Chapter 16 -"Seconds Before"

Every clock is silent just before the hour strikes—and Eloise is ticking too loud.

She was painting again.

Not with brushes-those were too quiet. She liked the sound the knife made. It scraped. It whispered. It reminded her of the old house and the lines she carved into wood under her bed frame.

A figure hung crooked on the wall now, made of clock parts, hair, and blood she wouldn't say was hers. The piece had no eyes, only hollow circles where they should be.

"Time can't see what it's done," she whispered.

She wasn't afraid anymore. Fear had passed through her like a wind through broken glass.

Now there was only purpose.

But Sarah...Sarah was different.

Not a target. Not a symbol. But a ghost that wouldn't stay buried.

Eloise hadn't meant to think about her again. But the last kill left something behind. A question. A weight. A tether.

"Why did you tell them, Sarah?" she whispered. "You were supposed to understand."

She dug the blade into the wall and began drawing another clock.

This one stopped at 12:06

Tock.

The morning fog hadn't burned off yet. It clung to the windows of the precinct like frost.

Mason stared at the grainy photo of the gear left at the last scene. The killer was close, always one tick ahead, never too far. But this was the first time he'd left something behind.

She slid it over to Vega.

He raised an eyebrow. "Looks like the kind from an old grandfather clock."

"Matches the style we found in his original mentor's journals," Mason said. "Except this one's polished. Maintained."

Vega frowned. "You think he's communicating?"

"I think," Mason said slowly, "he's warning someone."

They both looked at the wall.

The photo of Eloise stared back. Her eyes caught mid-blink in the camera lens from a gas station two nights ago.

"She's not being hunted," Vega said. "She's being watched."

Mason nodded.

And then she said what neither wanted to say.

"She's about to do something big."

Tick.

"...authorities are still requesting assistance from the public in identifying a second suspect connected to what some have begun calling The Clockwork Murders. While police have yet to confirm a copycat, internal sources suggest some victims were killed with methods that deviate from the original killer's signature..."

"...new developments also indicate that several of the earliest suspected 'suicides' may in fact have been part of a coordinated pattern spanning nearly fifteen years..."

"...residents are urged to remain aware of surroundings and report any signs of ritualistic carvings or unusual clocks to local authorities..."

Tick.

She hadn't left the apartment all day.

The windows were locked. The blinds are drawn. Her phone turned off. Her clock, unplugged.

But she could still feel the ticking.

Not from him. She knew somehow that the main killer-the one the news kept whispering about-wasn't coming for her.

But Eloise...

Eloise was circling.

Not out of hate. Not out of love.

Out of that fractured need, Sarah remembered from their childhood, when Eloise cut her own hair with safety scissors to match Sarah's, or stolen Sarah's notebooks and re-wrote the pages with her own handwriting.

To be seen.

To be mirrored.

To be shared.

It wasn't protection Sarah needed.

It was a distance.

But nowhere felt far enough.

Tick.

He stood outside the safehouse, listening.

Eloise was still inside.

Still creating.

Still wrong.

He would let her finish. Let her mark one more hour. Let her place her final number.

Then the correction would come.

She didn't know it yet, but her part in the machine had long been removed. She was ticking on inertia now, no longer connected to the spring.

The longer she moved, the more the machine suffered.

And machines must not suffer.

Tick.

He turned away from the window.

Tock.