak with Mo. In person, this time. He feels a phone call was an insufficient way to discuss something this important." The hood tilted, almost thoughtful. "He also asked me to mention that Brooke should not have brought you here. That was, in his words, a mistake she'll need to answer for." The two stared, blankly, unable to form words.

"I'm here to deliver an address and a time, nothing more and nothing less." She reached into the cloak. Slow, deliberate, letting them watch every inch of the movement. She withdrew a folded slip of paper. She didn't hand it over and instead set it on the bottom stair, precise as a place setting, and stepped back.

"Tomorrow night. Come alone, or don't come at all." The hood turned back toward Brooke, and something in her voice shifted, softened into something almost tender, which was somehow more frightening than anything before it. "As for you. . go to bed, Brooke. You look tired. You've had an eventful night." Then the woman walked past them, unhurried, toward the door.

The door clicked shut. For a long moment, neither of them moved. Then Brooke sank down onto the bottom stair, right beside the folded paper, and put her face in her hands.

"That was Margo," she said, muffled, her voice raw in a way Mo hadn't heard from her yet. Not defiant or furious, just scared. "She's been in the Family longer than I've been alive." A dry, humorless laugh escaped her. Mo crouched down slowly, picked up the paper, and unfolded it with shaky hands. An address and time, nothing more nothing less.

"Mo." Brooke lifted her head, and her eyes were wet again. "If you go there alone, he will kill you. . He'll kill you because it's easier than letting you keep looking."

"Then I won't go alone."

"That's not what I. ." She stopped herself, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes. When she spoke again, her voice had steadied into something quieter, and heavier. "I wasn't going to say I'd come with you. I was going to say. . . you're not understanding the offer. This isn't a meeting, Mo. It's an invitation to something that only ends one way, unless somebody changes the terms first."

"So we change them." Brooke looked up at him, and for the first time all night, there was no fight left in her expression at all. Just something tired and stripped bare.

Mo’s house was on a street that was too peaceful and quiet. Families went to bed early and no one was ever out late, porch lights seemed to be programmed to turn off at ten p.m. and the only sound was the occasional bark of a neighborhood dog. Street lamps cast down pools of light across perfectly mowed lawns, illuminating the lives of normal families. Bicycles were left on front porches or strewed across lawns, cars were left unlocked in driveways. It was the kind of place where the worst thing that happened was someone forgetting to bring in their trash cans.

The knock on his door was soft, almost hesitant, but Mo had known who it was before he opened it. She stood on his doorstep, arms crossed with her chin lifted in a sense of defiance. Behind her, the street was quiet, peaceful.

"You shouldn't have come here," Mo muttered, but he stepped aside to let her in anyway. She walked past him into the narrow entryway, silent, taking in the house’s cramped layout. A living room that opened directly into the kitchen, stairs leading up to the bedrooms.

"You've been looking." Brooke taunted, glancing to Mo with a grin and letting out a bitter laugh.

"Okay and? What the fuck else was I supposed to do, Brooke?" He slammed the door shut. The sound was too loud in the quiet neighborhood. Somewhere down the street, a dog barked, then fell silent. "You're the only one who knows. You and your psycho brother and your freaky ass cult." he spat.

"We have a name." She said quietly, staring him down. Her comment made Mo seethe in even more anger.

"I don't give a shit what you call yourselves." His voice cracked, rage bleeding through every syllable. "I want to know where Lee is, not whatever the hell you guys call your little group." Brooke's jaw tightened. For a moment, something flickered across her face. Was it guilt, maybe. Maybe it was fear. Whatever it was, though, vanished as quickly as it came.

"I can't tell you that."

"Can't or won't?" Mo scoffed, his heart pounding in his ears.

"Does it matter?" Brooke muttered, her eyes locked on him. She really hoped she wouldn't have to fight him. In all honesty, she knew she had no chance. Mo closed the distance between them in three long strides, staring at her. Brooke didn't back away, she didn’t even blink, and that somehow made Mo even angrier. He wanted her to be afraid, wanted her to feel even a fraction of the terror that had been eating him alive for weeks, ever since Lee disappeared, ever since he'd started piecing together the truth about Sean and the Family and the things they did in the dark.

"It matters," he said, his voice low, threatening. "Because if you can't tell me, that means someone's stopping you. And if you won't tell me, that means you're choosing to let my brother suffer."

"You don't understand-" Brooke started, putting her hands up in defense.

"Then make me understand, goddamnit!" He grabbed her shoulders, fingers digging into the fabric of her jacket. Brooke was smaller than him, but she didn't cave under his grip. Mo wouldn’t ever hurt a woman, he wouldn’t hit her but. . . he wanted her to feel the anger he was feeling, feel the rage and the terror. He needed it to get through to her head. "He's my brother, Brooke. He's all I have. And you. . you were there. You helped them, you-"

"I know what I did." Her voice was cold. "You think I don't know? You don’t have to remind me, I have a perfectly good memory."

"Then for the love of god, tell me where he is."

"No." Brooke said simply and straight faced. The word hung between them. Mo's hands tightened on her shoulders, and for a quick, desperate moment, he thought about shaking her and yelling at her. But something stopped him. Maybe it was the way she was looking at him. There wasn’t fear, but with something rawer, something that looked almost like a sense of understanding.

"Why?" Mo choked out. "Why won't you help him?"

"Because Sean is my brother," she said simply. "And I’m not going to betray him. Not for you, not for anyone." Mo released her like she'd burned him and stumbled back, running a hand through his hair, trying to breathe through the anger and desperation that clawed at his chest.

"You're insane. You're all fucking insane, you know that?" He stammered, trying to piece together how someone could be like this, have no remorse and act like things aren’t going wrong.

"Maybe." Brooke didn't move, she didn't follow him. She simply just stood there in the dim light from the living room lamp, looking like some kind of statue. "But that doesn't change anything."

"He's going to die," Mo said, his voice cracking. "If you don't tell me where he is, Lee is going to die. You know that, right? You know what they're doing to him and that they don’t care what happens to him." Something flickered in Brooke’s expression.

"I know."

"And you're just. . okay with that?"

"I never said that." Brooke corrected him.

"Then what the fuck are you saying, Brooke?" Mo was shouting now, his voice bouncing off the walls. He was sure if anyone was outside, despite the time, they’d hear him. "What the hell do you want from me? You want me to just, what, give up? Let him go? Pretend like everything's fine while your brother and crazy ass cult torture him to death?" He grit his teeth, anger seeping into every vein.

"I want you to stop searching and get out of this town," she said, but there was no budge to it. "I want you to forget about this interaction. About all of it."

"I can't do that." Mo said, laughing dryly.

"You can, and you have to."

"Why?" He asked as he moved toward her again, slower this time. Brooke backed up, her back nearly against the wall now. "Why do you care what happens to me? If you're so loyal to Sean and so committed to the Family, why does it matter if I keep looking, huh?" She didn't answer, just stared at him with those dark eyes. Mo saw it now, the tiredness, the defiance. "Brooke," he said, softer now. "Please." It sounded like he was begging her now.

"Don't." Her voice was barely a whisper. "Don't do that." She muttered, looking down and nervously twiddling her fingers.

"Do what?"

"Don’t make me feel like I have a choice." The words hit him like a punch to the gut. He opened his mouth to speak, argue, anything, but before he could, every light in the house went out. The darkness was almost suffocating. Mo's breath caught in his throat. Outside, through the window, he could see the street lamps still glowing, the neighborhood seemingly untouched and oblivious. But inside, the air had changed, it grew thick.

Then came the sound. It started as a low growl, not quite animal, but not quite human. It vibrated in his teeth, his bones, in the base of his skull.

"Fuck." Brooke whispered, anxiously looking around, trying to gauge the darkness surrounding them. "No, no, no. . ." Mo went to speak, but then he saw it. The thing that appeared in his kitchen. It literally appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. It lunged forward from the darkness like it had been waiting there all along. It was wrong in every possible way. The thing moved on all fours, but its limbs bent at angles that made Mo's stomach turn. Joints flexed and reversed in ways that defied anatomy. Its body was hunched, muscular, covered in something that looked like skin but definitely didn’t move like skin.

When it lifted its head, Mo saw its face. There were far too many teeth. Rows and rows of them arranged in circles, a mouth stretched across something that may have once been human. Its eyes were just black orbs. No pupils, nothing. Those were hungry eyes, and that thing was about to fulfill its hunger if they stood still long enough.

It made a wet, clicking noise that came from deep in its throat. Mo now couldn’t decide which would be the worse death; its teeth or claws. They were long and curved, scraping against his kitchen floor as it moved, leaving deep gouges in the wood. Each finger ended in a talon that looked sharp enough to split bone if it pleased.

The worst part was how present it felt, how real this thing felt and looked. This wasn't just some eldritch horror from a video game. This was a predator, in his home, in his safe suburban townhouse, in a neighborhood. The wrongness of it made Mo's brain scream.

"Shit," Brooke breathed. "Shit, shit, shit. . we gotta go, now.”

"What the fuck is that?" Mo demanded, but Brooke was already moving, grabbing his arm and hauling ass toward a way out.

"The Speaker." she said, her voice lined with fear. "Sean knows I'm here. He knows I'm talking to you."

"The Speaker?" Mo's mind was reeling, trying to process what he was seeing, what was happening, whether or not he was going to die. "That's not possible. That thing is not real-"

"Does it look fake to you?" She shoved him toward the back door. "Move, now." The Speaker didn't run. It lunged forward, its body compressing and extending like a spring, covering the distance from the kitchen to the dining room in a single bound that left claw marks gouged into the walls. The sound it made, that wet, clicking growl, only intensified, and Mo felt something warm trickling from his nose. They stumbled through the kitchen, Brooke grabbing what she hoped was his keys from the counter with shaking hands.

“My car’s in the driveway.” Mo stammered, fingers digging into Brooke’s arm as she nodded, dragging him with her. Behind them, the Speaker crashed through his living room, and Mo heard the crunch of his coffee table splintering. Through the kitchen window, he could see the peaceful neighborhood, completely unaware that something from a nightmare was tearing through the house next door.

They burst out the back door into the yard, and the cold night air hit Mo's face like a slap. In the driveway, his car sat gleaming beneath a light with bugs flying all around it. Letting go of Mo, Brooke flung open the driver’s door. Behind them, the Speaker appeared in the doorway. It paused there, staring and drooling. Mo got his first full look at it. Its spine curved wrong, vertebrae pressing against its skin like they were trying to escape. Its head swiveled, those eyes focusing on them like they were its meal, and its mouth opened wider than should be possible, revealing more teeth, more darkness, more that was wrong with it.

Then it surged forward, screeching.

Brooke screamed, throwing herself into the driver’s side seat and slamming the door shut. Mo ran for the passenger side, his hands slipping on the handle, his heart hammering so hard he thought it might burst. He shut the door open just as the Speaker reached the car. Its claws scraped across the trunk, leaving deep gouges in the metal. The sound was like nails on a chalkboard a thousand times over. Just as Brooke locked the car, one of its taloned hands smashed against the window. The glass cracked but held, thankfully. Brooke jammed the key into the ignition, the engine turning over. Once. . Twice. It wouldn’t catch.

"Come on, come on.." she muttered. Mo looked out the window to see the Speaker circling the car, its movements predatory. It knew they were trapped. The engine caught on the third try, finally. Brooke slammed the car into reverse and floored it, tires squealing as they shot backward down the driveway. The Speaker lunged, its claws scraping across the hood, leaving gashes in the metal. Then they were past it, and Brooke was spinning the wheel, the car fishtailing as she shifted into drive.

The wrongness of it hit Mo like a physical blow as he stared blankly out of the windshield as Brooke sped down the street. They were speeding through a neighborhood, past houses with warm lights in the windows, past parked minivans and basketball hoops. Hell a kid had just dropped his bike on its side in a driveway and went inside as they sped past. Everything was so normal, so safe and oblivious to the horror they'd just barely escaped. Mo looked in the side mirror and saw the Speaker standing in the middle of the street, illuminated by a street light. It didn't chase them, it just. . . stood there, watching, its eyes reflecting the light.

Then it was gone, lurking back into the shadows as if it had never existed. Brooke didn't slow down until they were nearly two miles away, pulling in the parking lot of a closed grocery store. She killed the engine. For a long moment, they sat there, breathing hard, the adrenaline still screaming through their veins. Mo's hands were shaking, his nose still bleeding. He could taste iron in the back of his throat. Beside him, Brooke was bent over the steering wheel, her knuckles white where she gripped it.

"What the fuck was that thing?" Mo asked when he could finally speak, staring right at Brooke. He wanted an answer, and he wanted one now.

"The Speaker." Brooke said flatly. "It's uh. . . it's what the Family uses, what Sean uses, to keep people in line. To keep those who might talk quiet." Mo stared at her. At this girl who'd helped torture his brother, who'd refused to give him answers, who'd just saved his life. Who'd driven them through a suburban neighborhood with a monster in pursuit.

"Tell me where Lee is, Brooke." he said quietly. Brooke's expression shuttered.

"No."

"Brooke-"

"I can't, Mo." Her voice broke. "I can't betray Sean. He's my brother, he's everything I have. I can't, I just can’t"

"Even after what just happened, seriously?" Mo gestured back toward his neighborhood, toward the townhouse they could never return to, toward the thing that had violated that safe neighborhood. "He sent that thing to silence you. And you're still going to protect and defend him?"

"Yes." The word was firm, final. "I am."

"Why?" Mo scoffed in disbelief.

"Because he's all I have." Tears glimmered in her eyes, but she couldn’t let them fall. "Because he’s my big brother, he's always going to be there. I owe him everything, I love him." Mo felt something inside him break hearing Brooke’s words.

"So that's it? We just. . what? Pretend that all didn't happen?" Mo said, his voice beginning to raise. Brooke looked at him now, blinking back tears as she shrugged.

“I. . . I mean, what do you want me to do?” Brooke muttered, wiping tears from her lashline so they wouldn't fall to her cheeks.

"Take me to him." Brooke went still.

"What?"

"Your brother, take me to him." Mo's pulse pounded, but his voice came out steady, calm. That scared him more than the Speaker had. "You want to defend your brother? Fine then. I want to find mine. Those are the exact same fucking things now, Brooke." A quiet, dry laugh escaped Brooke’s lips.

"You have no idea what you're asking."

"I don't care." Mo stated firmly. She stared at him for a long moment, searching his face for something, anything. This had to be him bluffing, right? Her jaw tightened, and something in her seemed to give way.

"Your house isn't safe anymore," she said finally. "And neither is a hotel. He'll find you in an hour, and next time he won't send something that just lunges and watches."

"So where, then?" Mo asked. It seemed there were out of options if his house and hotels were off the table, and sleeping in the car seemed less than desirable despite the situation. Brooke closed her eyes tight. When she opened them, the resignation was gone. In its place was something that seemed almost like fury, and it was aimed at herself.

"My house, his house, we live together. It's the last place he'd expect me to bring you, because it's the last place I should even think to bring you."