(PARASYTE X WORM) CHAPTER THREE

Danny had not slept well. 

That, in itself, was not unusual. Sleep had been unreliable for a long time now, coming in shallow stretches that left him more aware of the dark than rested by it. What was different was the reason.

He could still see it when he closed his eyes: Taylor rushing past him without a word, the front door slamming open hard enough to rattle the frame, and her footsteps loud as she took the stairs two at a time. He had called after her, confused more than anything else, expecting at least a mumbled excuse or a half-hearted explanation.

He had gotten neither.

By the time he followed, something already felt wrong. He found her in her room, sprawled across the bed, one arm twisted awkwardly beneath her. For a moment he thought she had tripped, that she had hit her head on something on the way down, and the fear that followed was sharp enough to steal the breath from his chest.

Then he saw the cord.

It was looped tight around her upper arm, pulled so hard that the skin beneath it had gone pale. A USB cable, of all things. It took his mind a second to process what he was looking at, and another for the implications to sink in.

His stomach dropped.

“Taylor?” he had said, already moving toward her, his hands hovering for a moment before he forced himself to act.

She did not respond.

He checked her breathing first. It was there, even enough, though a little shallow. Her pulse came next, fingers pressing at her wrist with more force than necessary as he tried to ground himself in something he could measure.

Alive.

The knot in his chest loosened, though it did not go away.

Carefully, he worked the cord loose, wincing at the mark it left behind. He half-expected her to stir, to protest, or to wake with the same irritation she usually reserved for being disturbed. She didn’t, so he sat there for a moment longer than he should have, staring at the cable in his hand, trying to make sense of it.

Then he checked her desk, her drawers, the floor, and even the trash, looking for something he did not want to find. A needle, or a bag, or a spilled residue. Anything.

His search grew less careful the longer it went on, objects shifted and moved without much thought as he worked through the room with a growing sense of urgency that bordered on panic.

There was nothing.

He checked again anyway.

Still nothing.

By the time he stopped, the room looked much the same as it had before, though he could not shake the feeling that he had missed something obvious, something that would explain it.

He looked back at Taylor.

She still hadn’t moved.

The cable sat in his hand, light and harmless in a way that felt at odds with everything else.

It didn’t make sense.

Eventually, he told himself it didn’t have to.

Kids did strange things. Stupid things. He had heard enough stories over the years to know that much. It could have been a joke taken too far, a bad idea acted on without thinking, or something picked up from someone else and tried without understanding the consequences.

It could have been nothing.

It was easier to believe that.

. . . . .

The next day did not make it easier.

Taylor came home later than usual, though not late enough to stand out on its own. He had been in the kitchen when he heard the door open, the sound pulling his attention from what he had been doing.

He hesitated, then he stepped out to meet her.

“Hey,” he said, aiming for something casual and landing somewhere close enough.

She paused just inside the doorway, as if she hadn’t expected him to be there.

“Hey.”

There was a brief silence that followed, the kind that had become familiar over the past year, stretching just long enough to be noticeable before either of them felt compelled to fill it.

Danny cleared his throat.

“How was school?”

The question felt inadequate the moment he asked it, too broad and too routine to bridge the distance that had formed between them, but it was what he had.

Taylor shifted her weight slightly, her bag still slung over one shoulder.

“It was…” She trailed off, her expression tightening in a way that made him pay closer attention. “Weird.”

He stilled. “Weird how?”

She hesitated.

That, more than anything, set something off in his chest.

Taylor didn’t hesitate when she was brushing him off. She had gotten very good at that, at giving short, dismissive answers that closed off further conversation before it could start. This was different.

“I don’t know,” she said finally. “Things just… didn’t go the way they usually do.”

Danny frowned slightly, though he kept his tone even.

“Like what?”

Another pause.

“They left me alone.”

The words came out flat, almost uncertain, as if she was still trying to decide whether that had actually happened.

“Who?” he asked.

Taylor glanced away.

“Just… people.”

That wasn’t an answer.

Danny felt the concern from the night before return, heavier this time.

“Taylor—”

“I mean it,” she cut in, a little too quickly. “They just… stopped. It doesn’t make sense.”

He studied her for a moment, taking in the way her shoulders were set and the way her eyes avoided his.

“What were they doing before that?” he asked carefully.

She didn’t respond right away.

The silence stretched.

Then she shrugged, a small, tight motion.

“Stuff.”

Danny exhaled slowly through his nose.

Questions pressed at the front of his mind, more than he could reasonably ask without pushing too hard, without risking her shutting down entirely. Already, she looked done with the conversation, ready to return to the same distance they had been living with for months.

He didn’t want that anymore.

“Hey,” he said, softer now. “You can tell me.”

Taylor’s expression shifted, something appearing there for a brief moment before it was smoothed away.

“I know.”

But she didn’t, or she didn’t believe it enough to act on it.

The conversation stalled after that, drifting into safer territory before tapering off entirely. She retreated to her room not long after, leaving him standing in the hallway with more questions than answers and a growing sense that something was really wrong.

He leaned back against the wall, staring at nothing in particular.

Annette would have known what to do. After all, she had always been better at this part, at reading between the lines, at knowing when to push and when to wait.

At knowing how to reach their daughter.

He closed his eyes briefly, pushing the thought aside before he could dwell further on it.

Wishing for that wasn’t going to help.

Doing something might.

Danny straightened, a quiet resolve taking hold where the uncertainty had been.

Whatever was going on, ignoring it wasn’t an option anymore. He had let too much slide already, told himself too many times that things would work themselves out if he just gave it time.

Time hadn’t fixed it. If anything, it had only made things worse.

He pushed himself off the wall.

It was time for a change.

. . . . .

Danny moved through the kitchen with more focus than he had in a while, pulling ingredients from the fridge and cabinets with a kind of determination that had less to do with the task itself and more with what it represented. It had been a long time since he had made breakfast for both of them with any real intention behind it.

Far too long.

The pan heated slowly on the stove, the faint sound of it filling the otherwise quiet room. He cracked eggs into a bowl, whisking them without really thinking about the motion, his mind still turning over the conversation from earlier.

“They left me alone.”

The words didn’t make sense. Neither did the way she had said them.

Danny frowned slightly as he poured the eggs into the pan, the soft hiss grounding him in the present even as his thoughts wandered elsewhere.

Who were they? Why had they been bothering her in the first place? And why—

A scream cut through the house, loud and frightened, leaving  no room for misinterpretation.

Danny froze for a fraction of a second, then he was moving. The spatula hit the counter with a dull clatter as he turned, already heading for the stairs before his mind had caught up with his body. He took them two at a time, his chest tightening with each step as the echo of the sound lingered in his ears.

“Taylor!”

No answer.

He reached her door and shoved it open without knocking.