The screen lit up on its own — a message notification, centered on the glass. N: You did well today.

I know it hurts, but we go deeper tomorrow.

Don’t keep hiding this from Marlo. I stopped breathing. N. A single initial. Go deeper tomorrow.

Hiding this from Marlo. The words felt intimate and clinical at once, and I read them the only way my fear would let me: as proof.

I heard the shower shut off upstairs, and I backed away from the phone with my hands shaking, certain I had found the shape of the thing, and certain I would follow it to the end.

Chapter 9 — The Page