Page 54 of DFF: Delicate Freakin' Flower

I frowned and leaned down until my mouth brushed her ear. “Then what?”

“I’m worried about you two,” she admitted softly, tilting her head back against my shoulder. “You’re throwing yourselves into this like it’s nothing. And I’m just… waiting for something to go wrong, I guess.”

“It won’t.” My voice didn’t carry the conviction I wanted it to. “Not if we keep our heads on straight.”

“I trust you,” she whispered. “That’s not the problem. It’s them I don’t trust.”

She was right to worry, and that made me tighten my hold just a little.

Because the closer this got—the more real it became—the more I had that same gut-deep feeling I used to get before a fight: something was coming.

By the timethe sun started dipping low, the house was a shadow of itself.

Eddie had already taped over every window with trash bags, dust sheets, duct tape, old towels, whatever we could find that wouldn’t let a sliver of light leak out. Gabby had dug out candles and flashlights that we stashed under the table for emergencies.

We moved through the house like soldiers prepping a bunker. There would be no talking unless absolutely necessary tonight, no unnecessary movement after dark, and no lights.

I double-checked the locks on the doors, then wedged a chair under the back door handle for good measure. Eddie had taken his drone outside before the last of the light faded and was already watching the feed on his tablet, propped on the coffee table beside an open map of the area.

Gabby was near the front window, crouched and silent, slowly setting her “low-tech alarm system” into place—fishing line strung between nails, looped through rings of bottle caps and the occasional can. It was smart and light enough not to catch attention but loud enough to warn us if anything tripped it.

When she finished, she came to stand beside me, dusting her palms on her jeans.

“Silent mode,” she noted, glancing around. “I feel like we’re in a horror movie. One of the good ones.”

“Let’s keep it that way,” I suggested. “No jump scares, and no sudden music stings.”

She gave me a slight smirk, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes.

Eddie came up behind us. “Drone’s on a twenty-minute loop. I've kept it high so that it's quiet, and it's currently sweeping a three-mile radius. So far, we’re clear.”

“That won’t last,” I said. “They’ll move again tonight.”

“We’re ready,” he confirmed, tapping the side of his holster.

I nodded and turned to Gabby. “Bedroom’s the safest space for now. It's in the center of the house and farthest from the windows.”

“I’m not hiding in the closet,” she huffed, giving me a look.

“I didn’t say the closet,” I pointed out, holding back a smile. “Just stick close.”

She hesitated, then nodded, her voice quieter now. “I don’t like how quiet it is out there. It feels wrong.”

“It is wrong,” Eddie agreed, crossing back to the tablet. “Predators don’t always make noise.”

That sat heavy in the air while we dimmed what else we could and made sure we'd blocked out every last sliver of light. Even the blinking electronics were covered. We moved through the house now with only the moonlight slipping through the slats in the porch boards or the cracks in the attic vent. The world outside had gone still—unnaturally so—and the bayou had gone silent. No frogs. No crickets. Not even the rustling of leaves.

I checked my watch. 9:18 PM. It was too early for sleep but too late to shake the feeling crawling down my spine.

Gabby sat cross-legged on the floor beside the couch, arms around her knees, staring out at nothing. She didn’t say a word, but her hand found mine when I sat down beside her, and she squeezed. Just once.

We stayed like that for a while—quiet, watchful, waiting. And then the night pressed in, heavy and sharp as a blade.

The soft dronefeed cast a faint blue glow across Eddie’s face as we all crouched in the living room, shadows pooled deep in every corner. I kept my eyes on the screen, but the drone still wasn't picking up anything of interest. Just trees and brush and empty paths winding through the dark.

Too quiet. Too easy.

It wasn’t the drone that warned us in the end. It was the faintest clink of metal—tin on tin—from the left side of the porch from one of Gabby’s homemade alarms.

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