Chapter 1 1

Kaelen's POV:

The plastic bags dug into my fingers as I walked down the street. The cold didn't bother me as much as it should have, but I had to pretend it did. I had to pretend I was just like everyone else: normal.

Lucian had asked for those damn cookies that were only sold at the store on the other side of town, and Marlen needed more notebooks for school.

There was always something. The clock in the square read 8:30, later than I had planned, and the streetlights flickered with that yellowish light that made everything look dirtier than it was.

Emberdale was a really small town and emptied out quickly after dark, which I was usually grateful for. Fewer eyes, fewer questions, and less chance of anyone noticing anything strange about us.

But tonight the street was too empty, too quiet except for the sound of my own footsteps on the pavement.

I smelled the alcohol before I saw them.

Three guys, maybe four, staggered out of an alley about twenty yards ahead. One tripped over his own foot and the others laughed with those loud, exaggerated laughs of drunks.

Shit.

I automatically changed direction, crossing to the other side of the street, but the tallest one saw me.

"Hey, you!" he shouted, his voice echoing off the walls of the closed buildings. "Where are you going in such a hurry?"

I kept walking. Neither fast nor slow. Normal. As if I hadn't heard him.

"I'm talking to you, son of a bitch!"

The footsteps behind me quickened. There were four of them, I confirmed as I listened to the uncoordinated rhythm of their movements. One was dragging his left foot a little. Another was breathing with a wheeze that betrayed chronic smoking.

These were details that a normal human wouldn't pick up on at that distance, but they stuck in my brain without my asking. Because I wasn't a normal human. In fact, I wasn't even human at all.

"Are you deaf or something?" The tallest one caught up with me and stood in front of me, blocking my way. He reeked of whiskey and had a vomit stain on his shirt. "My friend asked you a question."

"I don't want any trouble," I said, keeping my voice calm and neutral. "I'm just going home."

"Ohhh, just going home," another one repeated mockingly. He was younger, maybe my age, with a cut on his eyebrow that was still bleeding a little. "How cute. Did you hear that, guys? Pretty boy just wants to go home."

The others laughed. One pushed my shoulder, not very hard, just testing. The bags swayed in my hand.

"Excuse me," I said, and tried to walk around them. I could do it. I could just walk away and they'd be too drunk to follow me if I walked fast.

But the tall one grabbed my arm and squeezed. Hard.

My first reaction was to pull away, break his grip, maybe break his arm too if necessary. It would have been easy. So damn easy.

But then I saw the other problem: a half-broken security camera on the pole across the street, probably not even working, but what if it was? What if someone was watching? What if I used my real strength and someone asked questions?

We'd been there for three months. Three months since we'd fled the city after I healed that kid and the wrong people saw it.

Three months hiding in that tiny town where no one knew us and no one suspected anything. Lucian was just starting to sleep without nightmares again, and Marlen had stopped asking me every morning if we had to leave again.

I couldn't risk it. Not for some drunk idiots.

"Let go of me," I said, and pulled my arm away without using too much force.

He tightened his grip.

"Or what? What are you going to do, pretty boy?"

The first punch came before I could dodge it. It hit my cheek and the pain exploded sharp and hot. I staggered, the bags fell, and I heard Lucian's cookies shatter inside the package.

"Come on, fight back," said the young man with the broken eyebrow, and he pushed me again, harder. "What's the matter? Are you scared?"

Yes. But not of them.

Another blow, this time to my ribs. I doubled over, the air rushing out of my lungs. I could feel the heat rising in my throat, that burning sensation that always preceded the transformation when I got too stressed.

No. Not there. Not now.

"Stop," I said, and I hated how my voice sounded, almost like a plea. "That's enough."

"Enough?" the tall one repeated, kicking me in the leg. "We're just getting started, buddy."

The kicks came from all sides then. Back, ribs, stomach. I curled up, tried to protect my head with my arms.

Each impact was a reminder of how weak I had to look, how human I had to act. I could feel my bones absorbing the damage, my body wanting to heal itself automatically, but I held it back. I let it hurt. I let the bruises form.

I thought about Lucian and Marlen waiting for me at home. About how Marlen had probably already set the table and Lucian had made that awful pasta he'd been making lately because he saw a recipe on Tik Tok.

I thought about how scared they would be if I didn't show up, or worse, if I showed up and told them we had to leave again.

I couldn't do that to them.

A foot connected with my face and I felt my lip split, warm blood running down my chin. My ears were ringing. One of them was saying something about my wallet, but the words were muffled, distorted.

Then I saw the lights.

High, bright, too close. The screech of tires against asphalt broke the air, and suddenly the guys weren't kicking me anymore, but shouting, jumping back.

A black car stopped inches from where one of them had been standing a second ago.

"What the hell?!" someone shouted.

I lay on the ground, breathing heavily, trying to focus my eyes. A door opened. Quick footsteps on the pavement.

"Leave now or I'll call the police!" It was a woman's voice, firm, without tremor. "I have my phone in my hand, you motherfuckers!"

"We were just having fun," muttered the tall one, but he was already backing away.

"Well, have fun somewhere else. Get out of here!"

I heard them walk away, their clumsy footsteps disappearing down the street amid muttered insults.

I tried to get up and the world spun a little. Damn. I'd hit my head harder than I thought.

"Are you okay?"

The woman approached, her shoes entering my field of vision. White sneakers, worn out. I slowly raised my head and...

It was as if the air changed.

I don't know how else to explain it. She knelt beside me, and when her fingers brushed my shoulder to help me sit up, something stirred beneath my skin.

Something warm and strange and completely unexpected, which even prevented me from hearing what she said to me.

For a second, just a second, I felt my eyes burn, that golden heat that I could normally control without any problem.

I blinked hard and pushed it down. When I looked back at her, her dark eyes were fixed on me with genuine concern. Her light brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail and her face was free of makeup. She was perhaps my age or a little younger.

"Can you stand up?" she asked.

I nodded, though I wasn't sure. I let her help me up, her small hand surprisingly firm against my arm.

When I was standing, she quickly let go and took a step back, as if she had just realized she had touched a bloody stranger in the middle of the street.

"You should go to the hospital," she said. "Those guys beat you up pretty bad."

"I'm fine," I lied, wiping my mouth with my hand. It came away stained red. "I just... need to get home."

"You don't look okay."

"I've been worse." And I wasn't lying about that, honestly.

She looked at me with that expression people get when they know you're saying something stupid but don't know you well enough to say it to your face.

"At least let me give you a ride. You shouldn't be walking like that."

"No, thanks. Seriously. You've done enough."

We stood there for an awkward moment. She seemed to want to argue, but finally sighed and nodded.

"Whatever you say," she said, and went back to her car. Before getting in, she turned around. "Be more careful, okay? Not all drunk people run away when a car appears."

"I will," I said.

I watched her drive away, the taillights of her car disappearing around the corner. I picked up the torn bags from the ground, the destroyed cookies, and the miraculously intact notebooks.

My whole body ached, but I could already feel it beginning to heal, the familiar warmth spreading through my ribs, closing the cut on my lip.

But I couldn't stop thinking about that moment when she had touched me.

About how my eyes had reacted without me wanting them to.

And about how, for the first time in years, a human had made me feel something other than caution.