She was only 8 years old.
8 years old and she saw her mother get killed by a drive by. From that day poor Nova has been traumatized and has been to foster home to foster home. At the age of 12, Nova has anger and trust issues, never letting anyo...
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NOVA
The four of us were sprawled across Cisco's giant bedroom floor, evidence scattered everywhere—papers, the letter, the broken chain from the music box. The glow from his TV screen was the only light in the room, giving everything that eerie midnight blue tint.
"Okay," I sighed, rubbing my temples. "We've hit too many dead ends. Whoever this stalker is... they're smart. Too smart. But we're missing something."
Cisco tapped the edge of the music box thoughtfully. "Think about it. How would they even get in? You've got a fortress for a house—gates, guards, cameras. Every corner has eyes. The only way someone slips through all of that is if they know the system."
I froze. "You mean... an inside man."
Kai leaned back against the bedframe, arms crossed. "Makes sense. A guard. A servant. Someone who's been around long enough to know the passwords, the blind spots, the shift changes."
Levi was already scribbling notes. "That's it. Every security system has a code, right? If they slipped inside, they didn't brute-force it. They knew it."
"So all we have to do is narrow it down," Cisco said, sitting forward, his voice firm. "Every guard, every servant, every single person who works inside that manor. We eliminate the ones who couldn't have been there. Focus on the ones who could."
I chewed my lip, thinking back hard. "It was after nine. That's when I started hearing the music box. After nine p.m. exactly."
"Good," Kai nodded. "So we cross-reference. Which guards and servants were still in the house after nine? Who switched out of their shift, who came in, who left? That narrows the list fast."
Levi snapped his fingers. "Schedules. If I can get my hands on the staff schedules, I can match names to times. We start digging into backgrounds. Criminal records, debts, family connections. We'll have our rat in no time."
"Yeah, but how do you get the schedule?" Cisco raised an eyebrow. "And you're just gonna waltz in there and grab them?"
Levi smirked. "Waltz, sneak—semantics."
A rare flicker of hope sparked in the room, but my eyes kept drifting back to the music box lying in the center of our circle. The song had gone quiet, but I could still hear its tune echoing in my head. Haunting. Familiar in a way that made my skin crawl.
I reached for it with careful hands. Its wood was smooth, the carvings etched in strange, coded patterns. Not flowers. Not ballerinas. Something else. My fingers shook as I turned the crank and let the melody play again.
That lullaby.
My breath caught in my throat.
"This isn't just any music box," I whispered.
Cisco tilted his head. "What do you mean?"
The melody danced on, faint and mournful, and I felt my chest constrict. "It's Russian. Bayu-Bayuški-Bayu. A lullaby."
