“Laith! Laith!”

The hissed yelling of his wife awakened him, and he sat up in the dark bedroom, alarmed. “What? What is it?”

“There’s someone in the apartment,” she whispered quietly, and even in the dark he could tell her eyes were wide with fear. “I’ve heard noises.”

Laith almost sighed in relief, his mind still sleep-addled. “It’s probably just Saba running around again,” he replied gently. “I’m sure it’s n--”

Warda’s hand took his and led it to find a warm, furry, purring form on her lap. “Saba is here,” she insisted quietly. “Someone else is out there.”

As if emphasizing her words, a small thud resounded through the house, followed by a long moment of silence. Laith slipped out of bed, now completely awake, his heart, too, jumping into action. He shuddered violently, as if someone had poured a bucket of cold water over his head. Was this because of the bait he’d left in the report?

There was no time to wonder. The usual response to such a situation was that PATET would recognize the intrusion, automatically report it to the Heliopolis PD, and within minutes, a patrol would be on site. But this wasn’t an intrusion. If it had been, all of the lights in his home would have turned on. All of them would be red. As he moved through the dark, careful not to walk into anything or stumble, he realized that PATET didn’t think anything was wrong.

Whoever it was in his house, it was someone who’d been able to break in without alerting PATET. Laith swallowed hard as he tip-toed into the hall, looking around with wide eyes and trying to wrack his brain for a plan. He knew what it meant, for someone to have broken in without technically breaking in.

Someone had been able to unlock the front door. Someone had been able to slip into Laith’s home – someone who wasn’t him or Warda. Which meant that this person had the ability to trick PATET, and they weren’t scared to use it. This was the person he’d been looking for. It might be Lockwood, if Zamarad is right and he truly is the killer.

Most terrifying of all was the realization that there was only one person out there that was desperate enough to break into Laith’s apartment the same night he’d logged his report.

The killer – the true killer – is in my apartment.

He closed the door to his bedroom behind him, leaving Warda in the room with Saba, and swiped his thumb down the side of the doorknob, locking it. He flinched as the lock made a little beep, and glanced around wildly, fully expecting some shadowy form to step out of the shadows and charge at him. It didn’t happen. Instead, there was a faint rustling noise coming from the other side of the apartment. He moved quickly, grabbing an old silver candlestick Warda had bought from some junk auction a few years ago and thinking that this was the first time he’d been glad to have the heavy chunk of metal in his home.

In the darkness, Laith was a shadow in his own home, moving stealthily through the familiar spaces – out the short corridor, zig-zagging through the furniture of the open living room, past the kitchen with its tiny blips of light as the dormant machines kept on. Finally, he came to a halt outside the library, which also doubled as his or Warda’s office at home. The rustling was coming from within. It sounded like someone was rifling through the drawers and bookshelves, and not very carefully, either. Laith steeled himself, gripping the candlestick tightly in his sweaty hand, and pushed the door slightly open.

With his eyes already adapted to the darkness, it was easy for Laith to make out the shapes of the room – the shelves, the desk, the chair, the globe, the lamp… All of them were familiar except for one: the silhouette of a man – it must have been a man – standing in the corner of the room. For one terrifying moment, Laith thought the man had seen him, was standing there watching him silently from the corner of his library, frozen. But then the figure moved, and Laith could see that he was facing away from him, towards the cabinet in the corner, and trying to open it.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The relief was immense, but it didn’t mean that he was out of the hot water just yet. Laith took a deep breath, and just as he was preparing himself to creep up on the man and bonk him over the head with the candlestick – probably the better option, given the fact that he didn’t have any better plan – all the lights in the house turned on, bathing everything in a deep, glowing red.

The man, who wore a balaclava over his head, froze, then swiveled around and met Laith’s gaze. In that small moment, before everything moved into quick motion, Laith felt a deep sense of recognition. He knew those eyes. He knew those eyes. Where did he know those –

And then the man was running – running right into Laith. The small glint of a blade was the only thing that saved Laith’s life, and his hands moved automatically to intercept the knife, pushing the intruder’s arms up. The two of them tumbled onto the floor, and Laith struggled to push the man away, to escape from his iron grip, but he wasn’t a fighter.

Oh, he’d taken the martial arts classes in the academy, and he’d done well enough to pass him, but it wasn’t like he got into brawls very often, and he’d never truly needed to use his skills. Now, in the middle of this deadly scuffle, all of those lessons – how to get out of various holds, how to subdue a violent criminal, how to knock out your opponent – all of that seemed to dissipate into thin air, and all that was left was the cold, hard fear and the realization that he was no match for this intruder.

From some hidden speaker above them, a calm, clear voice rang out through the house: A home intrusion has been reported and confirmed. Authorities are on their way.

Laith could hardly hear the announcement beyond the grunts and growls and shouts – both those that ripped out of his throat and those that came from his opponent’s. At some point, he felt the candlestick connect with something – the man’s head, perhaps, or his shoulder – and then it was wrenched out of his hands and thrown away, clattering against the shelves with a loud set of thuds. It was not long before the man was holding the knife up against Laith’s neck, right under his chin, his eyes – so familiar – boring into him with a crazed and focused look that sent a chill creeping through Laith’s veins. Laith noticed his hands were gloved.

“Where?” the man demanded, his voice a growl and almost comically low. “Where is the evidence?”

Laith gasped as the knife dug into his skin, and try as he might to shove his assailant off of him, the man was heavier than he seemed. Even in his panicked struggle, Laith knew better than to waste time. He knew what this man was after. And he knew he would stop at nothing to get it. He was, after all, desperate enough to break into a detective’s house on extremely short notice. Laith could use that.

“Where is it?!” the man growled again, grabbing hold of the front of Laith’s shirt, and with a wave of some unfathomable emotion, Laith realized who this intruder was under his mask. “Tell me, or I’ll slit your throat right here and now.”

“You’ll never find it,” Laith hissed as the knife dug deeper into his neck. It’s undeniably him, he told himself as he looked into the man’s eyes. Oh, my God, I’m going to die. I have to make him stop. I have to make him walk away. “You can’t kill me. You’ll never find it on your own. And I’m not the only one who knows.”

“Where?” the intruder gritted out impatiently, blinking drops of burning sweat out of his eyes. “I’ll kill you – you know I can!”

“I know,” Laith gasped as the knife began to move. Warm liquid trickled its way down the side of his neck. Please, Allah, not tonight. I’m not ready. The words fell out of his mouth in a rush; he’d never spoken so quickly in his whole life, it seemed. “I know you can. But you won’t. Or I promise you that by daybreak, everyone will know who you really are. And it isn’t just you, is it? What do you think will happen if everyone else’s names get out there, too? Who do you think they’ll blame?”

The man froze, his eyes widening more – if that was even possible at this point – and pulled the knife away from Laith’s neck ever so slowly. “You’re lying,” he said, this time not even attempting to hide his true voice. “You don’t know anything.”

“Don’t I?” Laith challenged him, grabbing hold of the man’s wrist and tugging it slightly. He hadn’t wanted to reveal this information – realized now that it would only make things more dangerous for him moving forward – but he had no other cards to play, nothing that would save him now.

Inside, his mind was a mess of fears and prayers, of uncertainty and questions. Oh, God, he thought desperately, doing his best to push his terror away and look confident in the face of death. Please, Allah, have mercy. Just a little while longer, just until someone gets here, just until I’m sure it’s over, please, please, please, oh, my God, please –

Outwardly, he said: “Do it, then. Go on. How good do you think your buddies are, hm? How long do you think it’d take them? You’ve hunted with them before, haven’t you? Kill me, and let’s see if you survive the rest of the week, Lockwood.”