Please…” The word was a broken exhale, a plea to a god I didn’t believe in for a mercy I hadn’t earned.

  Santiago stopped.

  His huge form loomed, with a shadow that carved against the moonlight.

  For a heartbeat, he just looked at me like a prey, like he had no memory of who I was.

  That was my signal.

  The paralysis that had stopped me earlier snapped. Terror, cold and electric, surged through my marrow, jump-starting my heart.

  My fingers clawed at the soil, nails caked with damp sand as I fought the gravity of my own fear. My legs had felt heavy, but I forced life into them. I lurched upright, lungs hitching, and tore off.

  I didn’t look back. Looking back meant seeing him close the distance.

  I ran.

  The forest became a blur of jagged edges. Branches whipped across my face, stinging like lashes, but I barely felt them. My boots hammered the ground, the rhythm of crunching leaves a frantic percussion against the roar of blood in my ears.

  Then, a high-pitched hum started—a silver needle of sound vibrating deep inside my skull, threatening to split my vision.

  I pushed harder and faster than I had ever imagined I could.

  I slammed my shoulder into a trunk, the impact jarring my teeth, but I rebounded off the bark and kept going. My breath had to be forced down my wind pipes. Every inhale scorched my throat, coming in short breaths.

  Then, through the cacophony of my own pulse, I heard a thud-crack. A footfall.

  Not the usual light, four-point pad of Santiago, but the heavy, rhythmic strike of something on the hunt.

  This made panic to explode in me, making me attempt to run even faster.

  Black static began to bleed into the edges of my sight, little shadows blinking in the periphery.

  My muscles screamed, begging for rest but I refused to listen. how could i when i was nearing my end every second that i lagged behind.

  I didn’t see the huge pine tree root which caught my toe as i hit the dirt with a sickening thud, the air driven from my chest in a violent wheeze. I tasted copper most probably from biting my lips and the fresh soil.

  I scrambled to turn over, to crawl, and to run off again—but hands clamped onto my shoulders.

  A raw, sound that tore at my throat as something landed on top of me. My brain could hardly process if the heavy flesh was of an animal or human.

  “Get off me! Get off!”

  I became a blur of teeth and nails. I twisted, my heel connecting with something solid—a shin, a knee—and I kicked again, my entire existence reduced to the desperate need to be free. The grip only tightened, pinning me.

  “Hey—hey! Stop! Stop!”

  “Let go of me!” I shrieked, my voice cracking into a sob.

  “Relax! It’s me!”

  The voice sliced through the hysteria.

  My chest heaved, pulling in weird gulps of air as I forced my eyes to focus through the blur of tears and sweat.

  Jaden?

  It was Jaden’s face, etched with worry, his hands firm and grounding on my arms.

  For a second, I thought i was dreaming. The forest, the wolf, the noise—all of it vanished.

  I lunged forward, colliding with him, my fingers knotting into the fabric of his shirt as if it were a lifeline.

  I buried my face in his neck, shaking so violently he must have thought that I would break apart.

  “Oh my God—” the words were broken. “Oh my God—”

  “Hey, hey—” Jaden’s voice was a low anchor this time. He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into the solid warmth of his chest.

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  “You’re okay. You’re alright. I’ve got you.”

  I shook my head against him, my knuckles white from the force of my grip.

  “No—no—there was—” I couldn’t finish. My lungs wouldn’t let me. Every time I tried to speak, I just caught another sob.

  “Calm down,” he murmured, his hand pressing firmly against the back of my head, holding me still while the world kept spinning.

  I couldn’t stop the tremors. I clutched his jacket, certain that if I let go, the shadows would swallow me whole.

  Jaden didn’t pull away; he shifted, bracing us both.

  “Breathe,” he commanded softly. “it’s just me. Breathe.”

  The darkness of the woods had been a suffocating weight, a heavy curtain that must have fallen the moment I lost consciousness.

  When I finally drifted back towards the surface of the world, I found myself in the familiar quiet of my own room.

  Pale morning light filtered through the curtains in thin streaks, filling the space with a glow that felt strangely unreal.

  For a few heartbeats, my mind remained empty in a borderland between sleep and waking.

  Then the memory came crashing back … The blood. The piercing, unnatural red eyes. The sharp teeth, Santiago and being chased.

  I shot upright in bed, a scream tearing out of my throat before I could even process my surroundings.

  “Get off me!” I shouted, my hands flying out to ward off a threat that was no longer there, while the blankets twisted like a trap around my legs. The sudden movement sent a jolt through the quiet room.

  “Hana! Hey, look at me—its okay, you’re safe.” it was Mia’s voice, the sound of home. My home.

  She had been slumped in a chair beside the bed, jerking awake so abruptly that her head nearly collided with the headboard.

  Her hair was a tangled mess and deep, dark circles hung under her eyes, but the moment her gaze landed on me, her expression

  shifted from exhaustion to pure, frantic relief.

  She reached out, steadying my trembling arm with a firm, touch that reminded me I was actually safe.

  Before she could say another word, the door burst open.

  Jaden appeared in the frame almost instantly, his chest heaving as if he’d been standing guard in the hall and had sprinted the distance the second he heard me cry out.

  His eyes scanned the room with a sharp, intensity before they finally locked onto me though he remained hovering awkwardly in the doorway.

  Mia didn’t look away from me, instead pressing a cool glass of water into my shaking hands with a quiet, urgent insistence.

  “Drink this,” she whispered. The water felt like ice against my raw throat, but the cold helped anchor my heart.

  As the familiar smells of my room and the warmth of the sun settled over me, a slow, creeping embarrassment began to replace the fear. I lowered the glass, staring at the small ripples on the surface of the water.

  “I’m… I’m okay,” I muttered, though my voice sounded like a raspy ghost of its usual self.

  Mia studied me for a long beat before she finally let out a breath and stood up. She stretched her stiff limbs, looking as though she’d been sitting vigil for a dozen hours.

  “I’ll give you two a minute,” she said, squeezing my shoulder gently as she passed.

  She exchanged a brief, silent look with Jaden on her way out—a look that seemed to carry a heavy, unspoken weight of gratitude—before she pulled the door shut behind her.

  The silence that followed was sickening. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Jaden, choosing instead to trace the rim of my glass with a trembling thumb.

  “Thank you,” I said, the words feeling clumsy in the air.

  In that moment, the history between us—the arguments, the bitterness, and the endless tally of who had won or lost—didn’t seem to matter. Regardless of the past, he had saved my life.

  The quiet stretched on until I finally found the courage to look up and meet his gaze. “How did you even find me?”

  Jaden shifted in the chair, his presence filling the room in a way that felt both protective and overwhelming.

  “I was driving by the main road near the woods when Viera ran out from the trees. She looked terrified,” he said, a low voice. “She told me you were still in there.”

  I took a breath, the one question I had been holding back finally slipping out. “Why ?”

  "why what?" His expression remained devoid of the usual defensive edge I expected from him.

  "why would you help me?"

  “Because it’s a basic human thing to do.” it sounded like a question instead of an answer

  Of course it was, why would I even ask such a question.

  Silence settled between us as Jaden leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, listening to the faint, domestic groans of the house and the distant muffled footsteps of Mia in the hallway.

  We kept avoiding each other's gaze making the air the room room heavily awkward.

  Time seemed to stretch and warp until the door creaked open again. Mia slipped back inside, her hands wrapped around a steaming

  bowl of chicken soup that filled the room with a warm, salty aroma.

  She set it on the bedside table with a gentle click. “You need to eat something, Hana,” she said, her voice gentle and firm.

  I managed a nod and picked up the spoon, relieved to find my hands were finally steadying, even if my muscles still had the shaky

  feeling.

  Mia lingered just long enough to ensure I took a few bites before she seemed satisfied.

  With a quick, supportive squeeze of my shoulder and a lingering glance between Jaden and me, she retreated once more, leaving us to

  the quiet.

  I finished a few more spoonfuls, the warmth spreading through my chest, before I set the bowl aside. Sensing the shift, Jaden stood up.

  “I should go,” he said, his voice flat.

  I was even surprised he had spent the night. Did he have the heart to care about others to such an extent?

  Before he could reach the door, I pushed the blankets off my legs and swung my feet to the floor. The aching numbness in my feet had disappeared, Mia must have massaged them the night before.

  “I’ll walk you out,” I told him. He turned back instantly, a frown deepening on his face as he told me I didn’t need to do that.

  But I stayed put, insisting that moving might actually help clear the fog in my head. Mia appeared in the hallway, as if she were ready to order me back to bed, but after a moment of watching us, she simply sighed. “Fine,” she relented, “just don’t go far.”

  The outside air hit me with a sharp, refreshing chill.

  The neighbourhood felt impossibly peaceful; the grass was still damp with dew, and the sun was climbing higher into a clear sky, making the violence of the previous night feel like a fever dream.

  We walked in silence for a while, the distance from the house growing until I finally slowed my pace.

  “There’s something I saw last night,” I began, my voice barely above a whisper.

  Jaden stopped walking and turned to face me, with an unreadable expression.

  The image of the man burning in my mind. “There was a man… Yesterday, in the woods. I saw him take Viera’s blood”

  My voice tried very hard to show him how scary the scene was and unnatural. I even used my arms to explain to him exactly what had happened.

  I expected shock, or at least a flicker of confusion, but Jaden didn’t react at all. I sent a silent prayer to the heavens that he might not think I am stupid or mad. I hoped he had seen or heard something. I badly needed someone to believe me even if it was my enemy.

  At this point, I didn’t want to feel like I was seeing things.

  He looked at me with a calm expression that made my skin crawl. The lack of surprise was more terrifying than the memory itself.

  A cold realisation tightened in my chest, and I found myself instinctively stepping backward, creating space between us. Maybe I wasn’t mad, maybe everyone else was. He must have known.

  “You know something,” I said, the words coming out quiet and hollow.

  He didn’t move to close the gap. His face remained a mask of iron as he met my eyes.

  “Mmh,” he said, pausing just long enough for the weight of it to sink in. “I know.”