Chapter 17 — The Sirens

Right on cue, as if the timing itself were part of the record I had built, the sound reached us.

Faint at first, then rising, the wail of multiple sirens, coming down the quiet suburban street toward the house.

And then the light.

Red and blue, flashing, pulsing through the sheer curtains of the front living room windows, throwing colored bars across the walls of the dining room where we stood.

Julian’s eyes went wide with a sudden, raw panic, the confidence draining out of him all at once, the predator’s certainty replaced in an instant by the plain fear of a cornered man.