Page 50 of Let Me In

Everything in me stills.

I cross the room in two steps. Squat down in front of her, my tone calm. Focused.

“What car?”

She blinks again, the fog of sleep fading just enough to clock my expression. Her fingers fumble for her phone.

“There was this… black sedan. No plates. It passed me on the ridge when I was walking. I wasn’t sure if I should say anything. I didn’t want to—”

I hold out my hand.

“Let me see.”

And when she places the phone in my palm, her fingers brushing mine, I know it.

This was no accident.

The world’s about to shift.

And she’s already in the center of it.

I study the photo she hands me.

Thumb moves across the screen, zooms in. The sedan is just barely visible past the bend—dark, blurred, unmistakably wrong. No plates. Tinted windows. Slow like it was watching, not passing through.

My jaw tightens. I don’t let it show.

I hand the phone back to her.

She hesitates. “Is it… is something wrong?”

I don’t look away.

“No,” I say evenly. Not a lie. Just not everything.

Then, quieter. Not for the world. Just for her.

“You were smart to take the picture.”

She nods. Small. Tight. But I can see it—the way her fingers still, her breath pulling just a little too shallow. She’s trying to keep it down. I don’t blame her.

I move toward her again. Drop into a crouch beside the couch where she’s still half-curled in the blanket. My palm finds her knee beneath the fabric. Warm. Solid.

“Hey,” I murmur. “You’re safe here, little one.”

She looks at me. And even through the worry, the hesitation—I see it. The flicker of trust. The ache of needing to believe someone.

And when she nods—small, hesitant, brave—it hits me in the chest. Something in me steadies, anchors. But it also sharpens. I’d burn down the world to keep that nod from ever turning into a flinch.

“Okay.”

I give her leg a soft squeeze. Then I rise, letting my hand fall away only once I know she’s grounded again. I glance toward the clock above the mantle.

Just past eleven.

Late enough that she shouldn’t go. That I won’t let her go.

My jaw tightens, then eases. I turn back toward her, voice low. Measured.

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