You don’t mean to bring your phone torch this close to the floor, but the shadows under the unfinished hotel bed swallow everything. You’re just trying to find the stupid lens cap you dropped during orientation filming—nothing dramatic, nothing worth the way your heartbeat begins to scrape the inside of your ribs.

Theo kneels beside you, his dark hair brushing his brow as he leans down, green eyes sharp even in the dusty half-light. “It probably rolled,” he mutters, lifting the edge of the mattress. “Or the bed ate it. These frames look carnivorous.”

You huff a laugh, but it dies halfway out of your throat.

Because your light falls on something—something that should not be there.

A book. Worn. Warped. Its corners look like they’ve been chewed by time itself. No dust on it, though. As if it’s been moved recently. As if someone placed it there on purpose.

Your skin crackles cold.

“What’s that?” Theo asks, voice softer now, alert in the way he gets when a raptor’s scent catches the air.