Chapter 6. The Circle Tightens

The next morning, Aria didn’t speak to anyone. Not her classmates, not Jules, not even the lunch staff when they handed her a tray of bland food she had no intention of eating. Her mind was elsewhere—still upstairs in the attic with those symbols, still standing in the forest with the bleeding bark, still feeling the phantom heat of the creature’s gaze through the fogged attic window.

Everywhere she went, she felt like a needle on a compass, spinning, twitching, pulled toward something unseen. She didn’t tell Jules about the handprint. Not yet. She wasn’t ready to hear what her friend might say. She didn’t want confirmation of what she already knew.

It was hunting her.

But she didn’t know why.

In biology, the fluorescent lights hummed loud enough to drown out the teacher’s voice. The lab partner to her left—some quiet, fast-talking junior—was saying something about cell walls, but Aria barely heard him. Her fingers drummed on the desk. Her gaze flicked to the