Chapter 3
Elara didn't answer him. She couldn't. Lucien's presence felt like stepping into cold water—shocking, consuming, impossible to ignore.
Lucien took a slow step forward. "You shouldn't be in this corridor."
His voice was low, calm, but there was something sharp beneath it. A warning… or a threat.
Mira grabbed Elara's sleeve from behind. "We were just leaving," she said quickly, her voice shaking.
Lucien's eyes flicked to Mira briefly, then returned to Elara—as if she was the only one who mattered.
"Elara Hayes," he repeated, quieter. "You hear things you shouldn't."
Her breath caught. "How do you know that?"
A long silence passed. Lucien's jaw tightened, and for a moment, she saw something like conflict in his expression—like he wanted to speak but couldn't, as if invisible chains held his words hostage.
Finally, he said, "Because the walls react to you."
Her heart dropped. He noticed.
Before she could respond, a loud crack echoed from deeper in the corridor. The sound bounced off the walls like a breaking bone.
Lucien instantly turned toward the darkness, his posture shifting, tense, animal-like.
"Elara," he said firmly, without facing her, "go back."
"What's happening?" Elara whispered.
But Lucien didn't speak. He just listened—every muscle alert.
Then a whisper leaked from the wall beside her, trembling with dread.
"Blood… on the stone path…"
The light above them flickered.
Mira tugged harder. "Elara, please."
Elara let Mira pull her backward, away from the corridor, away from Lucien's cold silhouette swallowed by the shadows.
But as they turned… she saw it.
A thin trail of dark red liquid seeping out from under the old wooden door at the end of the hallway. It crawled along the cracks in the stone like it was alive.
Blood.
Mira gasped. "Oh my God—"
Lucien moved before either of them. One moment he was several steps away, the next he stood in front of the door, his hand hovering over the spreading crimson. Too fast. Faster than any human.
"Elara," he said, voice low and controlled, "do not come here again."
She stared at the blood, at his unnatural speed, at the way the temperature dropped around him.
"Lucien… what's inside that room?"
His eyes glowed faintly—silver fading into red. Not fully, just enough to break her breath.
"Nothing you are meant to see."
That was a lie.
She could feel it. The walls hummed with unease.
"He hides death… he hides hunger…"
Elara swallowed hard. "Someone could be hurt."
Lucien stared at her for a long moment. Shadows leaned toward him, almost like they obeyed him.
"No," he said quietly. "Someone is hurting."
Before she could ask what that meant, he turned and pushed the door open. The hinges creaked like a scream.
"Elara," he said again, without turning back, "leave."
The door swung wider.
Mira dragged her away before she could see inside.
As they reached the stairs, Elara looked back one last time. She saw Lucien's silhouette framed by darkness—and the unmistakable outline of a body lying on the floor beyond him.
The trail of blood kept growing.
And the walls whispered only one word, over and over:
"Run."