**ELENA POV**
The house finally goes quiet.
Not the brittle, waiting kind of quiet that has haunted it for weeks. Not the kind that coils tight around your ribs and dares you to breathe too loudly. This quiet is different. Heavy. Settling. The kind that arrives only after something violent has been removed and carried far away, like debris swept out to sea after a storm has already broken itself against the shore.
Ellis is gone.
The police take her in handcuffs, her words still sharp and ugly as they lead her past the front door. I don’t watch. I can’t. I turn my face away, stare at the edge of the rug instead, at the way the fibers bend where furniture once pressed down. I hear her voice fade instead, carried out into the night, swallowed by distance and engines and procedure. Even wh
