All Chapters of The Heir Comes Home: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Dead Things Shouldn’t WatchEvery dead crow opened its eyes.Not slowly.Not one by one.All at once.Dozens of small black heads turned toward the truck, silver eyes catching in the headlights like coins at the bottom of a grave.I stopped breathing.Damien’s hand tightened on the steering wheel until leather creaked beneath his fingers.“Do not move,” he said.My laugh came out small and wrong. “Great. Excellent. Because moving was definitely my first instinct.”It wasn’t.My body had gone cold and useless in the passenger seat. Corey’s dried blood pulled tight across my fingers. My wet sock rubbed against my heel. The heater blew warm air against my knees like the world had the audacity to keep functioning normally.Outside, the crows hung upside down from the branches, tied by thin silver thread.Their wings shifted in the rain.Not from wind.There was no wind.Only rain falling straight down through the headlights.One crow blinked.Then another.Dead things should not blink.Th

Don’t Say My NameMy mother’s voice came from upstairs.“Lena?”Soft.Frightened.Close enough to hurt.Every warning I had been given slammed into me at once.Maggie’s voice.Corey’s message.If you hear your mother’s voice upstairs, don’t answer.My mother was in the hospital.My mother was in the hospital.My mother was in the hospital.I knew that.

My Bedroom Was Not EmptyThe thump from upstairs rolled through the house.Not loud.Not dramatic.Almost ordinary.That made it worse.Monsters crashed through windows.Ghosts whispered in dead voices.But something getting out of bed in my old bedroom?That was intimate.That was personal.That was the kind of wrong that crawled under your skin and made a home there.Damien stepped fully inside the entry hall.I followed.The house swallowed us in one breath.The door stayed open behind me, but the rain sounded farther away the second I crossed the threshold. Hollow. Muted. Like the storm had been shut behind glass.The entry hall looked exactly the same.The old table still leaned against the left wall. The cracked mirror hung above it, black now, reflecting nothing. Family photos lined the staircase. Dust softened every frame.My mother’s face stared back from one picture.Younger.Tired.Afraid even then.Beside her stood me at twelve, skinny-kneed and scowling in a blue dress I

The Hidden PanelDO NOT WAKE.The words sat in my lap like a threat.Not warning.Threat.My fingers hovered over the silver thread wrapped around the baby blanket. It looked delicate at first glance, thin and pretty in the low light from the hallway.But when I touched it, pain snapped up my fingers.I hissed and jerked back.Damien was beside me instantly. “Don’t touch the silver.”I looked at him slowly.“Funny how you said that like you already knew it was silver.”

Damien Knows This PageIf the Thorncroft boy brings her home, the first seal is already broken.The sentence sat between us like a blade.I read it once.Then again.Then a third time, because apparently my brain had decided repetition might make betrayal feel less personal.It did not.Slowly, I lifted my eyes.Damien had gone pale beneath the dried blood on his face.Not confused.Not surprised.Pale.There was a difference.