You woke to the soft creak of the rocking chair. Back and forth. Back and forth.

The night was still—so still even the crickets seemed to hold their breath, as if they knew better than to sing over him.

Remmick sat there, calm and steady, cradling your baby girl in the old wooden chair you’d built during the quiet months of your pregnancy. He rocked her like he’d done it a hundred times. His eyes, warm with something unreadable, rested on you.

He was already home.

You didn’t scream. You didn’t run. Part of you had known this was coming.

You remembered the nights he used to come to your door—always when your husband was gone, off at some bar with whiskey on his breath and nothing good to say when he returned. Remmick would whisper through the cracks, offering you peace. A future. Something softer. “Let me in, darlin’. I’ll give you rest. I’ll give you everything he won’t.” You never let him cross the threshold.

But you also never told your husband he was coming. You’d seen what Remmick was—what he could be—in the way he looked at you. Not just with hunger, but something worse. Something truer. And when he caught your husband stumbling home one night, slurring your name with spit and venom on his tongue, Remmick had finally done what he’d longed to. He sank his teeth into his throat. And whispered promises as he bled out. I’ll love her better. I’ll never make her cry like this. I’ll know what she needs, down to her breath. He didn’t just take his life. He took his memories—every touch, every fight, every broken vow. And he used them. Used them to knock on your door while your baby cried, while you warmed a bottle and called out, thinking it was your husband returned.