The uber driver's hands trembled on the steering wheel as they approached the wrought iron gates that stretched across what appeared to be an entire hillside in Beverly Hills.
What had started as a routine fare had transformed into something that made his primitive human instincts scream warnings about places where mortals weren't meant to tread.
"Lady, you sure about this address?" he asked, his voice cracking slightly as he stared at the massive gates before them. "This place... it's like a whole damn village up there?"
Karen adjusted her wire-rimmed glasses with shaking fingers, her reflection in the lenses showing eyes rimmed with red from weeks of sleepless nights and relentless investigation. Her black hair hung in greasy strands around a face that had aged years in the span of days, stress etching lines around her eyes that no twenty-eight-year-old should possess.
