When Nyah reached Bette’s door, she knocked; three quick raps, low and urgent. Not loud enough to raise alarm, but firm enough to demand attention. Behind the door, footsteps shuffled hastily across the floor, and a moment later it cracked open, spilling warm light onto Nyah’s tense face.

Bette stood there, brows knit, lips slightly parted, still barefoot and with the faint glow of dying candlelight softening the shadows behind her. Her expression shifted at once from curiosity to suspicion, then a flicker of something more private.

“Nyah…” she said cautiously, her voice quiet, unreadable. “If you’re here to…”

But Nyah didn’t wait for the rest.

She reached for Bette’s hand with surprising force, her grip unshakable. “No. Something’s wrong.”

Bette blinked, thrown, half resisting. “What are you talking ab…”

“Don’t argue. Just let me in. Now.”

She cast one last glance into the dark before easing the front door shut behind her, then caught Bette’s hand and pulled her swiftly into motion, dragging her down the corridor with a silent urgency.

Bette, already sensing the shift in Nyah’s energy, fell into step beside her without another word. Her heartbeat had begun to climb, less from the touch, more from the sharp edge in Nyah’s voice.

Through the back hallway they went, past bedrooms, kitchen, den, the house dim and still around them. The elephants’ pens murmured outside, audible only through the distant night air, but it was the silence inside the house that made Bette’s skin crawl.

They reached the door to her office. Nyah didn’t wait for an invitation, she twisted the knob and slipped inside, her movements quick but quiet.

Instead of flipping on the overhead light, she moved to the windows and twisted the wooden louvre blinds shut, one by one, sealing the room in shadow.

The hum of machines greeted them instantly, the low buzz of monitors, blinking lights, and the gentle whir of the server fan in the corner. A soft wash of white-blue light from the screens cast their faces in ghostly relief, flickering across the walls like signals searching for meaning in the dark.

Nyah crossed the room to the wall of screens, her eyes scanning the live feeds from the foundation’s perimeter. “I felt it,” she said tightly, leaning over the desk. “Just off the main path to the trucks. There was… something. Watching.”