Instantly, the entire house plunged into absolute, suffocating darkness. The hum of the refrigerator died. The Wi-Fi router blinked out.
He hadn’t left. He had just circled the block to cut the main power line.
We are trapped.
Total darkness is a physical weight. It presses against your eardrums and makes the air feel thick.
“Mom?” Emma whimpered in the pitch black.
“Stay low. Don’t move,” I whispered, operating entirely on muscle memory. I reached into the hall closet by feel, retrieving my tactical flashlight and a secondary magazine for my revolver. I kept the light off. If Tyler had men surrounding the house, a flashlight beam sweeping across the windows would just make us targets.
I crept through the house, pulling the heavy blackout curtains shut over every window, checking every lock. Through a sliver in the living room blinds, I saw the shadows. Two men in dark raincoats were standing at the edge of my backyard, pacing near the tree line. Tyler had called his fixers. They were waiting for us to panic, to run out the back door into their arms.
