Claimed by My Bestie's Alpha Daddy novel Chapter 204

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The border towns always felt too still. Not quiet in a peaceful way, but quiet in a way that made the air taste like stale sugar, like the kind of quiet that follows an argument you walked in on too late.

The buildings were short and municipal, lined in brick and glass with poorly tinted windows, like the whole town had been designed by someone who had no intention of living in it. I stepped out of the SUV and took a long breath, pretending the quiet didn’t mean anything.

“Does it look like a sleeper town to you?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.

Richard’s hand hovered near the small of my back, not quite touching. “It looks too still. It looks like it’s holding its breath.”

The clocktower rose above the square, a repurposed bell , structure with a new digital face, probably installed under some civic investment program meant to boost morale.

The foundation, though, was old, built from stone and copper, and deeply rooted in resonance-based architecture, even if no one here remembered what that meant. Someone had remembered, and someone had twisted that history into something newer and worse.

Simon climbed out of the backseat, carrying a portable case in one hand and a glowing scanner in the other. “Give me sixty seconds and I’ll tell you if we’re screwed,” he muttered, already in motion. He was always like this inthe field: short-tempered, hyperfocused, and unwilling to explain anything until he had readings in hand.

The square wasn’t crowded. A vendor lounged in a folding chair selling fried bread, while two teenagers lazily kicked a soccer ball between them. A few parents trailed after small children orbiting the plaza in erratic loops.

Everything looked harmless, and it even sounded harmless, until the tower struck the hour.

The sound was subtle. Not like the old bell chimes I’d heard before, and not like the searing resonance that nearly killed me during the Keep attack. This tone had been filtered and softened, but it was still sharp enough to crawl under the skin and stay there.

The instant it hit, the inside of my ears prickled and my spine tightened. It felt like a pressure change that shouldn’t have been possible in open air.

Above us, every pigeon on the wire twisted their heads sharply to the left in eerie synchrony. I caught the movement and turned without thinking, just as the second toll reverberated through my chest.