CHAPTER 1 — "The Night He Saw"
The city always slept with one eye open.
Neon lights flickered over cracked pavement, and distant sirens crawled through the night like dying animals. Most people hurried home before the streets got dangerous.
Eden wasn't most people.
He preferred when the world was quiet. When footsteps echoed alone. When no one noticed him. The silence made it easier to breathe.
Tonight, he walked his usual shortcut behind the old marketplace—broken signs, peeling walls, and a single flickering streetlamp buzzing like an insect. He tugged his hood lower as the air brewed thick with the smell of rain.
Then he heard it.
A dull, heavy sound.
Thud.
Eden stopped mid-step.
His breath caught—not from fear, but recognition.
That sound was wrong.
He stepped closer. Carefully. Quiet as a shadow.
And he saw him.
A boy stood in the alley, one knee pressed to a man's chest. His hand held a thin black blade, the kind made for killing, not for threats. The victim gurgled once, then went still.
The boy didn't flinch.
Didn't hesitate.
He wiped the blade on the man's coat with practiced, effortless calm.
Like he'd done it a thousand times.
Eden's pulse slowed instead of rising.
He didn't run.
The boy straightened, and Eden finally saw his face.
Sharp jaw. Black hair damp with sweat. Expression unreadable, like a sky without weather.
Eyes so dark they made the night seem pale.
Ares Hale.
Eden had seen him once at school—just once—and understood immediately why no one went near him.
Some people carried darkness like clothing.
Ares carried it like skin.
Ares looked up.
Their eyes locked.
Eden didn't gasp. Didn't tremble. Didn't look away.
Ares blinked slowly, as if studying a strange animal.
"…You saw," Ares said. His voice was flat. A statement, not a question.
Rain began to fall—soft at first, then heavier.
Water slid down Eden's face, but his expression didn't change.
"Yes," he replied.
Ares stepped forward.
Eden didn't move.
Most people would have begged or screamed or fallen to their knees.
But Eden only stood there—silent, steady, small but unbroken.
Ares stopped just one breath away.
Up close, he was colder. Not in body. In presence. Like he was something that didn't belong in the world of living things.
"I should kill you," Ares said, voice quiet enough that it barely touched the air.
Eden swallowed—but not out of fear.
"You won't."
Ares' eyes narrowed. The smallest shift—but meaningful.
"Do you think I'm merciful?" he asked.
"No," Eden said softly.
"I think you're lonely."
The alley went so silent it felt like the city itself was holding its breath.
Rain dripped from Ares' hair.
His grip on the blade didn't tighten—didn't relax.
It just… stopped.
He stared at Eden like he was seeing something impossible. Something he didn't know existed. Something that shouldn't exist.
Eden didn't smile.
He simply looked at him—really looked—without fear, without judgment.
And Ares realized something frightening:
Someone finally saw him.
Not the monster.
Not the killer.
The person.
His voice, when it came, was not steady.
"Don't look at me like that."
"Like what?" Eden asked quietly.
"Like I'm worth saving."
Lightning flashed in the distance.
The rain fell harder.
Ares dropped the blade.
The metal clattered on the wet pavement—sharp, final.
He didn't touch Eden.
But the space between them closed anyway.
Ares' next words were barely breath:
"I know your face now."
Eden nodded.
"I know."
And that was it.
No deal.
No threat.
No promise.
But something far worse began.
Because Ares didn't let people live after seeing him kill.
But he didn't kill Eden.
Instead—
He chose him.
Not romantically.
Not kindly.
But in the way wolves choose prey.
In the way fate chooses tragedy.
Eden didn't run.
Ares didn't look away.
The rain drowned everything else.
And in that cold, wet alley, a thread was tied—
Fragile.
Invisible.
Unbreakable.
The kind of thread that ruins lives.