Instead, there was nothing. A single bird skull lay broken on the floor, crushed underfoot by either her or the Watcher itself, to prove the creature had once stood there. She found her phone, kicked into the room’s corner, and tucked it into her pocket.

Margot closed the front door and turned into the kitchen. She took her bottle of pain medication from the cupboard and swallowed a tablet, along with two large glasses of water.

She could have fallen asleep right there, draped over the kitchen table, but she made herself climb the stairs instead. There were likely other spare bedrooms that would be more comfortable, but Margot made for her old room instead. The axe still lay discarded on the floor. The bedside table had been crushed into the wall, leaving a dent in the plaster. She ignored all of that and crawled under the bed’s blankets, fully clothed. It didn’t matter how the room looked. And it didn’t matter how the stains on her arms and dirt in her hair would get through the sheets. She was too exhausted to care.

Sleep came easily. There were no dreams—not of the funeral parlor and not of the dead ones. Only a single thought ran through her head as she drifted under. What now?

It clung to her over hours, and when she woke, it was still there, heavy and dense like a physical thing clouding the center of her mind.

The shadows had moved across the walls. Margot shifted and felt the bruises and scrapes across her body spark back to life. Flakes of dirt crumbled from her hands and beneath her fingernails. She brought her phone out to check the time. Three in the afternoon. She crawled out of bed and staggered to the bathroom.

Her cast made showering difficult, but she ran warm water into the bathtub as she peeled her clothes off, dropping them on the floor.

What now?

The water turned a muddy shade of red as she washed herself. Gradually her skin became visible again. She picked around the edges of the cast the best she could as she waited for the water to drain and poured a fresh tub.

The marks on her arm became clear as she rinsed blood away. They were punctures more than cuts, already scabbed with dry blood. She’d had a tetanus shot just eight months before, so should be safe at least as far as that was concerned.

Once her body was clean, she wrapped a towel around herself and rinsed her hair in the sink. There wouldn’t have been time for a full routine, even if she’d had the energy, so she focused on getting the dirt out and then let it lie, damp and dripping, over her back as she returned to her room.

What now?