The forest didn't breathe like it should. The trees were still, watching. The wind, once restless, had gone silent as if holding its breath waiting.
Nova could feel the pulse of the night in her throat. Her heartbeat echoed too loudly in the dark, bouncing against the stillness that followed the scream she thought she'd heard. But maybe she hadn't heard it at all. Maybe it was just the echo of fear that had settled deep in her bones since the car crash that took her parents months ago.
She wrapped her arms tighter around herself and turned toward the edge of the woods, where the golden lights of Duskwood High flickered in the distance.
She should have left the shortcut alone. She should have walked the main road like normal people. But Nova Reed never felt normal,not since that night in September when she saw the eyes in the mirror.
Amber. Too bright. Not human.
She took another step, twigs cracking under her boots. Her breath rose like smoke in the air.
Then she saw him.
A figure standing between two pines, half-hidden by shadow.
He didn't move. Didn't speak.
But even from a distance, Nova could feel something ripple through her chest a pull, magnetic and wrong and terrifying all at once.
"Hello?" she whispered, her voice smaller than she meant it to be.
The boy stepped forward.
Not fully into the moonlight, but just enough that she could see his eyes. They gleamed faintly, that same impossible amber.
And then she recognized him.
Or thought she did.
Elijah Vale.
The new transfer. The quiet one who'd sat alone in chemistry, scribbling symbols she couldn't read. Everyone whispered about him that he came from the north woods, that his family didn't exist in any record.
But none of that mattered now. What mattered was the way he looked at her, as if he could hear her heartbeat and it meant something.
"You shouldn't be here," Elijah said softly.
His voice wasn't cold, but it carried weight like it belonged to someone older than seventeen.
Nova forced a laugh. "That's funny. I was about to say the same thing."
Elijah's jaw tightened. "You don't understand. They can smell fear."
"Who?"
A low growl broke the air behind her.
Nova spun, and the forest came alive. The shadows stretched and folded, forming a shape with too many limbs and not enough light. Yellow eyes blinked between branches. The smell wet earth and iron hit her at once.
Before she could move, Elijah was beside her, faster than any human should be. His hand caught her arm. Warm. Firm.
"Run," he said.
Nova didn't argue. She bolted toward the clearing, her lungs burning. Behind her, she heard snarls, snapping branches, and a sound that didn't belong in nature metal tearing through bone.
She stumbled once, nearly falling, but Elijah's hand caught her again, dragging her through the fog. His strength didn't make sense. None of it did.
When they finally burst out of the woods, the night opened into the old bridge road the one that led back into town. Streetlights flickered like dying stars.
Nova doubled over, gasping. "What!! what was that?"
Elijah looked back toward the forest. "You weren't supposed to see that part of the world."
"What world?!" she snapped, her fear giving way to anger. "You mean the part where monsters come out of the trees? Or the part where you show up out of nowhere like some"
"Don't say it." His voice was low, sharp. "Names have power."
She froze, meeting his eyes again. "You're not making sense."
"I know." He finally turned to face her fully, the moonlight hitting his skin. There was something faint along his neck marks, silver and thin like scars burned in a pattern. "But neither does what's inside you."
Nova's breath caught. "Inside me?"
He didn't answer. Instead, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled something out a chain with a small obsidian pendant that pulsed faintly in the dark.
"Keep this with you," he said. "If they come again, it might remember who you are before they do."
Nova stared at the pendant, the way it almost seemed alive. "You're insane."
"Maybe." A faint smirk crossed his lips. "But I'm the only one keeping you alive tonight."
Before she could say anything, a sound echoed across the hills three sharp howls, overlapping, too human to be wolves but too wild to be anything else.
Elijah's expression hardened. "They're calling the pack."
He turned toward the trees. "Get home. Don't look back."
"Wait"
He was gone. One second he stood in front of her; the next, the night swallowed him whole.
Nova stared at the forest's edge, the pendant trembling in her hand. The howls faded, replaced by silence.
She wanted to believe she was dreaming. That maybe grief had finally broken her mind.
But as she reached her porch ten minutes later, headlights cutting across the street, she saw the shadow on her doorstep long, animal, and moving before she could blink.
And on the wood beside her door, scratched deep into the paint, were three claw marks still smoking.
Nova backed away slowly, the pendant burning cold against her chest.
In the distance, the town clock struck midnight.