The pounding came again.
Three hard knocks that seemed to shake the entire house.
Víctor froze in the middle of the kitchen with the wooden stick still hanging from his hand.
Helena stopped smiling.
Raúl finally pushed himself back from the table.
Nora lowered her phone just enough for me to see her expression change.
Nobody spoke.
Then the pounding came a third time.
“Open the door!”
I knew that voice.
Alex.
For a moment, I thought I had imagined it.
My head was spinning, my cheek was still pressed against the cold tile, and the edges of my vision kept folding inward.
But Víctor’s reaction told me it was real.
He looked at the pieces of my phone scattered near the wall.
Then he looked at me.
The certainty drained out of his face.
“What did you send?” he demanded.
I didn’t answer.
He stepped toward me, but another crash against the front door stopped him.
“I know she’s in there!” Alex shouted.
Víctor turned toward his parents.
“Nobody opens that door.”
Helena recovered first.
“She’s probably been lying to him,” she said quickly.
“That’s what she does.
She creates drama and then makes us look terrible.”
I almost laughed, though I didn’t have the strength.
Nora was still holding the phone that contained several minutes of exactly what had happened.
Víctor seemed to remember that at the same moment I did.
His eyes moved toward his sister.
“Give me your phone.”
Nora pulled it against her chest.
“Why?”
“Just give it to me.”
The pounding stopped.
That silence was worse.
Víctor’s attention snapped toward the hallway.
A second later, Alex’s voice came from outside again, calmer now.
“I’ve already called for help.”
Everything changed.
Until that moment, Víctor had believed the walls of that house protected him.
Inside them, his parents agreed with him, his sister recorded what he wanted recorded, and my fear kept me quiet.
He could say I was dramatic.
Helena could call me lazy.
Raúl could insist I was disrespectful.
They could repeat those words until even I began questioning my own memory.
But now there was someone outside the house.
Someone they couldn’t control.
Víctor dropped the stick onto the counter.
“Put that away,” Helena hissed.
He grabbed it again and shoved it behind a cabinet.
I watched him do it.
So did Nora’s camera.
She had forgotten to stop recording.
Raúl rushed toward the stove and turned off the burner.
