Lahat ng Kabanata ng I HEARD HIM SAY " DADDY": Kabanata 131 - Kabanata 135

ELENA I woke before the sun had fully risen, the soft gray light spilling hesitantly across the living room floor. The house was quiet, almost deceptively so, and for a brief moment, I allowed myself to imagine that Sam had truly left. That the danger had passed. But I did not allow myself to linger in that thought. I could feel it in my bones: he would return. He always returned. I moved carefully, checking the locks on every door and window, treating each bolt and latch as if my life depended on it. In a way, it did. My son’s life depended on it. My own life depended on it. Every precaution I had taken the night before suddenly felt fragile, like the thinest thread stretched over a canyon. One misstep could unravel everything I had fought to secure. I pulled my phone from the counter and typed a brief message to Marcus, alerting him that I was awake and monitoring the house. Almost immediately, his reply came: I am on standby. Nothing happens without my knowledge. I allowed a s

ANNALISE/LISA I could not breathe. The world narrowed into a suffocating tunnel, the edges of my vision blurring as though reality itself was rejecting me. Every sound—the whispers, the rustle of fabric, the faint clinking of glasses—faded into something distant and distorted. All that remained, all that mattered, was him. Sam. He stood there like a shadow carved into flesh, unmoving and yet impossibly present, his gaze fixed entirely on me. It was not just that he had found me—it was the way he looked at me. Calm. Certain. Possessive. As though I had never truly escaped. My fingers tightened around Jason’s hand without thought, clinging to him like he was the only thing tethering me to the ground. I could feel his confusion, his tension, the way his body shifted slightly in front of mine as if instinctively trying to shield me. But this… this was not something he understood. This was not something anyone here understood. “Sam,” Jason repeated, his voice low and dangerous, a

ANNALISE/LISA I could still feel him there, at the edge of the garden, a presence that consumed every corner of my mind. Even as the whispers of the guests faded into a tense hush, every nerve in my body remained alert, wound tight like a spring ready to snap. My chest ached under the weight of anticipation, and my hands trembled with the memory of his gaze. Sam’s eyes had always had a way of finding me, of seeing through every layer I tried to hide, and now, standing there in the sunlight filtering through the trees, he saw me more clearly than anyone ever had. Jason stayed close, his hand gripping mine like a lifeline, a grounding force in the storm of my emotions. But even his solid presence could not ease the tight coil of panic and fear that had wrapped itself around my heart. My legs threatened to give way under me, as though the ground itself had become unstable. My mind spun with the impossible question: How had he found me? After all these years, after everything I had do