Amara barely slept.
When she closed her eyes, she saw Jonas's gaze in the photograph sharp, unblinking, alive. When she opened them, she thought she heard whispers drifting through the dark corners of her room. By dawn, her pillow was damp with tears she hadn't realized she shed, and her body ached from the tension that never released.
She stumbled to the bathroom, splashing water on her face. Her reflection stared back, pale and hollow eyed. She almost didn't recognize herself. She pressed her palms to the sink, whispering, "You're fine. It's just the letters. Just old words making ghosts where there are none."
But even as she said it, she didn't believe it.
Downstairs, the house was too quiet. Her mother had already left for work, leaving behind a pot of coffee still warm on the stove. The ordinary sight should have calmed Amara, but instead it sharpened her awareness of how alone she was.
Her gaze kept flicking toward the attic door at the end of the hallway. The box belonged there, she thought. Not in her room. Not haunting her every step. She carried it up the creaking stairs, her heartbeat quickening with each step, until she reached the attic once more.
Sunlight filtered weakly through the dust coated window, illuminating floating motes. She placed the box carefully on the floor, meaning to leave it there. To turn her back. To reclaim her life.
But as her fingers slid away, she saw something she hadn't noticed before.
The underside of the box's lid.
Words had been scratched into the wood, shallow but deliberate. She leaned closer, brushing away dust. The letters formed a single name:
"Micah."
Her breath hitched. The name felt heavy, charged. She whispered it aloud before she could stop herself.
"Micah."
The attic seemed to respond. A shiver of air swept across her skin, though no window was open.
Her mind raced back to the letter the one where her grandmother confessed to Jonas's child. I bore his child in silence… Jonas swore his blood would never die. Could this be the name? Could Micah be the child her grandmother had hidden from the world?
Her stomach tightened. If Micah existed if Jonas's bloodline truly lived then maybe the figure she'd seen in the woods wasn't Jonas at all. Maybe it was him.
The thought should have comforted her at least it meant Jonas hadn't risen from the grave. But it didn't. Somehow, it felt worse. Because a child of Jonas would be raised in his shadow, molded by his darkness.
And if Micah was still alive, then what did he want with her?
She forced herself to stand, her knees unsteady. She clutched the box to her chest again and hurried back downstairs, locking her bedroom door behind her. She placed it on the desk, unable to resist opening it once more.
She searched feverishly through the letters, scanning each envelope for the name. Her hands shook, tearing one in her rush. Ink blurred before her eyes as she skimmed pages, desperate for confirmation.
Finally, in a letter dated 2012, she found it.
He came to me, Amara. Not Jonas, but the boy. He called himself Micah. He had his father's eyes, the same cruel fire behind them. He smiled, and it felt like a blade pressed to my throat. He said he had come for what was his, what Jonas promised him. He said the bloodline would not be denied.
Amara dropped the page as if it burned her. The sound of it hitting the floor echoed too loudly in the quiet room.
Micah was real.
The figure in the woods wasn't just a shadow or a trick of her mind. It was Jonas's heir, carrying forward a promise her grandmother had feared her whole life.
Her pulse roared in her ears as she whispered, "Why me?"
But even as the words left her lips, a memory flickered her mother's warnings, the sharp fear in her voice whenever Jonas's name was mentioned. Perhaps her mother wasn't just hiding the past. Perhaps she was hiding the truth that Amara herself was part of it.
Half-blood.
A descendant of the same shadow she now feared.
The realization made her stomach turn. If Micah had come for her, was it because of the box? Or was it because she carried Jonas's blood too?
A sudden knock rattled her door.
Three steady taps.
Her breath froze. She turned slowly, eyes locked on the wood. She hadn't heard anyone come up the stairs. She hadn't heard footsteps at all.
The knock came again, softer this time, but unmistakable.
Her grandmother's warning surged back like a scream: Do not answer.
Amara clamped her hand over her mouth, her entire body trembling. She stared at the door, praying the knocking would stop.
But when silence finally fell, she wished it hadn't.
Because beneath the doorframe, in the thin strip of light, a shadow remained long, still, waiting.