Hush, Little Liar

CHAPTER ONE

The Girl Behind the Curtains

ELARA

The first time he called, I thought it was a wrong number.

The second time, I thought it was a prank.

By the seventh, I stopped believing in coincidences.

And by the thirteenth?

I was sitting on my bathroom floor with a kitchen knife in my lap, staring at a phone that hadn’t stopped ringing for twenty-three minutes.

But that was later.

Before the phone calls, before the photographs, before the man in the mask stepped out of the darkness and turned my entire world inside out—

There was the knock.

Three quiet taps against my apartment door.

At 2:13 in the morning.

I hated the rain.

Not because of the sound. I actually liked that part. Rain made the world feel smaller, like everything beyond my apartment had been washed away.

I hated what came with it.

The memories.

Wet pavement beneath bare feet. Headlights cutting through trees. The metallic taste of blood in my mouth.

And a voice.

A man’s voice, shouting my name.

Elara! Run!

I blinked hard.

The photograph on my computer screen came back into focus.

An elderly couple stood beneath a flowering tree, their faces faded by time and water damage. The woman’s smile had almost disappeared beneath a deep scratch running through the center of the photograph.

I zoomed in and carefully began repairing it.

I spent most of my nights restoring other people’s memories.

Funny, considering I’d spent the last three years trying to forget my own.

My phone vibrated beside my coffee mug.

Mara: Are you alive?

I smiled despite myself.

Me: Unfortunately.

Mara: Dramatic. I love that for you.

Me: It’s a gift.

Mara: You coming out Friday?

Me: No.

Mara: I haven’t even told you where.

Me: Still no.

Three dots appeared.

Disappeared.

Appeared again.

Mara: Elara.

I sighed.

Whenever Mara used my full name, I knew I was about to receive a lecture.

Me: Mara.

Mara: You are twenty-four years old. You cannot spend the rest of your life hiding in that apartment.

I glanced toward the living room window.

The curtains were closed.

They were always closed.

Me: Watch me.

Mara: I’m serious.

I knew she was.

That was the problem.

Mara Quinn had been my best friend since we were sixteen, back when I still laughed loudly in public and didn’t instinctively check the locks every time I entered a room.

She remembered the girl I used to be.

Sometimes I hated her for it.

Most of the time, I loved her for refusing to forget.

Mara: Just dinner. You and me. No crowds. No weird men. No surprises.

I considered it.

Actually considered it.

Then thunder rolled across Briar Glen, rattling the glass in my window.

My stomach tightened.

Me: Maybe next week.

Mara: You said that last week.

Me: And look how consistent I am.

She sent a middle-finger emoji.

I laughed quietly.

A real laugh.

It startled me.

I set the phone facedown and returned to work.

Outside, rain swept against the windows of my third-floor apartment.

The building was old, with narrow hallways, uneven floors, and a radiator that sounded like it was dying whenever the temperature dropped below fifty degrees.

It wasn’t much.

But it was mine.

And more importantly, it was safe.

Or at least, that was what I told myself.

At 1:47 a.m., I finally finished restoring the photograph.

I emailed the completed file to my client, stretched until my back cracked, and wandered into the kitchen.

My refrigerator contained half a carton of oat milk, leftover pasta, three questionable strawberries, and a bottle of wine I’d purchased six months ago because Mara insisted I needed to start acting like an adult.

Apparently adulthood involved buying wine you never drank.

I grabbed the pasta.

Cold.

Straight from the container.

Don’t judge me.

I leaned against the counter, scrolling through my phone while I ate.

A local news article appeared on my screen.

BLACKTHORN HOUSE PROPERTY SOLD AFTER THREE YEARS OF CONTROVERSY

My fork stopped halfway to my mouth.

No.

Absolutely not.

I should have kept scrolling.

I knew that.

Instead, I tapped the article.

The photograph loaded slowly.

A sprawling mansion stood behind rusted iron gates, its stone exterior darkened by age and fire damage.

Blackthorn House.

Even after three years, seeing it made my throat close.

I could almost smell the smoke.

Almost hear the screaming.

The article mentioned renovations. A private buyer. Plans to restore the historic estate.

Then came the sentence that made my blood run cold.

The property has remained vacant since the tragic fire that claimed the life of nineteen-year-old Nora Whitcomb.

Nora.

I stared at her name.

A girl with bright blue eyes and a laugh that could fill an entire room.

A girl who’d once braided my hair while telling me that boys were idiots and we’d be better off living together forever.

A girl who died because—

I stopped.

My fingers tightened around the phone.

Because what?

I didn’t know.

That was the part nobody understood.

There were pieces of that night I remembered perfectly.

The music.

The champagne.

Nora’s silver dress.

A broken glass beneath the staircase.

But everything after midnight existed in fragments.

A locked door.

Someone crying.

A man’s hand gripping my wrist.

Then fire.

So much fire.

The doctors called it trauma-related memory loss.

Detective Cross called it inconvenient.

And the newspapers?

They called me the girl who survived.

As if surviving had been some kind of achievement.

I closed the article.

Deleted my browsing history.

Then stood in the kitchen until my pasta went cold.

Again.

“Get it together, Elara.”

My voice sounded too loud in the empty apartment.

I tossed the container into the refrigerator and checked the front door.

Locked.

Chain secured.

Deadbolt turned.

Good.

I checked the bedroom window.

Locked.

The bathroom.

Locked.

Then I returned to the living room and pulled the curtains tighter.

Some habits were difficult to break.

Others kept you alive.

The knock came at 2:13 a.m.

Three soft taps.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

My fingers froze above the keyboard.

For a moment, I thought I’d imagined it.

The building made strange noises at night.

Pipes rattled.

Floorboards creaked.

My upstairs neighbor occasionally dropped things that sounded suspiciously like furniture.

But then it came again.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Three deliberate taps.

I looked at the clock.

2:13.

Nobody visited me this late.

Nobody visited me at all, really.

I slowly pushed my chair back.

“Who is it?”

Silence.

I waited.

“Hello?”

Nothing.

The sensible thing would have been to stay where I was.

Call the building manager.

Maybe even the police.

Instead, I approached the door.

Slowly.

The floorboards creaked beneath my socks.

I stopped just short of the peephole.

For one ridiculous second, I imagined an eye staring back at me.

An eye pressed against the other side of the glass.

Watching.

Waiting.

I swallowed and leaned forward.

The hallway was empty.

Yellow light flickered above the stairwell.

Apartment 3B’s welcome mat sat crooked across the hall.

No movement.

No footsteps.

Nothing.

Then I looked down.

A white envelope lay on my doormat.

My name was written across the front.

ELARA.

Not Miss Vale.

Not Apartment 3A.

Just Elara.

In thick black handwriting.

My pulse began to climb.

I checked the peephole again before sliding the chain into place and opening the door just wide enough to reach the envelope.

The hallway smelled like rain and something else.

Something faint.

Woodsmoke.

I snatched the envelope and slammed the door.

Locked it.

Checked the lock.

Checked it again.

“You’re being ridiculous,” I muttered.

But my hands were shaking.

There was no return address.

No stamp.

Nothing except my name.

I carried it to the kitchen counter and tore it open with my thumb.

A photograph slipped out.

At first, I didn’t understand what I was looking at.

A dark room.

A bed.

A woman lying on her side beneath a gray comforter.

Long brown hair spilling across a pillow.

One hand tucked beneath her cheek.

My breath caught.

Because I recognized the room.

The bed.

The comforter.

The woman.

Me.

I was looking at a photograph of myself sleeping.

In my apartment.

Taken from inside my bedroom.

I dropped it.

The photograph fluttered onto the counter.

For several seconds, I couldn’t move.

My eyes darted toward the hallway.

The bedroom door stood open.

Darkness pooled beyond it.

I tried to remember whether I’d locked the front door last night.

Of course I had.

I always did.

Hadn’t I?

My chest tightened.

I grabbed my phone.

My thumb hovered over the emergency call button.

Then the screen lit up.

UNKNOWN NUMBER — 2:17 AM

You should really stop sleeping with your bedroom door open, sweetheart.

I stopped breathing.

Another message appeared.

And put the knife back in the drawer. You’re going to hurt yourself holding it like that.

I looked down.

Somewhere between seeing the photograph and checking my phone, I’d pulled a knife from the wooden block.

I hadn’t even realized it.

My fingers were wrapped so tightly around the handle that my knuckles had turned white.

He knew.

Whoever this was—

He knew what I was doing.

Right now.

I spun toward the window.

The curtains were shut.

The kitchen blinds were down.

The front door was locked.

“Where are you?” I whispered.

My phone vibrated again.

Wrong question, little liar.

My stomach dropped.

Nobody called me that.

Nobody alive, anyway.

I stared at those two words until the letters blurred.

Little liar.

Three years ago, someone had whispered them against my ear in the darkness of Blackthorn House.

Seconds before the screaming started.

Seconds before the blood.

Seconds before—

My phone rang.

Unknown Number.

I nearly dropped it.

The ringing echoed through my tiny kitchen.

I should have called the police.

I should have run.

Instead, I answered.

“Who is this?”

Silence.

I pressed the phone harder against my ear.

“Who the hell are you?”

A quiet breath.

Then a man’s voice.

Low.

Rough.

Almost amused.

“There’s my girl.”

My skin prickled.

“Don’t call me that.”

A pause.

Then a soft chuckle.

“Still giving orders when you’re frightened. I wondered if you’d changed.”

“I don’t know you.”

“That’s what you told them last time.”

The room tilted.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

I gripped the counter.

“Listen to me. If this is some kind of joke—”

“Look outside.”

I went still.

“No.”

“Elara.”

The way he said my name made something cold move through my chest.

Not loud.

Not threatening.

Worse.

Familiar.

“Look outside.”

I swallowed.

Every sensible part of me screamed not to move.

But I did.

One step.

Then another.

I approached the living room window and hooked a finger beneath the curtain.

The street below was almost empty.

Rain silvered the pavement.

A broken streetlight flickered beside the bus stop.

And directly across from my building—

Someone stood beneath it.

Tall.

Broad shoulders.

Black hood pulled over his head.

Hands covered in dark gloves.

His face was hidden behind a pale, elongated mask.

The mouth stretched into a grotesque scream.

The eyes were black hollows.

He stood completely still.

Looking up at my window.

At me.

I stumbled backward.

“Oh my God.”

The man on the phone laughed softly.

“Careful, sweetheart. You’re going to trip.”

I dropped the curtain.

My heart hammered so hard it hurt.

“Leave me alone.”

“No.”

One word.

Calm.

Absolute.

I hated how frightened it made me.

“What do you want?”

The silence that followed felt deliberate.

Then—

“The truth.”

I squeezed my eyes shut.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“That’s unfortunate.”

Something shifted in his voice.

The amusement disappeared.

“Because I’ve waited three years for you to remember.”

My knees weakened.

Blackthorn House.

The blood.

The screaming.

A hand reaching for mine.

Run, Elara.

I pressed my free hand against my forehead.

“Who are you?”

He exhaled slowly.

“Someone you left behind.”

The call ended.

I stared at the screen.

Then I ran to the window.

I ripped the curtain aside.

The streetlight flickered.

The rain continued falling.

But the man was gone.

I stood there for what felt like hours.

Eventually, I remembered the photograph.

I returned to the kitchen, picked it up, and turned it over.

There was writing on the back.

Not the same handwriting as the envelope.

This was smaller.

Sharper.

Almost elegant.

You were prettier when you weren’t pretending to be innocent.

Below it, a date.

October 28.

Today’s date.

And beneath that—

Four words.

Ask him about Nora.

My stomach twisted.

Nora.

I hadn’t heard that name spoken aloud in three years.

Not since the police found her body.

Not since they told me she had died in the fire.

Not since I watched them lower an empty coffin into the ground because there hadn’t been enough left to bury.

I pressed a trembling hand against my mouth.

Then my phone vibrated one last time.

A photograph.

Taken seconds ago.

Of me.

Standing at my kitchen counter.

Holding the picture.

The angle was impossible.

It had been taken from behind me.

I turned.

Slowly.

Toward the dark hallway.

And from somewhere inside my apartment—

A floorboard creaked.

END OF CHAPTER ONE