Chapter 5 - The Shadows Encroach
The storm broke over Boston at midnight, rain lashing against the historic brick homes of Beacon Hill with a steady, relentless roar.
Inside the Ericson estate, fifteen-year-old Ethan sat in his expansive bedroom, the lights turned up to their highest setting. For the first time in his life, he was terrified of his own house. The armed guards who usually patrolled the hallways were gone. The large, limestone mansion felt empty, hollow, and filled with strange, creaking noises that the rain couldn't completely drown out.
His phone buzzed on his nightstand. He grabbed it quickly, hoping it was his father telling him everything was handled.
It wasn't his father.
It was an unknown number, and the message contained only a single video file.
Ethan pressed play with a trembling thumb.
The video was taken from the interior of room 214 at St. Marcellus Academy. The camera moved slowly through the empty classroom, past the blue rug Amara had bought herself, until it stopped in front of the chalkboard. Written across the slate in large, clean white letters was Ethan’s own name, followed by a countdown:
00:12:43.
The video ended.
Ethan let out a sharp cry, dropping the phone onto his comforter. He ran to his door, throwing it open to shout for the housekeeper, but the hallway was completely dark. The backup generator, which should have kicked in the moment the city power flickered, remained dead.
"Hello?" Ethan shouted, his voice cracking with youth and terror. "Is anyone there?"
A floorboard creaked at the far end of the corridor.
Ethan bolted back into his room, slamming the door and twisting the brass lock. He backed away until his shoulders hit the headboard of his bed, his eyes fixed on the narrow space beneath his door where the darkness of the hallway met the light of his room.
Then, the lights in his bedroom went out.
The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the sound of the rain against the glass. Ethan began to weep, pulling his knees to his chest, the arrogant boy who had scattered Matteo’s books on the floor entirely erased by the terrifying dark.
"Your father taught you that people are things to be broken," a voice said from the corner of the room.
Ethan gasped, his head snapping toward the window.
Sitting in the high-backed armchair by his desk was a silhouette. The man was completely still, his hands resting on his knees, his eyes reflecting the distant, watery flash of lightning from outside.
"Who are you?" Ethan sobbed, pressing his back against the wall. "My dad will kill you! He has millions of dollars!"
"Your dad currently has forty-two dollars in his pocket, Ethan," Silas Brooks said quietly. "And his name is no longer a currency in this city."
Silas stood up, his large frame moving through the darkness without a sound. He didn't approach the bed. He stopped by the desk, his hand resting lightly on the frame of a silver photograph showing Mason and Ethan on a yacht in Nantucket.
"Matteo Alvarez is fifteen," Silas said, his tone conversational but freezing. "He studies four hours a night after taking two public buses to get to a school where he is told he doesn't belong. He does this because he wants his mother to stop cleaning offices at 3:00 a.m."
Silas turned his head slightly toward the trembling boy. "You took his file because you wanted to see him cry. You wanted to feel big because your father is big. But your father is very small, Ethan. And tonight, he’s going to get even smaller."
Silas reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, leather-bound folder. He placed it on the desk beneath the silver photograph.
"What is that?" Ethan whispered, his breath catching.
"That is Matteo’s scholarship folder," Silas said. "You’re going to take it back to school on Monday. You’re going to hand it to him in front of every student who saw you take it. And then you’re going to apologize to my sister."
"Your sister..." Ethan gasped, the realization hitting him like a physical blow. "The teacher. Amara."
"If you don't," Silas said, stepping back into the shadows until his voice seemed to come from the walls themselves, "the dark will never leave this room, Ethan. And your father won't be able to buy you a new one."
The lightning flashed again, illuminating the room for a fraction of a second.
May you like
The armchair was empty. The door remained locked from the inside.
Ethan scrambled off the bed, lunging toward the desk. His hands found the leather-bound folder, its smooth surface cold against his palms. He held it to his chest, weeping in the dark, finally understanding that there were things in the world that his father’s money could never protect him from.
