Chapter 18

SAM'S POV

I hate hospitals at night. They smell like bleach and cold metal, and everything echoes — shoes, whispers, even my own heartbeat.

Brandon and I stood by the automatic doors as the nurse wheeled Kelly in on a tiny gurney. Her hair was a wet tangle of curls, streaked with mud. The cuts on her knees looked worse under the fluorescent lights.

I tried to look calm for her sake, but my stomach was still twisted from the fight we’d had back at the woods.

Kelly clutched my sleeve. “Don’t leave me,” she whispered. Her voice was hoarse, but she wasn’t crying anymore. That scared me more than the screaming earlier.

“We’re not going anywhere,” I said, squeezing her little hand. Brandon gave her a nod — quiet as always, shoulders still tense like he expected another leprechaun to crawl out of the vents.

The triage nurse took her vitals and disappeared behind the curtains. A doctor, tall with kind-looking eyes behind his glasses, joined us a few minutes later.

“So,” he said, pulling on gloves, “what happened to her?”

Kelly beat us to it. She sat up straighter, eyes wide. “A monster.”

The word hung in the room. For a second even the beeping monitor seemed to pause.

The doctor’s brows lifted, then softened. “A monster, huh?” He chuckled the way adults do when they think you’re being imaginative. “That’s a new one.”

Kelly crossed her arms, muttering, “It’s true.”

I forced a laugh, trying to steer him away from asking more. “She has a pretty wild imagination. Halloween’s still haunting her.”

Brandon cleared his throat and jumped in smoothly. “Honestly, I heard a scream. I was in the neighborhood and found her outside, in the mud. Probably sleep-walking, maybe spooked herself awake. That’s all.”

The doctor nodded, buying it. “Kids do strange things. She’s lucky you heard her.”

He finished checking Kelly’s knee and said it was just scrapes and shock. “We’ll call her parents. You two can head home. She’ll be fine.”

“Thank you,” I said quickly, relieved we weren’t about to be interrogated.

Kelly gave me this look — a mix of fear and stubbornness — like she knew we were lying. I couldn’t meet her eyes for long.

As Brandon and I left the ward, the automatic doors hissed shut behind us, and the night air hit me like ice. It smelled like rain and something else — something sweet and metallic that I couldn’t place.

Brandon noticed me sniff the air and raised a brow. “What?”

“Nothing,” I lied.

We didn’t talk the whole drive back .

The Next Morning – Aili’s POV

Okay, I’ll admit it: I barely slept. The dream wouldn’t leave me alone.

The words were carved into my mind like they’d been burned there: A debt owed.

I didn’t even know what debt. To who? For what? Every time I blinked I saw flashes — the dark woods, whispering shadows behind the leprechaun’s smirk.

By the time I reached school, I was ready to spill it to someone. Anyone.

So of course the first people I saw at the lockers were Sam, Brandon, and Lisa. My “new friends.”

The cool crowd — at least that’s what the rest of the school called them.

I caught the looks people gave me as I walked up.

Since when does the quiet transfer student hang out with the school’s power trio? I could practically hear the rumors forming in their heads.

Lisa was flipping through her notebook, doodling symbols in the margins. Sam looked tired, hair pulled into a messy ponytail like she’d been up all night. Brandon leaned against the locker, arms crossed, as if the whole hallway existed just to bore him.

“Morning,” I said, trying to sound normal.

Sam glanced at me, half-smiling. “You look like you didn’t sleep.”

“Didn’t. I… I had a dream. It felt important.”

Brandon tilted his head. “Important how?”

I lowered my voice even though nobody was close enough to hear. “It said something about a debt owed. Like… like I owe someone. Or something.”

Lisa finally looked up. Her doodling pen froze. “That’s creepy,” she said flatly.

“Yeah,” I muttered. “Creepy doesn’t even cover it.”

Sam shifted uncomfortably. “Dreams are just dreams, Aili. Don’t let it get in your head.”

“I don’t think it was just a dream,” I shot back. “It felt… heavy. Like a warning.”

Brandon studied me with that unreadable look of his. “Maybe it was.”

That earned him a glare from Sam. “You’re not helping.”

Before I could say more, a group of juniors walked by whispering and staring. One of them — a girl from my history class — muttered just loud enough for me to catch, “Guess the new girl’s leveling up.”

I pretended I didn’t hear.

Sam noticed though. “Ignore them. They’re just jealous.”

“Yeah,” Lisa added, still staring at me strangely. “Or maybe they can sense you’re not normal.”

“Lisa,” Sam warned.

“What? I’m just saying. Dreams like that don’t happen for no reason.”

Their bickering only made the hall feel smaller, like the walls were inching closer.

Later that Day – Sam’s POV Again

By lunch, Aili was quieter than usual, lost in her thoughts. Brandon kept scanning the cafeteria like he expected something to jump out of the mashed potatoes.

I couldn’t shake off what Kelly had said last night — monster.

I kept seeing her mud-streaked face in my head.

When the bell rang for our last class, I offered to walk Aili home later, just in case. She agreed but didn’t smile.

Evening Walk – Sam’s POV

The sky was bruised purple as we walked down Maple Street. The wind carried a chill that didn’t feel like regular autumn air.

Aili finally broke the silence. “You ever feel like… like something’s watching us?”

I laughed nervously. “All the time.”

“No, I mean really watching. Like right now.”

I stopped walking. The street was empty except for the streetlamps humming softly. “What exactly did your dream show you?”

She hesitated. “Just that phrase. Debt owed. And… a shadow. Standing at the end of my bed.”

I felt a shiver crawl up my spine. “You didn’t think to tell me that part sooner?”

“I thought it was just—” she began, but then she froze.

A soft scraping sound came from the alley beside Mrs. Doyle’s bakery.

Brandon stepped out of the shadows like he’d been waiting for us. “You hear it too?”

Aili and I both nodded.

The scraping grew louder — metal on stone. Then a giggle, high-pitched and not human, echoed out of the dark.

I instinctively grabbed Aili’s arm. “We should go.”

Before anyone could move, something rolled out of the alley and stopped at our feet.

A child’s toy — an old wooden top, splattered with mud.

Aili stared at it, pale. “That was in my dream.”

Brandon crouched down, inspecting it. “This isn’t good.”

Suddenly the streetlamp above us flickered, casting long jagged shadows across the pavement.

The giggle came again, closer this time, followed by a whisper that carried on the wind:

“Debt… owed…”

Aili backed up into me. “Sam…”

“I hear it,” I whispered, my voice shaking despite myself.

Brandon straightened, jaw tight. “Get her home. Now.”

The lamp went out completely, plunging us into near darkness except for the fading light of dusk.

Somewhere in the dark alley, something scraped closer — slow, deliberate, like claws against brick.

We didn’t wait to see what it was.

I grabbed Aili’s hand and we ran, the echo of that whisper following us down the street until we reached the porch light of her house.

Aili was trembling. “That wasn’t a dream.”

I wanted to tell her it was fine, that we were safe now, but the words wouldn’t come.

Because I’d heard it too.