A thump from below wakes me out of a restless sleep. It feels like being ripped from a deep, persistent fog that lingers in the recess of my brain. Blinking my eyes open, I stare at my closed door, focusing on the faint outline until my brain catches up with what I heard. My heart is well ahead of me, the muscle beating inside my chest rapidly while the hairs on the back of my neck rise. A cloud of unease rolls in the pit of my stomach, and it’s not until several seconds later that I realize the sound I heard was the shutting of my front door. Slowly, I sit up and slide out from under the covers. Adrenaline is coursing through my system now, and I’m wide awake. Someone was just inside my house. The sound could have been anything. It could have been the foundation settling. Or shit, even a couple of ghosts roughhousing. But just like when your gut is telling you something bad is going to happen—amine is telling me that someone was just in my fucking house. Was it the person that pounded on my door? It has to be, right? It’s too much of a coincidence to have a stranger deliberately trek over a mile to the manor just to bang on the door and leave. And now they’re back. If they ever left at all. Shakily, I get up from my bed, a cold chill washing over me and puckering my skin into goosebumps. I shiver, nabbing my phone from the nightstand and pad lightly over to the door. Slowly, I open it, cringing at the loud creak that rings out.