Chapter 5

Azraech! I yelled out brusquely. Dennis jolted like he’d been electrocuted.

“What?” he breathed.

My voice was foreign even to me—thick, guttural, cracking at the edges. It wasn’t a name. It was a summoning. Something ancient curled off my tongue and twisted in the air, even after it was said.

Azraech.

The lights flickered. The shadows in the corners twitched. And Dennis stared at me like i'd just vomited fire.

“Lena…” he said, whisper-thin now. “What the fuck is Azraech?”

I felt it then.

The shift in the room.

The pull beneath my skin. Between my legs. In my soul.

He heard it.

He knows.

He's coming.

"Dennis we need to run .he, he is coming." I shivered while saying it as I forced myself to get up enduring the pain and pulling Dennis along with me to escape.Dennis stumbled as i pulled him—hard, frantic—his eyes wide, unblinking, glued to the shadows that no longer sat still.

“Lena—what the hell is happening?!” he gasped, grabbing my wrist to steady me, trying not to trip over the blanket still clinging to my body.

“We need to—go, now!” i screamed, panic clawing at my throat.

From behind me, in the hallway—creaking. Like footsteps, but not. More like bones bending backward. The walls whispered my name.

Lenaaaa...

Dennis flinched. “You heard that, right? That wasn’t in my head—Lena, that was real!”

My body burned. My neck throbbed like the wound was opening again, pulsing in sync with something—someone—getting closer.

I yanked open the apartment door.

Outside?

The hallway was wrong.

Dark. Deeper than it should’ve been. Lights overhead flickering in a rhythm that mimicked breathing. The elevator panel at the end blinked red, every floor labeled not with numbers, but with letters… letters that moved when you looked too long.

Dennis froze behind me.

“This isn’t—this isn’t my building anymore,” he whispered.

“No,” I choked, feeling his hand tighten around mine. "it’s his.”

And behind me, back in the apartment—something growled.

Low. Animal. Hungry.

Dennis looked at me, pure fear in his eyes. “Where the fuck do we run to, Lena?”

"I dunno I think we are trap. but, don't worry,"My voice cracked "he won't come for, for you. I'm the one he wants."

Dennis’s eyes snapped to mine, burning with disbelief—anger—terror.

“No. No, Lena, fuck that—I’m not leaving you.”

We were both halfway in the warped hallway now, its walls bending ever so slightly inward, like a throat preparing to swallow. The air pulsed with heat and scent—roses, iron, sex, decay. The kind of scent that made knees buckle and made you forget your own damn name.

But Dennis held my hand like it was the last real thing left.

His voice broke.

“You think I’m gonna run while he—while he does shit to you? While he rips you apart night after night, and now what, just takes you completely?”

He stepped in front of me, shielding me, jaw tight. “You saved me, Lena. You gave a shit when I had no one. And now I’m supposed to let you go?”

Then quieter. Raw.

“I don’t care what he wants. If he wants you, he’s gotta come through me first.”

And behind me… the whisper deepened.

“How noble.”

The lights snapped.

Pitch black.

Except for the ember glow of two burning eyes now watching us both from the far end of the hall.

And a voice—liquid, smooth, drenched in hunger: