At 3 A.M., my neighbor pounded on my door and told me to pack a bag. I thought she was panicking — until she said one sentence that changed everything….
The knock came at 3:07 a.m.
Not a polite knock. Not the uncertain tap of someone with a d:ead car battery or a package delivered to the wrong porch. It was sharp, fast, urgent enough to slice through sleep and sit me upright before I was fully awake.
My husband, Aaron, muttered beside me and rolled over. Our daughter, Lucy, was asleep down the hall. The whole house was dark except for the blue glow of the baby monitor we still used out of habit even though Lucy was six and perfectly capable of yelling if she needed us. I looked at the clock, then at Aaron.
“Did you hear that?”
Before he answered, the knocking came again.
Three hard blows.
Then a woman’s voice, low but intense, from the other side of the front door.
“Maya. Open up. Now.”
