The town was quiet again, but Frank could hear it—fear.
Not the fear in people's eyes, or the shivers in their hands, but the kind that whispered in empty streets, that seeped from broken windows, that crawled along the walls. It had a voice, and tonight it spoke directly to him.
"Run," it hissed.
Frank froze. He knew that voice. It was the same one that had urged him to flee when the fire had burned the bakery. The same one that had shouted at him to hide when blood stained the roads. The voice of the town, the voice of its shadows, the voice of survival itself.
He wanted to listen. Every instinct told him to listen.
But something deeper told him to stay.
Footsteps echoed from the alley ahead. Quick. Deliberate. Not human. Or at least, not entirely. Frank's hands clenched into fists. His heart thudded, pounding not with fear but with determination.
He remembered the little girl. The man on the road. The promise he had made to the dead.
He had to stand.
The voice in the shadows screamed louder now. "You'll die. You're nothing. Leave."
Frank took a step forward. Then another. Each step made the whispers tremble, as if they had never expected him to move at all.
A shadow detached itself from the darkness. A figure tall and silent. Watching. Waiting. The same figure from the fire? Frank couldn't tell. But he didn't flinch.
"Who are you?" Frank demanded, voice sharper than he had expected.
No answer. Only the silence that stretched, heavy and oppressive, like the town itself was holding its breath.
And in that silence, Frank understood something essential: fear is strongest when it believes you will obey. It loses power when you do not.
He planted his feet. He squared his shoulders. And for the first time, he didn't run.
The shadow moved closer. Frank didn't flinch.
The town had whispered for decades. Told him he was small, weak, replaceable. But tonight, he found his voice.
And when fear finds a voice, it realizes it has nothing to say.
Frank—Spenser now, in every heartbeat and every choice—would not run.
There he stood.