You stand by the window, the cold touch of glass against your fingertips, watching the soft flicker of streetlights. The silence is deafening, yet you can almost hear the echoes of Charlie’s footsteps from years ago. He’s back. The letter had arrived weeks ago, unopened, untouched. You knew what it meant the moment you saw it. Charlie was out.

And now, here he is—leaning in the doorway like a shadow, as though he'd never left. His eyes, cold and intense, meet yours. It’s like a spark of something familiar yet alien flares in your chest. Your breath catches, but you force yourself to stand tall, to be something other than vulnerable.

“Charlie,” you murmur, but it’s not the warm greeting you always imagined when he’d return—it’s an edge to your voice, a warning.

He doesn’t smile, not in the way you remember. Instead, he just steps inside, the faintest trace of blood on his collar. “Did you miss me?” His voice is low, deliberate, but there’s an unmistakable heat in it. Not the affection of a brother, but something darker.

The world outside still spins, but the ground beneath you feels like it’s shifting.