My husband woke me up in the middle of the night. “Get up. Into the yard. Now.” We hid in the bushes in our pajamas, and when I saw who was entering the house, my hands began to tremble.

My husband, Colton Hayes, shook me awake in the middle of the night with a grip that felt nothing like his usual groggy morning touch, and before I could even focus my eyes, he was already leaning close to my ear, whispering urgently that we had to get up and step into the backyard immediately without turning on a single light.

“Get up right now, Brielle,” he insisted under his breath, his voice steady but tense in a way that made my stomach tighten instantly.

I pushed myself upright, confused and disoriented, while our five year old son Grayson stirred beside me and our three year old daughter Harper let out a soft whimper from her small bed across the room.

“What is happening?” I asked, trying to keep my voice low even though my pulse was beginning to pound hard against my ribs.

“There is no time to explain,” Colton replied as he scooped Harper into his arms and guided Grayson toward me with a firm hand on his shoulder, and I noticed that he was already fully dressed in jeans and a dark hoodie as if he had been expecting something instead of being startled from sleep like the rest of us.

Grayson clutched my waist with trembling fingers and whispered, “Mom, I am scared,” which made my heart twist because he almost never admitted fear out loud.

“I know, sweetheart, just stay quiet,” I murmured as Colton led us barefoot through the hallway and out the back door into the cold night air that smelled faintly of damp soil and cut grass.

The yard behind our house in Cedar Ridge, Colorado was shadowed and still, and Colton steered us toward a thick cluster of overgrown shrubs near the wooden fence that bordered the alley, motioning for us to crouch low where the branches would hide us from view.

“Stay here and do not make a sound,” he whispered firmly while scanning the dark outline of the house as if measuring every window and corner.

I wanted to demand answers because nothing about this made sense, yet the expression on his face stopped me from arguing since it was not panic but something colder and more calculated that unsettled me far more deeply.

We crouched among the prickly branches while the leaves scratched my arms and Harper buried her face against Colton’s chest to muffle another whimper, and from that angle we could see the entire back side of our house standing silent and unlit against the black sky.