The rain had turned violent by the time they left the station.
Not heavy. Aggressive.
It came down in hard, slanted sheets that struck the car hard enough to sound deliberate, water already sheeting across the road despite drains working at full choke. Wind shoved at the doors when Jack unlocked them, forcing him to brace one shoulder as he ushered Linda and Jolie inside.
The radio flared to life as the engine turned.
“...amber warning now in effect across Suffolk and parts of Essex. Sudden wind gusts exceeding fifty miles an hour, localised flooding reported, and emergency services advising against non-essential travel. This system was not forecast—”
Jack swore under his breath and shut the door harder than necessary.
“Five minutes,” he said as soon as the locks clicked. “That’s what Khan said. Five. We don’t stretch it.”
Linda nodded too quickly. Jolie once, sharper.
Jack pulled into traffic. The wipers leapt straight to their highest setting and still struggled, smearing more than clearing. The road fractured into streaks of sodium light and reflected red.
Combs Ford slid past in pieces—shuttered shops, paint blistering off brickwork, the pub dark on a night it used to glow. Finnborough Road came up fast, narrower than Jack remembered, cars half-abandoned on the pavement like people had stopped finishing things.
The town looked tired. Not neglected—just worn thin. Like it had learned not to expect improvement to last.
“...conditions developing rapidly,” the radio continued. “Drivers urged to take caution—”
A gust hit the car broadside hard enough to jerk the wheel. Jack corrected, slowed another ten.
“Forecast didn’t say a word about this,” he muttered.
Linda’s fingers dug into her sleeve.
They turned onto her street.
The house stood where it always had—unchanged in outline, wrong in context. Hedge overgrown. Gate hanging crooked on one hinge. Two doors down, graffiti half-washed by rain, black paint bleeding into brick.
Jack braked hard.
“Alright,” he said. “In and out.”
Linda’s hand was already on the door.
“Linda.”
She froze.
Jack hadn’t raised his voice. He didn’t need to.
The engine idled unevenly, wind rocking the car. Rain hammered the roof so hard it flattened sound.
Jack kept his eyes forward for a moment longer than necessary, then turned.
“The girl,” he said. “The one on the CCTV.”
Linda didn’t answer.
Jolie shifted first, angling herself slightly between them without making it obvious.
“You told Khan she was a cousin,” Jack continued. “I didn’t push it because that wasn’t the room for it.”
He met Linda’s eyes.
“But I know your family.”
Linda’s mouth opened. Closed.
“I’ve met your sisters,” Jack said, careful. “Your parents. I’ve been to barbecues and funerals and school things I didn’t want to attend and went to anyway. There isn’t a cousin.”
The rain intensified suddenly, drumming so hard the sound flattened, like standing under a spillway.
Jolie exhaled once.
“Fine,” she said. “You want the truth?”
Linda turned sharply. “Jolie—”
Jolie didn’t look at her.
“Skye came back last night,” Jolie said. “Same clothes. Same age. No memory of anything after she left the house five years ago.”
Jack stared at her.
Not disbelief. Assessment.
Then he let out a short breath that was almost a laugh.
“Right,” he said. “And I’m guessing she didn’t knock.”
Jolie’s mouth twitched despite herself.
Jack shook his head once. Slow.
“You’re asking me to believe your daughter came back from the dead.”
No accusation. Just the shape of the claim.
Linda stayed silent.
The wind howled down the street, bending the trees wrong, branches scraping together like something trying to get noticed.
Jack watched Linda now—not as an officer. As a father.
“You’re terrified,” he said. “I get that. And I don’t blame you for lying to Khan. I’d lie to God himself if Ben were on the line.”
Linda swallowed.
“She just came home,” she said finally. “She asked why there wasn’t any butter. Like it was the same day.”
Jack reached up and turned off the wipers.
Rain swallowed the windscreen instantly.
He sat there for a beat. Then another.
“Alright,” he said. “I don’t believe that.”
He turned the wipers back on.
“But I also don’t believe in coincidences,” he added. “And I don’t waste time arguing with frightened people.”
He looked at the house.
“I’ll give you ten minutes instead of five. I need time to think.”
Linda nodded, relief and dread colliding hard enough to make her lightheaded.
She opened the door. The wind nearly tore it from her hand.
Jolie followed, one hand already at Linda’s back, steering her toward the house as rain soaked them through, shoes slipping on the wet path.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Behind them, Jack stayed in the car.
He watched them struggle with the keys. Watched the door finally open and spill warm light into the storm.
Then he picked up his phone.
The call connected quickly.
“Katherine,” he said. “Sorry—I know I said I’d be back at the hall.”
Pause.
“Yes. I know it’s chaos.”
Another pause.
“Simon and Alice are with you?”
Longer.
“Okay.”
He hung up.
The storm battered the car again. Somewhere nearby, a branch snapped with a sharp crack.
Jack stared at the house, jaw tight.
He hesitated.
Then he called back.
“Katherine,” he said when she answered again. “I need you to tell me something, and I need you to tell me straight.”
The rain thundered.
“I’ve just been told Skye Harper is alive.”
A pause—short, confused.
“No,” Jack said immediately. “I don’t mean lookalike. I don’t mean cousin. There is no cousin.”
He rubbed a hand over his face.
“Yes, I know how that sounds.”
Another pause. Longer.
Jack’s posture changed.
“Say that again,” he said.
The wind shoved the car hard enough that he braced his foot.
“She hasn’t aged?”
Silence stretched.
“No,” he said. “No, that’s not—”
He stopped.
His voice dropped.
“She had a seizure?”
Another pause.
“And she’s saying names.”
Jack closed his eyes.
“Which names.”
He didn’t speak for several seconds after that.
Then, quieter: “Elias. Anna.”
He ended the call and sat there as the rain hammered down, breath coming too fast.
Dead for five years.
No ageing.
No gap.
No cousin.
Jack laughed once under his breath—small, disbelieving.
“Jesus,” he said.
This time the word stuck.
He straightened, something in him settling into place—not faith, not awe.
Responsibility.
“Alright,” he said to the empty car. “Alright.”
Cop first.
Father always.
He checked the mirrors, the street, the dark edges where things hid in weather like this.
Whatever rules had broken, his hadn’t.
He stayed in the car, counting the minutes, the storm raging around him, knowing one thing with absolute clarity:
If the world had decided to take another run at that child, it would have to go through him first.
?
Inside, the door shut on the storm with a dull thud that didn’t keep it out so much as muffle it.
Rain followed them in—water shaken from coats, droplets sliding from Jolie’s scarf onto the tiles. The house smelled of old warmth trapped in fabric, washing powder from the throws, something sour underneath that never quite lifted.
Linda stood with her back to the door for a second too long, palm pressed flat against the wood, breathing shallowly, as if lungs were another thing that might betray her.
Jolie reached past her and set the chain and bolt without comment. The click sounded final.
“Upstairs,” Jolie said quietly.
They moved through the hall. The living room sat wrong in the half-light, furniture still misaligned despite earlier efforts. The dining table still held folded laundry from a life paused mid-sentence.
Jolie set her bag down, produced two holdalls.
“Essentials,” she said. “No digging.”
Upstairs, the house cooled.
The stairs creaked where they always had. Linda’s feet adjusted without thought. The wallpaper hadn’t changed, but the scuffs were new. The crooked frame still hadn’t been straightened.
Jolie opened Linda’s bedroom and dropped a holdall on the bed.
Linda hovered in the doorway.
This morning she’d left believing she was doing something sensible.
Now she was back with a countdown and a threat she could feel but not name.
Jolie packed with quiet efficiency—socks, underwear, chargers. Measurable things.
Linda reached for the wardrobe and froze when the hinge complained.
The sound landed wrong.
Pressure rose under her ribs, hands going numb.
“Linda,” Jolie said softly.
“I’m fine,” Linda said. The words didn’t fit.
Jolie shifted her stance—not blocking, just present.
“Ten minutes,” she said. “Pick three outfits. Warm. Easy.”
Linda forced her hands to move. Jeans. Jumpers. A coat she never wore. She shoved them into the bag and stopped, breath ragged.
“Alice’s things,” Linda said.
“I’ll handle hers,” Jolie replied. “You do yours. Skye’s.”
Skye’s.
The word weighed the room.
Linda’s hand stilled on the zip.
Jolie moved toward the wardrobe without asking. Linda didn’t stop her.
“I shouldn’t have said it,” Linda said suddenly. “To Jack.”
“You didn’t,” Jolie said. “I did.”
“He’ll tell Khan.”
“Maybe,” Jolie said. “Or maybe he does what he always does.”
Linda looked at her.
“Protects his own.”
Alive.
Linda’s hands shook. She buried them in the bag.
“Where’s Skye’s bag?” Jolie asked.
“Her room,” Linda said, too softly.
The corridor narrowed.
At Skye’s door, Linda hesitated. The handle was worn under her palm.
The room smelled of clean sheets and dust and something small and unmistakably childlike.
The bed was made badly. On the pillow sat the rabbit.
Linda crossed the room and picked it up. Smaller than memory. One ear wrong.
She lay back without deciding to. The mattress dipped where it always had. The rabbit pressed against her chest.
The ceiling crack was still there.
Sounds arrived uninvited. Footsteps. Singing. Laughter. Then shouting. Crying learned into silence. Doors closing. Leaving.
Wind rattled the window hard enough to make her flinch.
She sat up and turned toward the cupboard.
Her body moved before she chose.
Inside, the clothes hung unevenly. Empty hangers. The rail above—
There.
A faint abrasion in the wood. A darkened groove.
Linda stopped breathing.
Her hand lifted and froze inches from it.
Down the hall, Jolie said, “Linda?”
Linda didn’t answer.
The rain roared.
The cupboard stayed open.
Jolie’s footsteps stopped just outside the room.
Not in the doorway. In the corridor, where she could be heard without being seen.
“Linda,” she said again—quieter this time, as if volume could make it safer.
Linda’s throat worked. Nothing came out.
The rabbit hung wrong from her fist, its ear folded over her knuckles, dampened by the sweat in her palm. Her other hand hovered near the rail, still refusing to touch the mark like contact would turn it into a decision again.
A floorboard creaked beneath Jolie’s weight.
Then another—closer, but slow. No rush. No cornering.
Linda’s shoulders tightened anyway. Her body had already chosen what to do: stay still, pretend stillness was a kind of control.
Jolie didn’t step into the room. She didn’t say what are you doing or look at me or anything that would drag the air into a fight.
She only asked, flat and practical, like she was talking to someone who might bolt.
“Can you breathe for me?”
Linda’s breath came in a shallow, sharp pull that made her ribs ache. It wasn’t an answer. It was proof.
Jolie waited.
The storm shoved at the house again, a long push, and the window gave a small rattle in its frame. The sound ran through Linda’s teeth.
The rabbit slipped an inch in her grip. She tightened her fist until the fabric creased.
Jolie’s voice stayed where it was. “I’m going to come in,” she said. “Not fast.”
Linda didn’t say yes. She didn’t say no.
Jolie stepped into the doorway.
Her eyes went to the cupboard first—not the mark itself, not yet, but the open door, the exposed rail, the way Linda stood too close to it, body angled like something bracing for impact.
She stilled.
For a fraction of a second, something unguarded crossed her face.
Shock.
Her breath caught—audible, sharp—before she could stop it.
“Oh,” Jolie said.
The word slipped out wrong. Too bare. Too human.
She closed her mouth immediately, jaw tightening as if she could pull it back in.
Her gaze dropped to Linda’s hands.
The rabbit, crushed tight. The other hand hovering, refusing.
Then to Linda’s face.
Jolie swallowed.
When she spoke again, her voice was steadier, but it wasn’t untouched.
“Linda,” she said, and the name landed differently now—closer, stripped of distance. “Hey.”
She took one step forward and stopped herself. The restraint was visible—not professional, but effort. Like stepping closer might snap something she couldn’t put back.
“We don’t have to—” She broke off, exhaled through her nose. Tried again. “We don’t have to do this now.”
Linda’s mouth opened. Her tongue stuck to the roof of it.
A sound came out anyway. “It’s—” She swallowed hard. “It’s there, I thought I-.”
“I know,” Jolie said. Her voice didn’t rise to match it. “I can see.”
Her eyes flicked once, involuntarily, back to the rail.
Then away.
As if looking too long might make it real in a way she wasn’t ready to carry.
Linda’s gaze stayed fixed on the groove. She couldn’t make it move.
The house took another hit of wind. The rain hammered like it had a grudge.
Jolie shifted her weight, careful. “Linda. Look at me.”
Linda didn’t.
Jolie didn’t repeat herself.
Instead she reached out—slow, visible—and closed the cupboard door halfway. Not shutting it. Not forcing it. Just narrowing the view. Giving Linda less to drown in.
The hinge complained softly.
Linda flinched as if the sound had hands.
Jolie froze mid-motion. “Sorry.”
She withdrew her hand and let the cupboard stay half-open. A compromise.
Jolie’s voice was lower now. Controlled, but threaded with something else—fear she hadn’t let herself name.
“Let’s get you downstairs,” she said. “We can finish packing later. We can—”
A sound cut through her.
Not the storm.
Not the house settling.
Three sharp knocks, close and deliberate, somewhere below.
Jolie went still.
Linda’s head lifted without her meaning to, chin jerking toward the bedroom door as if her bones recognised the pattern before her mind did.
The knock came again.
And again.
Jolie’s eyes flicked to Linda’s face. “That’ll be Jack,” she said, and the words were meant to anchor—but they shook slightly at the edges. “It’s okay.”
Linda’s lungs refused to fill properly.
Jolie stepped back into the corridor, turning her body sideways as if to make space.
“Stay,” she said—not to control Linda, but to keep her from tipping back toward the rail. “Just... stay for a second. I’ll—”
The world didn’t give her the chance.
The sound shifted.
Not knocking now—something heavier. A slam of impact, as if a door downstairs had been thrown open too hard or caught by the wind and hit the wall.
Jolie swore under her breath and moved fast for the first time, boots thudding down the landing.
Linda crushed the rabbit into her chest like a shield that didn’t work.
Another sound—faint, wrong, human—rose from below. A strangled shout. A voice that didn’t belong in this night.
Linda tried to move.
Her feet didn’t obey on the first attempt. Her knees locked, then loosened with a sick lurch.
The rabbit slipped. She caught it, fingers shaking.
Then—
everything shifted.
Not in a clean cut.
Not with a clear line.
The cupboard door wasn’t half-open anymore.
The storm wasn’t there.
The air changed under her skin.
What was left was darkness and a memory of something she tried to bury.
