My husband thought I had fallen down his mother's front steps by accident, until he watched the security footage and noticed something moving behind me...

"Get upstairs," Nolan ordered, pointing the beam toward the upper landing. "Both of you. Now."

"Nolan, my legs," I protested, gesturing down at the heavy knee brace and my crutches leaning against the sofa. "I can't run up those stairs in the dark."

"Then the master bedroom downstairs," he adjusted immediately, grabbing my arm to help me stand. "Paige, take the flashlight. Lock the bedroom door from the inside. Do not open it for anyone except my voice."

"What are you going to do?" Paige asked, her eyes wild with terror in the flashlight's reflection.

"I’m going to check the breaker box on the side porch," Nolan said, picking up the baseball bat. "The security guard should be parked out front. If the power was cut, he should have seen someone enter the yard."

"Nolan, wait!" I cried, grabbing his sleeve with my good hand. "Don't go outside alone. Call the police first!"

Nolan pulled out his phone. The screen displayed five empty signal bars beside a flashing warning icon: *No Service - Emergency Calls Only.*

"Signal jammer," Nolan muttered under his breath, realization turning his expression grim. "They’re using a cellular block. The private security guard might already be compromised."

Lightning ripped across the sky outside, illuminating the hallway for a split second. In that flash, through the sidelight windows of the front door, we saw it: the silhouette of the patrol car parked across the street was empty, its driver's side door swinging open in the wind.

A sharp, metallic scraping sound echoed from the basement directly beneath our feet.

It wasn't wind. It was the sound of an iron grate being wrenched free from the stone foundation.

"They’re inside," Paige whimpered. "They’re already in the basement."

"Bedroom, now!" Nolan shoved Paige and me toward the ground-floor master suite at the end of the hall.

I leaned heavily on my crutches, gritting my teeth against the searing fire tearing through my ribs as I forced my bruised body to move. Paige held my waist, half-dragging me down the corridor. Nolan ushered us inside, slammed the heavy solid-wood door, and turned the brass deadbolt.

"Keep the lights off," Nolan whispered from the other side of the threshold. "I’m locking this from the hall with the master key. I won't let them reach you."

"Nolan, no! Stay inside with us!" I pleaded, hammering my good hand against the wood. "Don't leave us!"

"I have to secure the basement entrance before they get to the main level," he said, his voice muffled through the wood. The deadbolt clicked into place from the outside. "I love you, Clara. Stay quiet."