Chapter 1 - The silent house
I told my employees to lock the store doors immediately as I picked up Lily and carried her to my car.
The 911 operator on the phone gave the dispatched paramedics the address the little girl had just whispered to me.
I drove closely behind the screaming ambulance, tearing through the flooded and chaotic streets of downtown Seattle.
Lily sat quietly in my backseat, clutching her empty plastic sandwich bag with trembling, tiny fingers.
We arrived at a rundown, gloomy apartment complex situated on the dark edge of the industrial district.
The paramedics kicked the front wooden door open when no one answered their loud, urgent knocking.
I gently covered Lily's eyes with my hand as we stepped into the freezing, dimly lit living room.
A young woman was lying motionless on the faded carpet, her skin terrifyingly pale and her lips tinted blue.
The medical team rushed forward immediately, checking her nonexistent pulse and shouting emergency codes at each other.
She was barely breathing, fighting a losing battle against whatever had taken hold of her fragile body.
I looked around the messy room, noticing a shattered picture frame and a crushed syringe near the kitchen counter.
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This was clearly not a simple illness or a tragic accident.
Suddenly, a dark, hooded figure sprinted out from the shadows of the bedroom and smashed right through the back glass window into the pouring rain.
