SAFE AS HOUSES --- threads, logs and narratives

Those few days of freedom had been almost peaceful. They saw the sky, they breathed the air above ground, they ate food without worrying if it would go bad. Even Alpha seemed less threatening day after day.

Or ... he had.

Morning of the sixth day came. It was quiet and calm. No one would suspect anything was wrong until they went to leave the mansion. In the foyer, hanging from the chandelier between the double staircases was a body, a rope stretched between its neck and the looping metal of the lighting fixture. Its---or her---clothes were shredded, torn from her waist completely. They'd clearly been ruined before her death, which hadn't been quick, or painless, but it had been silent, if the gag was any indication.

Like her clothes, she had been shredded. Single blade. Non-serrated. It was the work of someone angry, someone with a grudge, erratic and patternless. She'd probably bled to death before she'd suffocated, hanging there, the blood pooling under her feet.

And upon closer inspection, that body belonged to Adelle DeWitt.

Everything was supposed to be down. Nothing got in, nothing got out. No phone calls, no food, no internet. The PDAs could text each other and that was about it. Or so it had seemed.

Funny thing, though. Up in Adelle's office, away from the Actives and the staff, the phone was ringing. Adelle's phone was ringing when an hour ago they couldn't even get a dial tone.