Chapter 9 The Second Postcard
Eli doesn’t answer me.
Not right away.
He presses both palms to the side of his face and drags them down slowly, like he’s trying to erase whatever expression is threatening to break through.
“Eli,” I whisper again. “What aren’t you telling me?”
He looks up.
For the first time since he came back, his eyes look… haunted.
“Sera,” he says, voice tight, “I don’t want to talk about this while you’re shaking.”
Only then do I notice my hands. Fingertips trembling.Palms slick.
He steps closer, not touching, but close enough to cage me in with his steadiness.
“Sit,” he murmurs.
It isn’t an order. It’s a plea.
I sink onto the couch edge. Eli kneels in front of me, one hand braced on the coffee table, the other hovering near my knee like he wants to touch me but won’t without permission.
“Last night was too much,” he says. “You need a second to breathe.”
“I don’t have a second,” I whisper. “I don’t think she’s giving me one.”
The silence that follows hangs heavy.
Eli looks away first, jaw tightening. “What happened to Kahlia… it wasn’t simple,” he says. “And I tried…God, I tried…to keep you away from all of it.”
My breath stutters. “From what?”
He opens his mouth when a sharp knock hits the front door.
Both of us freeze.
Not a loud knock.
Not frantic.
Just three slow, deliberate taps.
Exactly like the night Eli arrived.
Eli stands immediately, body going rigid. “Stay behind me.”
This time I don’t argue.
He crosses the living room in three long strides. He peeks through the side window. His entire posture changes, straightens, stiffens, darkens.
“Sera.”
His voice is half a growl.
“What?” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer.
Instead, he opens the door, and stops cold.
No one stands there.
Not a soul in sight. Just the quiet morning. The stillness of the street. The sun barely warming the pavement.
But on the porch…
A postcard.
Bright blue this time. Edges crisp with fresh ink.
Eli bends, picks it up between two fingers like it might burn him, and steps back inside with it. He closes the door and locks it, deadbolt first, then the bottom lock, then the chain.
“This wasn’t here five minutes ago,” he mutters.
My throat closes. “What does it say?”
He doesn’t hand it to me.
He turns it over himself first, eyes scanning the back. His expression shifts, shock, fear, anger. Like a storm rolling over his face in seconds.
He finally brings it over.
Hands it to me slowly.
Do you remember the night you lied? -K
My stomach drops.
“This handwriting…” I whisper. “It’s hers.”
Eli shakes his head once, sharply. “It can’t be.”
“But it is. You said so yesterday.”
He scrubs a hand down his face. “I said it looked like hers. Anyone could imitate old handwriting.”
“You don’t believe that,” I whisper.
He doesn’t argue, because he can’t.
He turns the card over.
The photo on the front steals my breath.
It’s a picture of the creek.
The same curve in the water. The same fallen tree. The same place where my memory ripped open last night.
A tremor rakes through my body. I grip the sides of the postcard to keep my hands from shaking too visibly.
“Someone is playing with you,” Eli says tightly. “Trying to drag up old trauma-”
“Or someone is trying to remind me,” I cut in.
“Of what?” he snaps.
I blink.
He never snaps.
Ever.
“What did you remember?” he demands softly, desperately.
I hesitate.
Because to say it out loud means accepting that my memory might not be wrong.
That Marcus might’ve been there.
That Kahlia might’ve warned me.
That something monstrous happened before the night she vanished…
Something I hid. Even from myself.
“I saw her,” I whisper. “The moment she screamed.”
Eli’s breath falters.
“And?” he pushes, voice frayed.
“And…” I swallow.
“Someone pulled her.”
Eli’s eyes darken like a storm. “A man.”
“Yes.”
His nostrils flare. “Could you tell who?”
“No.” I shake my head. “Just a shape. But she knew him.”
“Do you think it was Marcus?” he asks.
My pulse jumps painfully.
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “Do you?”
His jaw sets hard. “I know I don’t trust him anywhere near you.”
Something in me loosens and tightens at the same time.
Then Eli steps back, pacing the living room with rigid movements, jaw tight, fists clenching and unclenching.
“We need to call someone,” he mutters.
“Who?” I laugh bitterly. “The police? And tell them what? My dead best friend is sending postcards and leaving jewelry in my attic? My ex-husband will use that to get Maya taken from me.”
Eli stops pacing.
He looks at me, for the first time, with fear.
Not for himself.
For me.
“You’re not crazy,” he says quietly.
I wrap my arms around myself. “Everyone keeps acting like I am.”
“I don’t.”
He steps closer. “Sera, look at me.”
I do.
The softness in his eyes wrecks me. Like he’s looking at the girl I used to be, the one who believed she could survive anything, and trying to put her back together piece by piece.
“I’m not letting anyone rewrite your reality,” he says. “Not Marcus. Not Naya. Not whoever is doing this.”
My throat aches.
A tear spills.
He reaches up, slow, hesitating, and brushes it away with his thumb.
The touch is light, gentle, and a question.
My breath stutters.
Then he steps back, cutting the moment clean in half.
“We’re searching the house,” he says firmly. “Top to bottom.”
I wipe my eyes. “Eli-”
“Someone left this postcard on your porch.” He gestures at it. “Someone got into your attic twice. Someone left Kahlia’s bracelet. They’re getting bolder.”
He’s right.
Fear coils in me like a living thing.
“Check the doors,” he mutters. “The windows. The basement. Everything.”
I nod weakly.
We move through the house together.
Kitchen.
Bathroom.
Mudroom.
Laundry.
Everything untouched.
Until the back door.
Eli pauses.
Then kneels.
“Sera.”
My stomach drops. “What?”
He points to the floor.
There, on the hardwood just inside the door, is a faint, wet footprint.
Small. Bare. A woman’s footprint.
Leading away from the door.
Into the house.
My breath leaves me in a single broken gasp.
“That’s fresh,” Eli whispers. “Hours. Maybe less.”
He stands slowly, every muscle in his body coiled tight.
“Sera… someone was inside the house last night.”
My skin goes cold.
No.
Not someone.
Someone who knows Kahlia. Someone who wants me to remember. Someone who has been inside this house more than once.
Eli steps in front of me, voice dropping into something I’ve never heard from him before—
A sound born of fury and fear woven together:
“I swear to God, whoever is doing this is going to regret stepping anywhere near you.”
Then he turns toward the hallway, posture rigid, breath rough, eyes burning with something dangerous.
“This ends today.”