The Darkness I Carry

Chapter 26: The Darkness I Carry

The Empty Field

Caleb woke to the sound of nothing.

Not birds. Not wind. Not the soft rustling of Leah's breath beside him. Just silence. Thick, heavy, and suffocating. He sat up fast, his heart stuttering in his chest. Panic gnawed at him as his eyes darted around the dimly lit field.

Leah was gone.

The blanket she'd curled under lay crumpled and damp with dew, as though she had vanished into the morning mist. Her boots were missing. The world around him stretched out in every direction, empty and golden, the kind of beauty that felt wrong when it was alone.

For a moment, he thought she'd finally done it. Left him behind. Freed herself of the burden of being seen. Of being tethered to him. The thought almost twisted in his gut, as if he were the one who had failed her.

But then, A broken trail in the grass. Flattened weeds leading into the woods.

Without hesitation, he followed.

Leah's Search

Leah moved like she was being watched, even when she wasn't.

The forest around her was thick, ancient—old enough to swallow sound, to bend the light and make it disappear. The air was heavy, clinging to her skin like something alive. Her boots left shallow impressions in the mud, as if the earth itself was reluctant to hold her. Her breath made ghosts in the morning air, disappearing before they could even be felt.

She didn't know what she was looking for.

But something inside her had clawed its way awake in the night, stirring in the deep silence of her thoughts. The voice was soft at first, almost like a whisper—an ache in her chest. It grew louder with each passing minute.

Find it. Dig it up. Burn it down.

She stopped by a stream. Her boots sank into the damp earth as she stared at the water.

The reflection didn't show her a monster.

It showed her a girl.

One who looked too tired to keep running.

Her lips parted, but no sound came. Leah stared at the girl in the water, watching the way the light caught her face, making her seem fragile, fleeting. It made something inside of her stir something that wasn't sure if it was fear or regret.

Detective Avery's Puzzle

Detective Avery was building a story.

Not the one he could tell the press. Not the one the department would print. But one that fit. It didn't make sense, but it fit.

The Holloway girl had disappeared five years ago. A group home incident. A fire. One child dead. Three missing. Two had been found eventually. One was still gone. Eleanor.

Eleanor Jane.

Now she had a new name. A new shape. A new myth trailing behind her like blood on snow. The details didn't line up, but the feeling did.

But Avery didn't care about the myth.

He cared about the look in her eyes on that motel footage. The way she stood behind the boy, just slightly out of frame. Not just out of frame. Out of time. Like she was already planning her exit.

He felt it in his bones. This wasn't just a killer, pretending to be something else. This was someone who had learned to be both predator and prey. Someone who wasn't afraid of being invisible.

And somewhere, buried beneath the lies and the blood, was a girl.

The Chain

Leah's fingers scraped at the earth.

She hadn't meant to. She didn't even realize it at first. But her hands were digging slow, mechanical, desperate tearing through the leaves and mud and roots, searching for something, anything.

She didn't know what she was trying to reach.

Until she found it.

A rusted piece of chain.

Just a few links, buried in the dirt. Forgotten. Abandoned. She could feel it under her fingers before she even saw it. The cold metal. The weight of it.

Her breath caught.

She didn't remember this place. Not exactly. But her body did. Her hands did. They knew this feeling, this heaviness, this cold that reached down into her bones.

A memory uncoiled in her gut cold metal, wrists bound, the stink of breath too close, too foul. The taste of fear, the sound of choking breaths.

She flinched away from the chain like it had burned her.

And then, Footsteps.

Leah's head whipped around, her knife already out, gleaming in the dim light.

But it was only Caleb.

Frozen at the tree line, panting, eyes wide with something between panic and relief.

She didn't lower the blade.

He raised his hands, slowly. "You disappeared."

Leah didn't answer. Her gaze flickered back to the chain, then back to him, sharp and unreadable.

"I needed air," she said, her voice low, almost like a growl.

"You needed distance," Caleb replied softly.

Silence stretched between them like a canyon.

Leah's eyes narrowed, and then she spoke, her voice a murmur in the space between them.

"There was someone," she said, her breath ragged. "Before all this. A man. He liked girls who didn't scream."

Caleb swallowed hard, the weight of her words settling on him like a stone.

"I was quiet," she said, her voice almost hollow. "So he liked me best."

She kicked dirt over the chain, as if it could bury the memory with it, as if she could escape it.

"I don't remember his face," she muttered, "just the way he smelled. Like bleach and smoke."

Caleb opened his mouth, but the words caught in his throat.

"Did you kill him?" he asked softly.

She looked over her shoulder at him, her expression unreadable. "Does it matter?"

He didn't answer.

But she saw it in his eyes. It did. It always did.

The Dusk Watch

Later, back at the edge of the field, Leah sat on the hood of the stolen car, her gaze turned to the sky, watching as dusk crawled upward, swallowing the light.

Caleb stood beside her. The quiet between them was different now charged with something neither of them could ignore.

"You said something yesterday," he murmured, his voice low and steady.

Leah didn't respond, her eyes fixed on the horizon.

"You said cold keeps people inside," he said, taking a step closer, his tone softer now. "That it makes them comfortable."

She glanced at him, just for a moment. "So?"

"I think you like the cold because it reminds you what warmth used to feel like."

For a heartbeat, she looked like she might say something cruel. Something sharp. Something that would cut him deeper.

But instead, she said nothing.

And that, from Leah, was the closest thing to agreement he'd ever get.

The Call

Back in town, Avery received a phone call.

One of the girls from the group home fire. She was older now, her voice shaky and filled with tremors of something unspoken.

"I think… I think she found me last night. Or maybe," the girl's voice faltered, "maybe she just wanted me to know she could."

Avery's blood ran cold. He felt the chill seep into his bones. He knew where this was going. He knew what came next.

"Her dog," the girl whispered, "her dog… She slit its throat. No blood trail. Just clean. And then she left behind"

A single link of chain.

On the front porch.

Avery's heart skipped a beat.

It was happening again.

And this time, there would be no turning back.