The next morning, Lyla sat on her bed, drying her hair. When she heard the front door, she turned off the hairdryer and pushed her hair behind her ear.
"You forget something?" she called. "Dad?"
No response. She heard footsteps in the entryway.
She exited her bedroom, went to the top of the stairs, and noticed that the front door was open. She descended to the bottom of the staircase, her eyes drawn to the hallway. She caught a glimpse of a figure going into the kitchen.
"Did you forget your lunch?... Dad?"
She made her way down the hallway and entered the kitchen. The room was empty.
"Hey. Where did you go?"
She heard the TV turn on in the living room. This wasn't like Lyla's dad to play pranks.
A frightening thought occurred to her. Suppose JoJo had broken into the house? Suppose he had come to finish the job that had been interrupted last night?
Lyla grabbed a butcher knife from the counter and approached the living room with the weapon clenched tightly in her hand. She stepped quietly, careful to not give away her location.
When she peeked into the living room, she saw that someone had turned on the television but no one was in the room. A bone-chilling cold enveloped her. Her heart rate accelerated. The living room reeked of Keenan. The unmistakable stink of perspiration, weed, beer, and cheap cologne hung in the air. Lyla's pulse throbbed in her forehead.
She'd been filtering out the television, ignoring it like white noise. Until she heard...
"People who wear this symbol are most often entering a new phase of their life," said the narrator.
On the TV screen, a coiled snake tattoo was being inked onto a man's arm. "The serpent represents renewal. A rebirth. A shape-shifter."
The front door slammed shut.
A swell of terror erupted in a scream that Lyla did not recognize as her own voice. She clamped her hand over her open mouth, her wide eyes fixed on the front door. She raised the butcher knife and inched forward, staring at the doorknob, watching for the slightest suggestion of movement.
The moment she exited the living room into the entryway, she momentarily lost her footing. She glanced down and, to her horror, discovered wet leaves clumped on the entryway floor.