Page 170 of Let Me In

Because that man watched her.

Followed her.

Planned to use her.

And there are some debts the world doesn’t get to collect.

Not while I’m breathing.

I shift my grip on the wheel.

My knuckles ache from how hard I held them through the hour-long drive out. My shoulders are tight. My jaw too.

I remind myself:

He’s gone.

And she’s safe.

The sky starts to pale in the east.

A deep blue bruising into lavender.

The town still sleeps.

The kind of hush that only happens in the last breath before morning.

I slow the truck as I approach the long bend toward the cabin.

The Watcher’s still posted. I spot him at the edge of the trees—barely a shape, but exactly where I told him to be.

I nod once, and he nods back, then disappears. Just like always.

I kill the engine in the drive. The house is dark. Silent.

But she’s inside. I feel her, her calm, even from here.

And something in me breaks open.

Soft.

Slow.

Like thaw.

26

EMMY

I wake all at once.

Not gently.

Not with a yawn or a stretch. But with the kind of jolt that comes from realizing the other side of the couch is still cold. The cold finds me fast—sharp against my skin, settling deep into the hollow behind my knees, where his warmth used to be.

I sit up too fast. The quilt slides off my shoulders.

The fire’s faded to a soft glow, embers tucked beneath a veil of ash.

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