Page 8 of Roaring Heat (Shifters of Redwood Rise #2)

They sit low, just above the haze, as if the head that bears them presses them down while the body crouches close to the ground.

They glow with a color I can’t name, as if a summer storm had bottled itself inside the glass.

Neither red nor gold, but some volatile alloy of both, molten and alive, watching me with unrelenting focus.

My breathing constricts, tension swelling like a gathering storm just beyond reach.

I can’t look away. I don’t even want to.

Something ancient and instinctive in me stretches forward, drawn toward the glow, desperate to find answers in a place where questions have never needed words.

They do not blink. They do not sway. They look the way a compass points, not with curiosity but with a kind of authority.

Instinct in me splits. The part that obeys science reaches for measurement.

Height from the ground to the centerline.

Distance between pupils. Angle of gaze relative to the porch steps and the threshold.

The other part of me knows that none of those numbers will tell me what I already feel on the inside of my skin. Watched. Assessed. Noted. Kept.

The board speaks again. Closer.

I step back and bump the table with my hip. The journal slides, flips, and lands on the rug with a muted sound that feels too loud. I crouch and grab it because my hands need a task. The paper edge bites my finger, and the bright sting anchors me for one clear second.

I rise and look again, but the eyes are gone. The fog erased its own work. The porch is a dark rectangle and nothing else.

The quiet that follows feels deliberate, as if it waits to see what I will do.

I remain by the window until my knees throb and my feet ache from standing too long.

Panic ebbs, not into calm, but into something heavier.

A compact ember of fear and defiance settles in my chest, solid and unyielding.

It beats beneath my ribs, steady rather than searing, anchoring my breath and reminding me I’m still here.

Contained, not extinguished, it steadies me enough to breathe without running.

The rational part of my mind makes a list, because lists are reliable: animal, person, something else.

The next word does not belong in a field journal, and I refuse to write it.

Beneath everything, another awareness threads through me.

The ley lines people whisper about murmur at the edge of hearing.

I don’t believe in them, but the feeling climbs from the base of my spine to the back of my neck.

It isn’t pain, only a quiet insistence, as if a pattern shaped the earth in a way I can’t explain.

Patterns reach for each other, and in that pull I sense Beau, not only as a man at my door but as an absence that alters the surrounding room.

The cottage holds. No further sounds from outside. No more boards complaining. No breath that is not mine. Far below, the ocean sends up a steady rush that filters through the trees like a calmer kind of weather. The nausea eases. My hands stop shaking. The floor feels like a floor again.

I cross the room and lower myself slowly onto the couch, settling the journal across my knees with care.

The cushion gives under my weight, familiar and firm, but not enough to banish the tension running through my spine.

My fingertips linger on the leather cover, the warmth from my hands seeping into its surface.

I stare at it without opening it yet, caught between impulse and hesitation, the steady beat of my heart loud in the quiet.

My breath is shallow, measured, as if the act of sitting still might draw something forward or hold something back.

I ease back slightly, grounding myself in the rug's texture beneath my feet, the coarse weave anchoring me in place.

The leather is warm where my hands have held it. The moment stretches, and I let it.

Running has been easy at other times in other places. I could put boots on my feet and be in the Jeep before the clock shifts by a single minute. I could chase cell service and streetlights and a room with thin hotel walls and a desk that has seen a thousand guests.

Yet, I stay. The decision does not feel brave. It feels exact.

“I'm not running this time,” I say to the quiet, and the room accepts the fact without argument.

I open the journal and write the words because writing makes them real.

The pen drags a little, then finds its line.

Eyes in fog. Too low for a man standing.

Not Beau. The ink looks darker than usual.

I underline the last statement, and the pressure I felt earlier lifts a fraction, as if the house approves of a correct note in the right ledger.

I add detail because detail keeps memory from editing itself into comfort.

Height relative to the porch rail. Distance from steps.

Duration of observation. The letters get messy, and my hand cramps, and that is the part of the process no one tells you about when they say science is clean.

I draw a small map of the yard and mark the place where the eyes had held before they withdrew.

Still here? Still watching? I write the words and do not flinch from them.

The fog presses against the windows, and the walls answer with the faintest sound, wood speaking to weather. I lift my head and listen. The cottage feels awake. Not threatened. Not safe. Alert in the way of living things that have learned to survive by paying attention.

I slide the recorder beside the journal and press the button.

The red light blinks. My voice is steady enough to make a record.

I note the time, the conditions, the sequence of sounds, the physical symptoms that coincided with the approach.

I say the words I will want to hear if the night tries to wear them away by morning.

I say them once and then again more simply.

I end the record and sit with the things that have held the worst parts of other nights for me.

The clock moves forward. The embers cool to faint ash.

The compressor hums and stops. The rug scratches at my heels, and I press my toes into it because the body needs anchors when the mind wants to walk out the door.

I write one more line because it feels like a promise I can keep. Let it watch. I'm not going anywhere.