The second scream pulled you out of sleep so violently it felt like your heart had been grabbed by an invisible hand.
Not the first one. The first might have blended into a dream, into the heavy static of grief and exhaustion that had become your nightly companion over the last three years. But the second scream had shape. It had terror in it. It rose through the old bones of the mansion and found you in the dark like it knew your name.
You sat upright in the king-sized bed, chest hammering, eyes searching the shadows of the room.
Moonlight poured through the tall windows of your Polanco mansion and painted silver bars across the marble floor. Beside you, Valeria stirred beneath the silk sheets, her perfume still clinging faintly to the air, something expensive and floral that suddenly felt wrong in a room filled with your son’s distant cry.
Then it came again.
Fainter this time.
Muffled.
But unmistakable.
Miguel.
