The clinic smelled like death and bad feet. Willie Mobley didn't move. The blood was quiet  today, and he didn't trust it. 

The dialysis chair hissed. Cold rose through the vinyl like regret—slow, sharp, crawling into  bone. Machines hummed like false priests—drinking borrowed blood, blessing nothing,  returning it colder. 

Willie didn't like credit. He didn't like owing. And he sure as hell didn't like being tied to a chair  while some machine pretended it could do the work of his blood. 

Willie Mobley sat still. Stillness was its own kind of armor, the only shield left to him in a room  that smelled like bleach, sweat, and the tired defeat of people who'd run out of miracles. 

The nurses moved around him, brisk and loud, their rubber-soled shoes squeaking across the tile.  They thought noise meant control. Willie knew better. Noise was a cover, the kind people made  when silence might admit the truth—that everyone in this room was dying, just at different  speeds. 

The machine at his side beeped steadily, smug as a metronome. He wanted to rip it free, smash it  against the wall, and watch it bleed out, just as he did three days a week. But he didn't. He sat  still, hands folded on his stomach, eyes half-shut like he was napping. 

Stillness meant control. At least the kind this older man had left. 

The blood circled out of him, dark in the tubing, then came back lighter and filtered like it had  gone to a car wash. Willie didn't trust it. The machine promised it was clean, but his body told  him otherwise. 

The nurse checking his line smiled too widely, the kind of smile that belonged on a billboard, not  in a place where people coughed up last chances. 

"Looking good today, Mr. Mobley," she chirped. 

Willie almost laughed. Looking good? With one arm strapped to a machine, stomach sour from  the cafeteria's fried eggs, and a smell of bleach crawling into his nose? If that was good, he didn't  want to see bad. 

But he just nodded, polite, still. Better to let the techs think he was harmless. Better to let them  all believe he was nothing more than an older man in a chair, waiting his turn. 

Because sometimes, pretending was its own kind of magic. 

He hated how small the chair made him feel, not because of the nurses or the machine, but  because of what sat deeper—sealed, pressed behind his ribs. 

The blood didn't just carry iron and marrow. It carried memory. It carried power. And for years,  Willie kept that part of himself locked down so deep it felt like a ghost riding in his veins.

Sometimes it stirred, like now, when the machine hummed too loudly and the air smelled like rot  under bleach. Willie felt it shift, an old weight rolling inside him, a reminder of what he was  before the doctors, before the sickness, before the Mobleys decided he'd live long enough to  curse their land with his name. 

Willie clenched his jaw. Breathed slowly. If the blood woke—if the seal cracked—it wouldn't  just be him who paid. 

He looked around at the others in their chairs. Some stared at the ceiling tiles as if they were  counting the cracks, while others kept their eyes shut, pretending this was rest and not a slow  draining. A couple still tried to talk, voices thin, clinging to jokes that didn't land. 

Willie didn't join in. He had no patience for dying small. 

If the Mobleys were good at anything, it was dying loud, dying with teeth bared. Grandfather had  gone that way—cursing preachers and politicians alike, voice booming until the last breath  rattled free. Willie doubted the family would forgive him if he slipped away politely. 

He smirked at the thought, a bitter curl of the mouth. That was the trouble with bloodlines: even  your death wasn't really yours. 

The itch came back, low in his ribs. Not the itch of hunger or nerves, but something older—like  time itself trying to scratch free. 

Willie shifted in his chair, slow, careful. If he drew attention, a nurse would come fussing, and  the last thing he needed was anyone leaning close enough to smell what moved in his blood. 

The seal pulsed once, sharp as a nail in the chest. Willie clenched his jaw, eyes on the white wall  in front of him. 

Stay quiet, he told it. Stay down. 

The machine hummed, steady as a sermon. Willie's blood answering with a rhythm no doctor  could chart. 

He smirked. Trust his curse to bear teeth in the middle of dialysis. Fate's humor was always  cruel. 

Time moved like blood through a sieve—slow, stubborn, and loud when it finally let go. Willie  stared at the ceiling and felt nothing. 

Willie's gut twisted—the dream was over—a coil of memory and warning. Magic lived in places  like that: quiet, close, thick with ghost-heat. And Willie was still here. Old. Broken. Still  breathing, watching.

Something shifted in his mind—something new and wild, the kind not felt in years. Another  shiver crawled up his spine. The feeling. Mixed. Not from the clinic cold. Not from the rot he  knew too well. 

That was new. 

He smelled it before he named it. Not soap. Not sweat. Not the source of another dying body.  That was sharper—desired and metallic, grief beaten into a point. A scent born of broken  promises and fresh blood. Not your normal rot. 

But it knew him. 

Willie coughed—tight, shallow—as if the smell stole his old breath on purpose. He didn't dare  open wide. Didn't dare beg. To scream would mean admitting it was real. 

His hair stood up. Eyebrows too. Magic did that when it was near. Only magic. Impossible in  this city. Houston was supposed to be monster-free. 

The blood moved behind its sealed walls. Sure sign. It didn't rush—it remembered. Curled  slowly, like smoke from a forgotten fire, tracing old paths through bone and breath. Magic didn't  leap. It lingered, tasting him before it rose. 

Then it clicked. First time in years. Not memory. Instinct. Fear. 

He rewrapped himself in the blanket, quiet defiance against what stirred—watched a fly vanish  into shadow. Even bugs knew when to leave. 

Willie's gaze slid toward Roy. Still wrapped, still slumped. But that neck was too long. The eyes  stared. A gaze without eyes. Watching. But nowhere. Then gone. Like it had pulled back,  deciding. 

Willie exhaled, careful, like breath alone might keep it from coming back. Maybe he was getting  old. Older men saw monsters in shadows and in their own reflections. 

Still, he listened. Sharpened his will. Lifted his chin. 

Then came the tongue thing. Willie bent it into that ridiculous shape only he could make—his  fulcrum, his ritual. No spell. Just shape and memory. Magic didn't need a chant. Not if you had  trauma. Not if you had talent. Willie had both. 

He tasted the air, braced for metal. Burn. Maybe ozone. Monster smell. Nothing. 

A shadow flicked in his periphery. A nurse wore scrubs but might as well have worn horns, hips  moving the way country boys liked. Willie's mind flinched at the thought. 

"Can you show me again?" Vickie asked. She eyed him boldly, sugar-voiced, fake-sweet. She grinned too widely. Her hips followed, smug and sharp.

Vickie sauntered over like judgment in a nurse's smock. She lived for moments like this— pouring raw salt into bones. Nasty with a radar for weakness. A thirst for wounded men. 

"Was that something new?" she purred. Too close. Words slinking like fingers into locked  drawers. Country drawer. Mockery dressed in care. 

Vickie. Nasty and loving every bite of herself. 

Willie didn't blink. He closed part of his mind—the bright side—and just looked her over, head  to toe. Petite frame. Pretty bones. All venom. How could someone that small carry so much acid? 

And why—today of all days—did he want to break his oath? 

No eating raw meat today? 

His old fingers twitched with the thought of an older man's work—cracking her sternum like dry  twigs. He could almost hear the sound. Pop. Crackle. Then a sprite. 

Willie shoved the thought away like a roach skittering across a dirty floor. He smiled anyway.  No warmth. No mercy. 

A machine beeped. Thank God. He didn't fake surprise—just used it. His eyes went lazy,  country-dog casual, like he'd found a big bone. 

"Mrs. Stevens's machine…" Willie said. Another beep sounded—louder. Perfect. Willie leaned  up in his chair and pointed. "And Mr. Jones's machine is lighting up too." 

His voice was dry. Low. Almost helpful. But the cut was clear. 

Vickie sputtered, not through with this conversation. She wanted words of anger, words of  rebuttal, something to drag from Willie's mouth. 

Not today. 

He didn't blink. Didn't flinch. He smiled instead. He hated Vickie, too. 

"Sounds like a party back there," he said. His voice dipped, mock-kind—a Mobley insult  wrapped in manners. 

Vickie walked away, stomping her feet like she was killing a bug or two. Her lips twitched as if  on fire. She was trying to find the words, but they were hard to form. 

"Coming, Mrs. Stevens," Vickie snapped at last. Finally. 

Willie threw her a glare sharp enough to flay bone. He let her vanish without a glance. That was  the clinic's way—never to the face, always behind the back. 

Still, his eyes slid to her tiny hips. A fly bounced off her thigh. Then again, off her hip. He  smirked. Let it curl, then fade.

And then he focused on hunger instead. Whataburger sat three blocks east—smug and shining  like salvation. 

Bacon whispered through memory like a woman who once meant too much and left too slowly. 

It was that kind of day—the kind where ghosts smelled like grease and good decisions cost too  much. He was starving. And stubborn enough to pretend that mattered more than magic. 

His pack held nothing. He'd left the food at home—on purpose or not, didn't matter now. Maybe  there was a note tucked beside the sandwich, something kind or something cruel. But there was  hungry magic in his blood today, and his bones held no peace to argue with. 

He was just hungry—soul-deep, stomach-tight, faithless-hungry. And there wasn't a single place  left to put the weight of knowing too damn much. 

So he shoved Vickie, the fly, and the monsters—real or not—out of his skull. Let his mind settle  on food—real food, not the memory of it. 

Then it turned, uninvited, toward Garcia. 

Queen of Magical Farts. Empress of Side-Eye and Snap Judgment. 

Still buried under that loud floral blanket. The woman hadn't moved. Not once. Not even to  judge a man for breathing too loudly. Strange. 

Garcia didn't sleep. She treated the clinic like a church and a courtroom. Every tube had a story.  Every patient had a nickname. Every nurse was a sinner. 

And yet she'd missed two gossip rounds now. Let them pass her untouched. Willie didn't ask. He just noticed. That was his gift and his curse. He clocked it in silence. 

Didn't matter. Garcia was a lifter—stone setter, three days a week. Monday, Wednesday, Friday.  Like him. She handled dialysis like it owed her money, and she was here to collect in quarterly  installments. 

No passion. No poetry. Just survival, old wounds, and timed prayers. Same as always. 

Every patient here was a ghost of what he might become—skin sagging in familiar places, eyes  dulled by the same slow poison. Death didn't wait in the corners. It sat beside you, patient and  polite. 

Willie shifted. Mistake. 

Pain flared in his lower spine, blooming sharp and sudden like fire on wet skin. Lightning with  nowhere to go, drawn through marrow and memory both. 

A cruel reminder that this body—for all its power—had long since stopped being his ally. And it  never missed a chance to prove it.

Everything below the hip locked up. Toes curled. Calf clenched. Nerves pulled tight like strings.  It felt like iron dragging through old scar tissue—slow, deliberate, and earned. 

He tried to flex. Then he tried again. Shifted a fraction. Each move was a negotiation with pain.  And pain always got the final word. 

Still, when the cramps came, stillness was all they allowed. No screams. No tears. Just clenched  jaws and closed eyes. 

In dialysis, your only real prayer was silence held long enough to outlast the pain. 

Willie gritted his teeth and let the seconds slide by like molasses on cold tin. Still as a  mannequin. Still, as a man trying not to shatter. 

And that's when something entered. 

But something else reached him first. Not a thought. Not even a memory worth its salt. 

It came suddenly, bone-deep, wrong—a scream so real it ripped past the room, past the cold, past  the half-dead smell. 

It didn't echo. It didn't ask permission. It was already inside. 

Not through the ears. Not crawling off walls. It hit deep from the inside, like a scream swallowed  by water but louder than bone. 

Then a flash—wet, hot, raw. Slick heat blooming behind the sternum, too thick to be pain, too  bright to be remembered. 

Afterbirth. Not here. Willie knew that deep down—past marrow, past thought, past the will to  lie. 

But blood didn't care about logic. Didn't care about lineage. Didn't care about distance. It reacted.  It rose. 

His body locked. Seized, like it had heard a name it wasn't supposed to remember. His mind  tripped trying to follow, but it was already too late. 

He blinked once— 

And the clinic collapsed. 

In its place: a ceiling fan above a cracked tile, slowly blowing stale air. Peeling corners. Dull  light. A hospital room that had seen too many ghosts. 

Then the baby cried. 

Not soft. Not new. Old soul. A scream so round and real it cracked the air like thunder rolling  over drowned fields.

A man's hand reached up. Clenched against nothing. Searching for someone he had trusted to  stay. Someone who hadn't. 

The wail continued. Then the pain came for Willie. 

It shot through his side, pulled the air out of his lungs like it belonged to someone else. It wasn't  Willie's pain, but he knew the shape of it, as if it had lived there once. Like it still paid rent in his  gut. 

Willie gasped. Blink. 

The clinic returned. Chairs. Needles. Bleach. Machines humming like tired gods. Cold again,  though he hadn't felt it leave. 

But something had changed. Something real. 

Behind his heart—the Domain. 

At first, it was only a thread. A filament of light, thin and violent, no color right for it. Not  golden. Not warm. White screaming blue, like a nerve caught fire. 

The sound of tearing. A seam ripped across his chest. The light clawed up his chest like it had  directions. Pressed against his teeth. 

And then came the smells. 

Ozone sharp, like copper struck by lightning. Jasmine, faint and bitter. The rot of old rainwater  sealed in a tomb. Willie's mouth filled with the taste of fresh dirt and spoiled honey. 

The Domain didn't rush. It lingered. It tasted him first. It remembered. Crawled slowly through  bone and breath like smoke from a forgotten fire. 

His skin prickled with it. Hair standing. Eyebrows too. The machine's click faded, the cold  dissolved, and all he heard was his own blood humming louder than the world. 

For the first time in years—decades maybe—he felt it. Not memory. Not imagination. Instinct. Fear. 

The Domain. Waking. 

He tried to push it open. Then it vanished. 

Not quite gone. The gone that only comes after a thing leaves its mark. 

"No," Willie said. 

But the blood was already louder.

NO. 

Not denial. Not refusal. The kind of no that meant I'm here now. 

And Willie had never said no to the blood. Not once. Not when it asked for sacrifice. Not when it  whispered hunger. Not when it told him who to love, who to bury, who to burn. 

The blood always knew first. 

And now it knew again. Something had been born. Somewhere close. Too close. And the blood didn't just feel it—it wanted it. 

It began to rise. Not in rage. Not in joy. Something worse. Growth. Roots are cracking the walls  of his sealed Domain. Memory grinding into instinct again. 

His thoughts dropped—downward, backward, inward. Not into memory; he had buried most of  those with his old name. But into reflex. Into the dark weight of what he used to be before the  seal. 

The creature who had no bedtime and no limits. Immortal. Not born, not made. Just was. Back  when Willie's blood was a storm and his breath could shift winds. 

But no echo came. No heat rose—only silence. 

Willie searched. Dug through the cracks with the edge of his will. But the magic was gone. Not  asleep. Not hiding. Locked. Sealed. Tighter than a grave under holy stone. 

Still—it had flinched. And that was enough to count as a beginning. 

Even beginnings hurt. Especially those not supposed to break. 

It was a prison. One Willie had built himself. Not for glory. Not for power. A trade. A lost life. A  sacrifice. Sorrow. 

All to save her. 

Willie's heart. 

And now, he needed a machine to live. Silence to keep from screaming. Memory to keep her  alive. A cursed spell to keep her home. 

Because the only thing left of her… was the stillness. Illusions of love. 

He still felt lucky. That was the curse of surviving. Lucky meant being able to breathe while  others couldn't. Lucky meant remembering what you'd buried. 

It was a cruel kind of grace—one that never let you forget the cost.

The sealed blood hadn't abandoned him completely. It offered something small. A sliver. A  splinter of what he used to be. A shard of power. A final rite. 

He could tamper with time. Not the world. Not the stars. Just the space around his eyes and  beneath his own breath. Folding a pocket into fabric. Like pretending one heartbeat could be a  doorway. 

But what good was pausing time when all he wanted was to stop the past? 

Magic still worked. Just not clean. Not pure. Not like before. It was a memory with teeth—a  ritual of grief. Each incantation is a scar. 

Every scar told a story of battles fought and lost. 

Before the seal, back then, intent was everything. A single thought could split the skies or mend  a dying name. Back then, his hands burned with purpose—family fire. 

Now? Every spell came with a receipt. And the blood was always collected. Blood. Memory.  Pain. Always pain. 

The soul moved slowly these days, like wet leaves dragged through swamp water. He wasn't sure  it could lift one more wish—a strength given away twenty years ago. 

He had sealed the Domain with grief instead of locks and caged the immortal spark inside a box  made of bone and silence. 

And yet it still hummed—a whispering sound, reminiscent of the wind weaving through a coffin. The memory loomed larger in his mind like a dagger, piercing deeper into his consciousness. 

"I'm a fool," Willie muttered. The truth stung sharply, leaving an uncomfortable silence in its  wake. 

He tensed, cruelly racing down his spine. The sensation of being judged flooded over him once  more. 

Those eyes—insistent and unyielding—seemed to penetrate the very fabric of his being, lurking  in the shadows, always observing, always waiting. 

He ignored them. That was the deal. Ignore the watchers. Keep the routine. Then came the whisper—same every time. 

Coward. 

He had been brave once. He remembered that. The fire in his veins. The way people spoke his  name—as though it burned their tongues.

Now? Even the blanket felt too heavy. Some mornings, it pinned him in place, as if it knew what  he'd lost and still judged the version that remained. 

But then—almost kindly, almost cruel—the cramps left. Gone like they'd never meant it. Willie  exhaled, shallow, slow. Not relief. Just a ritual. 

He tucked the blanket tighter around his legs, like it could ward off memory. Settled back into  stillness, like it was a kind of faith. 

✦✦✦ 

Far away—beyond fence and firelight, in a forest older than the language of kings—something  stirred. 

The air cracked. Twice. Sharp and hollow, like old knuckles dragged through time. Then stillness. Not peace. A silence that bent the world around it like iron near heat. 

And then—Wuggie opened one eye. Not wide. Not afraid. Just enough to see what the world was  hiding. 

Between his paws, a soul twitched. Small. Fresh. Bleeding. Wet with birth. Leaking from the  neck like truth spilled too early. Stupid enough to scream in a place where screaming meant  invitation. 

The trees didn't move. But the wind ducked low. Even the stars blinked twice, then looked away. Wuggie yawned. 

Slowly, he stretched. Long body uncoiling, sinew flexing. His fangs slid down, slick with joy. "He's waking," Wuggie whispered, eyes on the Louisiana nightline. 

To no one was it called. To everything, it answered. 

The moss beneath him pulsed once. The soul between his paws screamed once. Then both went  still again. 

"The Dead Master stirs," Wuggie said. Like a prayer. Like a warning etched into bark. 

He rolled his neck. Flexed his shoulder until it popped—like truth breaking open. Listened for  footsteps that hadn't happened yet—but would—already written, already paid for. 

Then he sat up. 

A curl of light spilled from the sky. Thin as a wish. Sharp as a claw. It touched the crown of  Willie's head—soft, sacred, final—then vanished. 

He smiled. Not kindly.

"He'll call soon," Wuggie said. 

And right as the words faded— 

*********************************************** 

The phone in Willie's coat pocket buzzed. 

Beyoncé shattered the clinic's quiet. Her voice blared like a bomb that everyone could hear.  Wrong time, Willie sighed and reached for the phone. Then stopped. 

Nobody ever called during dialysis. Not unless it was blood, family, or trouble—and with the  Mobleys, those three were usually the same thing. 

Willie didn't move at first. He stared straight ahead, letting the machine hum, pretending he  hadn't heard it. Maybe if he ignored the call, the world would keep spinning without him. 

But that was Elizabeth's ring call. 

It pulsed again—longer, sharper, like it wanted to bite. 

Willie sighed and fished the phone out with his free hand. The screen glowed with a name that  made everything tighten. 

Elizabeth. 

Dice rolled—not the ringtone, but the feeling. The fear behind it. The knowing before the words. Something was wrong. 

It buzzed again, frenzied. Not polite. Angry now. 

He fumbled through the coat. Willie's hands were colder than he remembered. Too slow. 

He almost let it ring out. Almost. But blood had a way of dragging you back whether you wanted  it or not. 

Shame buzzed louder than the ringtone. 

Willie should've prepared for life. But that wasn't what fathers did. Not when everyone was too  used to surviving and too tired to guess right or wrong. 

The other patients stared. Machines clicked in judgment. Still, he smiled. 

He hadn't heard Elizabeth's voice in weeks and had a few bad dreams. 

Last time she said, "I love you." Too clean, too early—like the words had a promise behind  them.

Willie didn't know why it felt wrong. Just that it did. 

He answered. 

"Elizabeth, I'm busy right now—" 

She interjected quickly, "Dad." Sharp. Cut clearly. "Dad, I messed up." 

Four dangerous words, and the room tilted. 

Silence bloomed. Short. But long enough to crack his joints open and let something crawl inside. Dice rolled deeper. Bone-deep. 

The machine buzzed, steady as always, but Willie couldn't hear it over the rush in his ears. Something under his chest burned, the seal twisting like it wanted to break free. 

Willie pressed his palm hard against his chest, trying to will the pressure away. "Slow down.  Speak it straight." 

Elizabeth didn't ask for help. She didn't mess up. She was the one people called when things  went wrong. 

His little girl had been her own storm for a long time. And now—she was calling the eye. "Where are you?" Willie asked. His voice stayed calm. His spine did not. "Are you safe?" 

He tried to shift the phone, but the dialysis tubes pinned him in place. Wires like shackles.  Needles like anchors. 

No standing. No running. No magic. Only listening. 

Then he listened. 

"I'm trapped," Elizabeth whispered. 

She swayed over a sink in a kitchen that wasn't hers, breath coming in jagged stabs. Her eyes  were wide and wet. 

Magic flickered beneath her skin like a lantern choking on its last wick. 

Her body spoke first—ache in the hips, churn in the gut, something coiling low and silent,  watching. 

Her thoughts staggered like drunks. 

She slapped her mouth. The wall caught her before the floor did.

Cold tile. Harsh light. A sour memory clung to Elizabeth's tongue—bile and burnt sugar  together. 

Monster Land. 

Not a place. A truth. A name whispered by those who bled there. 

Not by those who had buried someone inside it. 

"I'm sorry," she murmured. Soft. Sincere. Already slipping. 

Willie pressed the phone harder to his ear, hard enough that it hurt. The dice in his chest rattled  like bones inside a warning jar. He shut out the clinic—the stares, the chill, even the machine. 

"You've been in tighter spots," he said at last. His voice shifted, older now, familiar. That  Mobley cadence: stone wrapped in steel, slow and steady like death on horseback. "Think it out,  baby. You know how." 

"They're here, Dad." 

Her voice cracked on the last word, like something snapped behind it. Her eyes lifted and saw  something the world wasn't ready to show—a flicker behind a fence, a twitch in the veil. 

The air turned blade-sharp, cut sideways through her breath. Elizabeth pressed a trembling hand  to her stomach as if the sound itself might split her open from the inside. 

"I need you." 

A whisper. Honest. Desperate. Too soft to be a lie. 

Willie swallowed hard. The tremble in his hand matched hers. 

Monster Land. After all these years, it still knew his name. He could hear it in her breath, smell it  in her voice—blood, wet dirt, rusted gates. It had marked her, and now it had come to collect. 

Could he walk back in? No. He would even if it killed him again. 

"Is there anywhere to hide?" he asked, voice low, praying low. 

Monster Land was far from Houston, too far for luck to matter. 

"I've got a pod, Dad." Her magic sputtered behind her ribs, weak light in a drowning room. "I'm  out of tricks… sorry." 

She said it like a breath. Not a sentence. Not a plea. Just the truth. 

Willie's mind flipped through dead spells and closed doors. Old maps. Old debts. Old powers he  was no longer allowed to call.

"How much time?" 

The first time he asked, it sounded like a coward's question. But he needed to know. The dice in his chest rolled again—heavy, loud, final. 

Twenty years. Since the seal. Since Willie laid down his legacy and wrapped it in silence, since  he told the world he was retired. But the world wasn't done listening—not done with him. 

He inhaled weakly. The clinic hummed around him, unaware of the reckoning on the other end  of the line. 

His daughter was in Monster Land. 

And Willie Mobley was waking up. 

Put the coward to bed. Willie no longer had room for him. Not with her voice cracking down the  line. Not with Monster Land breathing on the other end. 

"Not sure," Elizabeth murmured. Her voice was tight with fear. But discipline held its edge. She  was his daughter, after all—raised on watchful silence, sharpened by every storm he'd taught her  to walk through. 

"Focus," he said. Stone voice. Command sealed in flesh and blood and twenty years of guilt. 

The cursed pod might hold her. Maybe. But if her core failed—if her magic collapsed or her  breath ran dry—she would die. Alone. Swallowed by a place that didn't believe in graves. Only  things left behind. 

"Is that all you have?" he asked again. No shake in his voice. Not anymore. But something inside  cracked. 

Something more profound than a crack. More than familiar. 

Elizabeth closed her eyes and reached inward, touching the ember of her soul as if it were a  matchbook left in the rain. 

"Three days," she said. 

A lie. 

"That's enough," Willie answered. Another lie. But she needed one. And he owed her something  better than truth. 

He didn't know if he could survive another run through Monster Land. But he knew one thing— he'd try. He'd burn it clean if he had to. Scrub it from the map with blood and old fire—anything  to bring her home. 

"Where are you?" he asked. Already knowing and still needing to hear it.

"In Fluker," she said. 

The name hit like a nail to the chest. A spike forged from bad dreams and older warnings. Not a  place—a curse. 

Louisiana. Sealed off from ORBIT agents. Forbidden unless summoned by blood or prophecy.  And she'd gone anyway. Alone. 

To the land where monsters didn't hide under beds. They ran towns—owned churches. Shook  hands with your pastor and courted your cousins. Set fire to your memories and taxed your  bloodline. 

"Why?" he asked. Not out of judgment. Not to blame. Out of the trembling need only a father  knows—to rewind time, to fix what was already falling. 

The word tasted like dirt: old blood and bone-dry dirt. 

"What the hell are you hunting?" 

Elizabeth didn't answer. Her breath snagged on something she didn't want to name. Something  that might speak back if she did. 

"I'll explain later, Daddy." Her voice was soft—the kind you used when you imagined something  was already standing behind you, fire in one hand and forgiveness in the other. 

"I'm at 2415 Hob North Street." 

Willie repeated it under his breath, etching it into the walls behind his soul. Didn't matter what  was there. Only those who were there. His daughter. 

"Baby, I'll find you," he said. He didn't make promises. Not anymore. But he made this one. "You sure that's all you've got?" he asked again. One last time. To make sure. The dice in Willie's chest stopped. Not settled. Stopped. 

What the hell did that mean? 

The dice didn't stop. They listened. 

And somewhere in Fluker, a preacher's shadow began to twitch.