The door banged as something hit it. The thick wood shivered under the impact, sending tremors through Leanne’s body. She stepped back, separating herself from it, her heart strained to breaking. Her ears rang from the noise.

“Hello?”

She didn’t expect an answer, and she didn’t receive one. Leanne worked her jaw, feeling the perspiration stick her shirt to her back, even as each stuttering breath created a plume of condensation in the cool air.

There was something wrong with Bellamy. She had been running from it for most of her life. It had brought her home, though. Perhaps it had always intended to. Perhaps no one ever truly escaped the building.

She reached out and touched the door’s handle. It had been kept locked when she was a child. Now, though, it turned under light pressure. Everything else in Bellamy was fused and stiff from age but not this door. It was as smooth as if it were brand-new.

No more running. No more hiding.

She pushed on the door and stepped through.

The room was unnaturally dark. The door behind her should have allowed light in, but as Leanne stepped over the threshold, the glow faded into nothing.

Leanne gasped as the cold hit her. It was painful in its intensity, scorching her throat and her lungs. Colder than the building could possibly be on a balmy night.

Hinges creaked. Leanne turned and reached her hand out to hold the door open, but she was too slow. The door slammed, and Leanne flinched.

She took the flashlight out of her pocket. As she fumbled for the switch, she squinted into the gloom. There was something ahead of her. She didn’t know how she could tell when it was too dark to see, but she could feel the presence. A figure, standing just out of arms’ reach, watching her.

Leanne’s breath hitched as she found the torch’s button. She felt the rubber indent under her finger, but there was no click and no light. She pressed the button again, then once more, then began mashing it desperately.

The battery hadn’t died. It couldn’t have. She’d replaced it the morning of that trip. And even if it had, she should have still heard the click of the button.

An unsettling sensation wrapped around her, squeezing her. She had the striking idea that the room was absorbing both noise and light. Syphoning them away and robbing her of her senses.

The figure ahead moved. There was a hiss, and the cold and dark were pierced by a small light.

Leanne watched the infant flame dance on the candle’s wick. It seemed horribly fragile, like it was ready to collapse and die at any second, but as it grew, it lit the figure holding it.

Blue eyes. Wisps of fine golden hair floating around her pale face. Rose-pink lips smiling. “My sweetheart,” Grace whispered. “You came back.”