Chapter 183: A Voice With No Shape

Chapter 183: Chapter 183: A Voice With No Shape

The knock at the gate came mid-morning, steady rather than frantic, and Erik recognized the rhythm before he’d even reached the door.

"Ethan."

The boy stood on the other side, damp from the rain but composed, none of the panic that had characterized the previous night’s visitor. "Sorry to bother you. I wanted to tell you something before I lost my nerve, or before it stopped mattering."

Erik kept the gate between them, giving the boy his full attention through the narrow gap. "I’m listening. What is it?"

Penelope emerged from the hallway, drawn by the voices, Kai and Killian following a moment later, all three gathering near the gate rather than opening it further.

"It’s about the murders," Ethan said. "I think I heard something. Last night, actually, around the same time we had someone show up here asking for help."

"What did you hear?" Penelope asked, standing close enough to the gate to hear clearly without needing it opened.

Ethan gathered his thoughts, gripping the outside of the gate lightly with one hand. "My hearing’s been getting stronger. Further range every week, it feels like. I’ve mostly just tuned it out, honestly, because there’s so much noise in this building now, but last night I was awake, and I caught something specific. Voices, a few floors down."

"Whose voices?" Erik asked, already sharpening with focus.

"That’s the thing. I only heard one side of it clearly." Ethan frowned, working through the memory carefully. "The victim, I think. Talking normal. Friendly, even. Like they knew whoever they were talking to. No fear in it, not until right at the very end."

"And the other person," Killian said. "What did they say?"

"Nothing." Ethan shook his head. "That’s what’s strange. I never heard them speak. Not one word, the whole exchange. Just the victim’s voice, and then — quiet. Then the sound after."

Penelope’s stomach turned. "So whoever’s doing this doesn’t talk to their victims at all."

"Not that I could hear," Ethan confirmed. "And I was listening hard. Once I realized something was actually happening, I focused everything I had on it. If they’d spoken even once, I think I would have caught it."

"Could you tell anything else," Erik asked. "Direction, distance, anything about who the assailant might have been?"

Ethan hesitated. "Not really. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. No breathing pattern I could latch onto, no footsteps distinct enough to place. Whoever it is moves quiet. Really quiet. Quieter than anyone should be able to move without practice."

"That fits with the wound," Killian said grimly, glancing at Erik. "Clean, controlled, no hesitation. Someone experienced."

"Could you at least tell how tall they were?" Kai asked. "Based on where the voice was coming from, or the sound of the strike?"

Ethan shook his head slowly, clearly frustrated with his own limitations. "I’ve thought about that too. It’s not like seeing something. It’s more like — pressure, direction, distance, but nothing precise enough to build a picture from. I could tell they were close to the victim. Close enough that whatever happened, happened fast, in a single motion. That’s it."

"What about scent," Penelope asked, half-joking, though something in Ethan’s expression made her reconsider the question seriously. "Has your hearing come with anything else? Enhanced smell, anything like that?"

"No," Ethan said. "Just the hearing, and the seeing in the dark. I wish it had come with something more useful for this specific problem."

"There’s one more thing," Ethan continued, quieter now. "The victim’s tone. Right before it happened. It wasn’t just friendly. It was — comfortable. Like talking to someone they trusted completely. No caution in it at all, even with everything going on in this building right now."

The group fell into a heavy silence.

"Someone the victims already knew," Penelope said slowly. "Or someone who’s good enough at seeming trustworthy that it doesn’t matter whether they actually did."

"That narrows it down to basically everyone still alive in this building," Kai said, frustration threading through the observation. "Which is to say, it doesn’t narrow it down at all."

"It narrows it down more than you’d think," Killian said, thoughtful. "Most people in this building don’t trust strangers anymore. Not after three weeks of flooding and scarcity. If someone’s able to get victims comfortable enough to let their guard down completely, that’s either someone they already knew before all this started, or someone who’s spent real time and effort making themselves seem harmless."

"That’s not exactly comforting," Kai muttered.

"It’s not meant to be," Killian said. "It’s meant to be useful."

Erik crossed his arms, turning the information over with the same methodical focus he brought to every unresolved threat, a low, familiar growl resurfacing at the edges of his thoughts from the night before. He didn’t say anything about it. The connection felt too thin to voice yet, built on instinct alone rather than anything concrete enough to act on.

"Thank you for telling us," Erik said instead, focusing back on Ethan. "This helps, even if it doesn’t give us a name yet."

"I wish I had more," Ethan admitted. "I keep going over it, trying to catch something I missed, but there’s nothing there. Just silence where the killer should have been, and a friendly voice that got quiet too fast."

"You did the right thing coming to us," Penelope said. "Most people would have kept that to themselves out of fear."

"I thought about it," Ethan admitted. "But my dad said you’d want to know, even if it wasn’t much. Said information mattered more than waiting until it felt complete enough to be useful."

"Your dad’s right," Erik said.

Ethan lingered a moment longer, some hesitation crossing his face before he spoke again. "Do you think it’s someone in the building? Like — someone we’d recognize, if we saw them?"

"I don’t know," Erik said honestly. "But I think we should all be more careful about who we trust right now. Even people who seem harmless."

Something in the phrasing landed heavier than Erik intended, and he caught Penelope glancing at him with faint curiosity through the bars, though she said nothing, filing the observation away the same careful way she filed most things lately.

"You should tell your floor the same thing," Erik added. "Anyone acting differently lately, anyone showing up with a story that seems too convenient, don’t take chances on it just because you’ve known them a while."

"I’ll pass that along," Ethan said, nodding slowly. "Should we start locking doors even for people we recognize?"

"For now, yes," Killian said. "Better a little rude than dead."

"I should get back," Ethan said. "My dad worries if I’m gone too long."

"Stay safe," Kai said, still standing on his side of the gate. "And if you hear anything else — anything at all — you come straight here. Doesn’t matter what time."

"I will." Ethan paused, glancing at them through the bars with something older than his age settling briefly into his expression. "I keep thinking about it. The way the victim sounded right before. Like they had no idea anything was wrong until it already was."

Nobody had an answer for that. Ethan turned and made his way back down the stairwell, and Erik pulled the gate shut, keying the lock before turning back to the others, the small group standing in unsettled silence.

"We need to increase our own watch," Erik said finally. "Starting tonight. Rotating shifts on the gate, and I want everyone paying closer attention to anyone who comes through it, even people we think we already know."

"Even the people we let in last night?" Kai asked, something careful in the question, though he stopped short of naming anyone directly.

Erik’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "Especially anyone we haven’t fully vetted."

Killian studied him for a moment, something quietly perceptive behind his expression, though he said nothing about the deflection, simply nodding. "I’ll take first watch tonight."

"I’ll take second," Penelope offered.

Aunt Mary, who’d been listening quietly from the hallway with Aurora balanced on her hip, finally spoke. "Whoever this is, they’re patient. Methodical. That’s a different kind of dangerous than the chaos we’ve been dealing with so far."

"I know," Erik said, something grim settling into his voice. "That’s exactly what worries me."

Ben, arriving late to the conversation with a basket of laundry tucked under one arm, caught the tail end of it and paused. "Are we talking about the murders again?"

"We are," Penelope said. "Ethan just gave us more to work with. Not a name, but a pattern, at least."

"A pattern that fits half the building," Kai said.

"Better than nothing," Ben said, setting the basket down. "What do you need me to do?"

"Watch rotation, starting tonight," Erik said. "We’ll set up a schedule after dinner. For now, just stay alert. All of us."

The rain continued its steady assault against the windows, the building below sinking further into fear and suspicion with every passing day, and somewhere within its walls, a killer who never spoke, never hesitated, and never left a single trace behind continued moving quietly from floor to floor — patient, careful, and utterly unbothered by the growing unease finally beginning to circle in on them.