Pour another drink and try to trust Briana, letting the alcohol pull me toward sleep on the sofa.

The bourbon is good. Of course it is. My father doesn't keep anything in this house that isn't exceptional, from the art on the walls to the liquor in the crystal decanters. I pour myself another two fingers—maybe three—and watch the amber liquid catch the light from the dying string of Halloween bulbs still flickering over the mantel.

The living room is a disaster zone. Empty cups on every surface. A tipped-over bowl of chips ground into the Persian rug. Someone's abandoned witch hat draped over the arm of the Italian leather sofa. The plastic skeleton still dangles from the chandelier, its party hat askew, its jaw frozen in that stupid grin.

I should clean. I should do something useful with my hands instead of sitting here, drinking my father's expensive bourbon, waiting for my girlfriend to finish whatever conversation she's having with the man who just ruined my night.

But I don't move.

The alcohol spreads through my chest like warm honey, loosening the knot of tension that's been living behind my sternum since the front door opened. I sink deeper into the sofa, letting my head fall back against the cushion, and I stare at the ceiling. The crown molding. The recessed lighting. The faint water stain in the corner that my father has probably never noticed because he's never home long enough to look up.

Twenty minutes, she said. It's been almost an hour.

I check my phone again. 12:14. No messages. No calls. Just the lock screen photo of Briana and me at the beach last summer, her hair wind-tangled, her smile wide and genuine, her body pressed against mine. I remember that day. I remember thinking, this is it, this is the girl I'm going to marry. I remember the way she looked at me when I said it out loud, the way she laughed and called me a romantic and kissed me until I forgot my own name.

That was six months ago. A lifetime.

I take another drink, and the memory blurs at the edges, softening into something warm and distant. The bourbon is doing its job. The anxiety is still there—it's always there—but it's muffled now, wrapped in cotton, pushed down to a low, distant hum.

The house settles around me. The grandfather clock in the foyer ticks. The refrigerator hums. Somewhere upstairs, a floorboard creaks.

I sit up, my heart suddenly pounding, and listen.

Nothing. Just the house. Just the old bones of a building that's been standing for a hundred years, shifting and sighing in the dark.

I force myself to breathe. To relax. Briana is fine. She's probably still in the study, talking to my father, working her magic. She said she was good at this. She said she knew how to handle men like him. And she does—I've seen her do it a hundred times, charming professors and landlords and bouncers and anyone else who stood between her and what she wanted. She's a force of nature. She's Wonder Woman, for fuck's sake.

The thought almost makes me laugh. Almost.

I pour another drink. The bottle is getting low, but I don't care. It's not like my father can get any angrier at me. What's one more transgression on top of the mountain of shit I've already piled up tonight?

The bourbon goes down smoother now, the burn fading into something almost pleasant. I close my eyes and let the warmth spread through my limbs, loosening my muscles, softening the sharp edges of my thoughts.

She's fine. Everything is fine. She'll come back any minute now, and she'll tell me it's all okay, and we'll go upstairs and—

The thought trails off, unfinished. I can't quite hold onto it. The alcohol is pulling me down, dragging me toward something soft and dark and quiet. I try to fight it—I should stay awake, I should be ready when she comes back—but my body isn't listening. My limbs are heavy. My eyelids are lead.

The last thing I see before I slip under is the plastic skeleton, still grinning at me from the chandelier, its party hat tilted at a jaunty angle.

Asshole, I think, and then the darkness takes me.

I dream of Briana.

She's standing in the great room, still in her Wonder Woman costume, but the house is different—bigger, darker, the walls stretching up into shadow. She's holding the Lasso of Truth, and it's glowing, golden light spilling from the coils like liquid fire. She's saying something, but I can't hear the words. Her lips are moving, but the sound is swallowed by the vastness of the room.

I try to move toward her, but my feet won't cooperate. The floor is sticky, like I'm walking through honey, and every step takes an eternity. She's getting farther away, receding into the darkness, and I'm calling her name, but no sound comes out.

And then my father is there, standing behind her, his hands on her shoulders. He's still in his travel suit, but his tie is gone, his collar unbuttoned. He's looking at me over the top of her head, and his expression is the same as it was in the foyer—cold, assessing, utterly unreadable.

Wrap this up, he says, and his voice echoes through the room like thunder.

Briana turns to look at him, and she smiles—that same smile she gave me earlier, the real one, the one that makes people want to do things for her. She reaches up and touches his face, her fingers tracing the line of his jaw, and he leans into her touch like a man who's been starving for it.

No, I try to say, but the word won't come. No, no, no—

I wake with a gasp, my heart slamming against my ribs, my skin slick with sweat.

The room is dark. The string lights have died, their batteries finally giving out, and the only illumination comes from the moon filtering through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The plastic skeleton is a pale shape in the gloom, still hanging, still grinning.

I sit up, disoriented, my head pounding. The bourbon has turned on me, leaving a sour taste in my mouth and a dull ache behind my eyes. I fumble for my phone, nearly knocking it off the armrest, and squint at the screen.

1:47 AM.

I've been asleep for over an hour.

The house is quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that presses against your eardrums and makes you aware of every tiny sound—the tick of the clock, the hum of the refrigerator, the distant creak of settling wood.

And something else.

I freeze, my breath catching in my throat, and listen.

There it is again. A sound, faint but unmistakable, coming from somewhere above me. Not the rhythmic thumping of a headboard—no, something wetter. Something softer. A slick, repetitive sound, like someone stirring honey with their tongue. And underneath it, a low male voice, rumbling in a register I recognize but can't quite place.

Slurp. Slurp. Slurp.

Mmm.

The sounds are muffled, distant, but they're there. They're real. And they're coming from upstairs.

From the direction of my father's bedroom.

The cold dread that cuts through me is sharp and sobering, burning away the last of the alcohol's fog. I'm on my feet before I know what I'm doing, my legs unsteady, my heart pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat.

No, I think. No, it's not what you think. It's not. It's the house settling. It's the wind. It's—

Slurp. Slurp. Slurp.

That's it. Just like that.

The voice is low, commanding, and unmistakably my father's. The words drift down the stairs like smoke, curling into my ears, settling into the hollow space where my stomach used to be.

I stand in the middle of the dark living room, surrounded by the wreckage of my ruined party, and I listen to the sounds of my worst fear made real.

And then I hear her.

A soft, breathy moan—muffled, like she's got her mouth full—followed by a wet, gasping sound that might be a gag or might be something else entirely. It's Briana. I know it's Briana. I'd know that voice anywhere, even like this, even reduced to these small, desperate noises.

Good girl, my father says, and the words hit me like a punch to the chest.

I look at the stairs. They stretch upward into darkness, each step a threshold I don't want to cross.

But my feet are already moving.