CHAPTER 3 — THE CLICK IN THE DARK
The sound came again on the seventeenth night.
Not louder.
Not closer.
Just more certain.
A cold, sharp click in the darkness—like something small being unlocked where it shouldn’t have been.
And this time, I was awake before it happened.
Lucía was already sitting upright in bed.
Not asleep.
Not relaxed.
Fully alert, like she had been waiting for that exact moment.
Her hand was under the blanket, gripping mine tightly.
Not comforting me.
Warning me.
Don’t move.
Don’t breathe too loudly.
Don’t let them know you’re awake.
Esteban was still asleep beside her.
Or pretending to be.
His breathing was steady, controlled.
Too controlled.
Like someone trying to appear unaware.
The click came again.
From somewhere outside the bedroom door.
Lucía’s grip tightened.
For the first time, I saw fear in her face that wasn’t directed at us.
It was directed outward.
At something we couldn’t see.
Slowly, she leaned toward me.
Her lips barely moved.
But I heard her whisper clearly.
“Don’t look.”
My chest tightened.
“What?” I mouthed silently.
She shook her head once.
Firm.
Urgent.
Don’t look.
Then I heard footsteps.
Soft.
Measured.
Stopping right outside our door.
A pause.
Then another click.
Faint metallic sound.
Like a latch being tested.
Esteban shifted slightly in his sleep.
Lucía immediately placed her hand over his arm—firm enough to stop him from moving further.
That gesture told me something worse than fear.
It told me she had done this before.
The door handle turned.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Not rushed.
Controlled.
Like whoever was outside already knew exactly what they were doing.
Lucía squeezed my hand harder.
Her nails dug into my skin, but I didn’t react.
I couldn’t.
The door didn’t open fully.
It stopped.
A pause.
Then the footsteps retreated.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
As if satisfied.
And only then did Lucía exhale.
A breath she had been holding for too long.
Her entire body trembled once—then went still again.
When the room finally fell silent, I whispered:
“Who was that?”
Lucía didn’t answer immediately.
Her eyes stayed fixed on the door.
Then she said something I didn’t expect.
Not a name.
Not an explanation.
Just one sentence:
“They check.”
I frowned.
“Who checks?”
She hesitated.
Then whispered:
“Every house has rules.”
My stomach tightened.
“What rules?”
But she shook her head again.
Like she had already said too much.
The next morning, I confronted Esteban.
He was in the kitchen, pouring coffee like nothing had happened in the night.
“I heard someone at the door,” I said.
He didn’t look up.
“Probably the neighbors.”
“No,” I insisted. “There was a click. Someone tried to open it.”
That made him pause.
Just for a second.
Then he said calmly:
“You’re imagining things.”
That phrase again.
Imagining things.
It started to feel less like reassurance…
and more like instruction.
I turned toward Lucía.
She was sitting at the table, staring at her hands.
I asked her directly:
“Who comes at night?”
Her shoulders tightened.
She didn’t look at me.
Instead, she said softly:
“I told you… don’t look.”
That was when I realized something worse.
Lucía wasn’t hiding the truth from me.
She was trying to protect me from it.
Or maybe…
she was trying to protect herself by keeping me unaware.
That afternoon, I noticed something strange in the house.
The locks had been changed.
Not recently installed.
Not new.
But reinforced.
Extra bolts on the doors I never remembered seeing.
Even the bedroom door now had a secondary latch on the inside.
When I asked Esteban about it, he said casually:
“Just for safety.”
But he still wouldn’t meet my eyes.
That night, Tomás came home earlier than usual.
And for the first time in seventeen nights…
Lucía did not enter our bedroom.
She stayed in her room with him.
The house felt wrong in a different way.
Not watched.
Not controlled.
But waiting.
At 2:36 a.m., I woke up to silence so deep it felt physical.
No footsteps.
No door.
No breathing other than my own.
Esteban was beside me, but even his presence felt distant.
And then I heard it again.
The click.
But this time…
it came from inside the house.
Not the door.
Not outside.
From somewhere deeper.
Somewhere that didn’t belong to locks at all.
I turned slightly in bed.
And in the faint light from the hallway, I saw something I shouldn’t have seen.
Lucía standing at the end of the corridor.
Not moving.
Not blinking.
Looking directly at me.
And for the first time…
May you like
she wasn’t afraid.
She was waiting.
