Page 13 of When Death Whispers

Absently, I grab a knife to cut the sandwich, shutting the drawer with my hip. My brain’s still stuck back on the porch—on his voice, his touch, the way Hudson looked at me like I’d saved him and terrified him all in the same breath.

Then the knife slips.

“Shit,” I hiss, jerking my hand back as a bright bead of blood wells up on my fingertip. It’s not deep, but it’s enough to sting. I look down, and the blood spreads across the bread, smearing the mustard design. The red soaks into the spirals, darkening the strange pattern I didn’t mean to make.

I glance toward Hudson. He hasn’t noticed. His eyes are far away, brows furrowed in confusion. Still in shock.

Good. I don’t need him panicking about a cut on top of everything else.

I grab a clean slice and start over, slower this time. More deliberate. Ham. Cheese. A straight swipe of mustard. Something normal in a night that’s gone completely off the rails.

Then his voice cuts in, low and hesitant.

“Why did he think I was yourlover?”

Startled, I squeeze the mustard bottle too hard, splattering it everywhere.

I gape at him. “You… you heard him? His voice?”

Hudson nods once, slow. “He said it like he knew. Like it wastrue.” His voice dips, rough with disbelief. “I didn’t see anyone out there, but it felt like he was standingright there.”

No one’s ever heard him before. Not my father. Not any roommates. Not any exes. No one. It’s why everyone’s always dismissed me as disturbed or unstable.

Fuck. This changes everything. Something shifted tonight when my monster whispered to me in the bakery… when he touched me in that new possessive way, like I was his.

I let him sit with the question while I finish his sandwich with numb fingers and slide it toward him. He doesn’t grab it. Just keeps looking at me like I’m a puzzle—or a warning.

And I don’t blame him.

“Whatwasthat, Parker?” This time his voice dips with the question, the meaning different, and the look in his ocean-blue eyes holding…more.

Shit. He knows. He saw my fucked up reaction to the shadows. And he’s about to find out how much more fucked up I really am.

I open my mouth—ready to explain, to word-vomit the entire truth I’ve spent years trying to swallow—when a shrillbeep-beep-beepslices through the silence

The smoke detector.

Hudson jolts to his feet. “What the hell?—?”

A sharp, acrid scent floods the air. Not smoke, not exactly. There’s nothing visible—no haze, no flicker of fire—but the scent is there. And it doesn’t smell electrical or like something left in the oven.

It smells like burning earth and hot metal. Like sulfur and scorched bone.

Like something dark just licked its lips and smiled.

Hudson grabs a dishcloth and starts fanning the alarm while I whirl around, searching for something—anything—that would’ve triggered it. The oven is off. The burners are cold. No candles, no scorched crumbs, nothing smoldering in the trash.

I sprint through the house, checking every room—the living room, the hallway, the bathroom. All well-lit. All untouched.

And still, the scent lingers.

After several tense minutes, it starts to fade, dissolving into something faint and almost… sweet.

Like it’s pleased.

Again… What the fuck?

What the hell is going on tonight?

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