(Evan)
Consciousness did not return with breath.
It returned with discomfort.
My eyes opened to unbroken gray – ceiling, walls, floor – a concrete box stripped of warmth or mercy. For several long seconds, I lay perfectly still on the narrow cot in the center of the room, staring upward, waiting for instinct to take over.
Waiting to inhale.
The reflex came automatically. My chest expanded.
Nothing followed.
No oxygen rushed in. No burn in my lungs. No desperate tightening in my throat.
Just absence.
I forced another breath out of habit alone. Air slid down, unnecessary and hollow. It did nothing for me. My body did not need it.
And yet not breathing felt wrong.
Uncomfortable.
Like an itch beneath my skin.
So I breathed again – not because I had to, but because some fragile part of me refused to let go of the rhythm.
There was no heartbeat.
No pulse beneath my ribs.
Only silence where life used to echo.
I pushed myself upright slowly, the thin mattress barely shifting beneath my weight. Everything felt… recalibrated. Balanced. As though my body had been dismantled and rebuilt with ruthless precision.
I looked down.
White boxer briefs.
Bare skin.
Nothing else.
The overhead light washed over me, and I stilled.
My skin was pale – not corpse-like, but unnaturally even. Smooth in a way human skin never truly was. Every scar I remembered earning had vanished. The faint line on my shoulder from childhood. The healed scrape near my hip. Erased. My body looked like a perfected version of itself – familiar, yet sharpened.
My chest rose again in a measured breath.
My muscles were leaner, more defined than they had ever been. My abdomen cut clean beneath smooth skin. My shoulders broader. My arms toned without excess. Strength without effort. When I flexed my fingers, the tendons moved fluidly beneath the surface – precise. Controlled. There was no tremor. No weakness.
I swung my legs off the cot and stood.
The pale gray tile beneath my bare feet should have been cold.
It wasn’t.
If anything, the air felt warmer against me – my body temperature lower than it used to be. I registered the chill intellectually, but it didn’t bite. It would take something far worse to slow me down.
Across the room, the mirror caught my movement.
Except it wasn’t just a mirror.
The glass was too seamless. Too deliberate. An observation window disguised as reflection. They were watching me.
Let them.
I stepped forward – and halfway across the room, I moved faster.
The world blurred.
One second I was several feet away – the next, I stood inches from the glass.
No strain.
No effort.
The realization settled coldly inside me.
I studied my reflection.
My jaw was more pronounced. My cheekbones higher. The planes of my face cleaner. My lips darker against the pallor of my skin. In harsh lighting, I looked almost luminous.
In sunlight, it would be obvious.
I would look wrong.
My eyes held my focus the longest. The color intensified. Brighter. Sharper. There was something ancient behind them now. Something predatory. Controlled.
I leaned closer.
No fog touched the glass.
I opened my mouth slowly and dragged my tongue across my teeth.
Sharper.
Not monstrous.
Purpose-built.
A quiet hum stirred deep within me – not pain, not yet – but hunger. Low. Patient. I understood instinctively that I could ignore it. For days. Weeks, even. It wouldn’t kill me.
It would simply grow.
I pressed my palm flat against the glass.
“You’re going to have to do better than that,” I said evenly. “Either talk to me… or stop staring.”
A faint mechanical click answered me. A speaker somewhere in the ceiling.
“Evan,” a calm voice filtered in. “How are you feeling?”
“I don’t have vitals,” I replied flatly.
A pause.
“Correct.”
Interesting.
“You did this to me,” I said.
“Yes.”
Honest.
“Why?”
“You were chosen.”
Chosen.
The word felt heavy.
Before I could press further, I turned away and walked toward the small bathroom tucked out of sight. The shower turned on when I twisted the handle. Steam rose slowly.
I stepped beneath the water.
Heat prickled faintly against my skin – not painful. Just… curious. Sensation without vulnerability. Droplets traced over smooth muscle, over pale skin that no longer bruised easily, no longer fatigued.
I tilted my head back, letting the water run over my face.
No breath caught.
No lungs burned.
Just silence inside me.
When I shut the water off and stepped back into the main room, droplets sliding down my body, something had changed.
The glass was no longer reflective.
It was transparent.
I didn’t react.
On the other side stood three figures.
Uncle Mason.
Tyler – the vampire from the van.
And a man with silver eyes.
I met my uncle’s gaze first. His expression was tight. Controlled. But his eyes gave him away.
He looked older.
Guilt does that.
The door unlocked with a heavy mechanical clunk. It opened inward.
I didn’t bother covering myself. Modesty felt… distant. Irrelevant.
“Was there any other option, Uncle Mason?” I asked quietly.
His jaw tightened.
“I’m afraid not, Evan.” His voice broke slightly. A tear slipped down his cheek despite his attempt to remain composed. “You would have died if I hadn’t injected you with the serum.”
Serum.
The word landed like a stone.
“How did you even know I was going to be there?” I demanded, anger threading through my otherwise controlled tone.
“We were told,” the silver-eyed man answered smoothly, stepping forward slightly, “by someone who can see the future.”
I stared at him.
He didn’t blink.
“I know it sounds unbelievable,” he continued calmly. “But it’s true. This is bigger than anything you could ever imagine.”
I nodded absently, though my mind was racing. Bigger. Future sight. Serum. Transition. My heart stopping.
“Is this why Mr. Hunter recruited me to his Mythology Class?”
My uncle only smiled faintly.
The silver-eyed man laughed.
“He’s smarter than you or Eugene give him credit for, Mason.”
“I know, Jon,” my uncle admitted sheepishly before gesturing toward the man. “Evan, this is Agent Jon Wells. He’s… very outspoken.”
Jon rolled his eyes.
“Why are your eyes silver?” I asked. “Sorry if that’s rude.”
“It’s not rude at all,” Jon replied easily. “I’m a werewolf.”
“Oh.”
The word felt absurd leaving my mouth.
Vampires. Werewolves. Future seers.
What else had been real this entire time?
“What else is real then?” I asked quietly.
“I should leave that to you, Jon,” Uncle Mason said, already backing toward the exit. “I need to check on Tatum.”
He looked at me again – searching my face.
“If you need anything, hit the number nine on the keypad. It’ll call my office phone. I know I’m in a rush, but I’ll be back.”
“Go take care of Tatum, Uncle Mason,” I replied evenly.
He hesitated.
Then he left.
The outer door clicked shut.
Silence settled between us.
Tyler remained near the wall, quiet, watchful. I could sense him clearly now — the same species. The same stillness beneath the skin. His eyes flicked briefly to mine.
Controlled.
Jon studied me openly.
Heart beating steady in his chest.
Warm.
Alive.
The sound brushed against that coiled hunger again.
I ignored it.
“Now,” Jon said, a slight smile curving his mouth, silver eyes bright with curiosity, “what questions do you have?”
I held his gaze.
I had many.
But the first one that rose to the surface was colder than the rest.
“What exactly,” I asked quietly, “did you turn me into?”
And in the silence that followed, I could feel it fully now.
The strength.
The hunger.
The ancient stillness where my heartbeat used to be.
Whatever I was…
It wasn’t human anymore.
And this was only the beginning.
My throat was on fire by the time the speaker clicked back on.
Not the dry scratch of dehydration. Not the dull ache of being sick.
This felt deliberate.
It was as if something had threaded itself through my veins and lit a slow, patient flame from the inside out. The burn didn’t stay in one place — it traveled. It pulsed in time with the memory of a heartbeat I no longer had. It crawled up the back of my tongue and settled in my jaw, in my teeth, in the hollow space beneath my ribs where instinct now lived.
I turned my head toward the glass.
My uncle stood on the other side.
Seven hours.
Seven hours of lying flat on my back, staring at the concrete ceiling while I replayed everything Jon had told me. Vampires. Werewolves. Prophets who could see the future. Serum. Chosen. Bloodline. The words had circled endlessly in my mind, tangling with memories of snow, of headlights, of the moment my heart had stopped beating.
Seven hours of listening.
Because that was the worst part.
The heartbeats.
Even through reinforced walls and thick glass, I could hear them faintly. A distant rhythm. Human. Warm. Alive. At first, I had convinced myself it was imagination. By hour three, I knew better. By hour seven, the sound had become a form of torture.
“How are you feeling, Evan?” Uncle Mason asked, his voice filtering through the speaker – tired, thinner than I remembered.
I pushed myself upright slowly, studying him through the glass.
There was something broken in the way he held himself.
He sank into the office chair like gravity had finally won, shoulders curved inward instead of squared. His glasses slid down the bridge of his nose, and he pushed them back into place with a hand that wasn’t as steady as he probably thought it was. His lab coat hung open and wrinkled, unbuttoned carelessly – and beneath it, I could see dried blood staining the collar of his polo shirt.
Not fresh.
But not forgotten.
This was not the man I remembered.
Uncle Mason had always been composed. Controlled. The kind of man who walked into a room and made everyone else feel smaller without raising his voice. Now he looked like someone who had spent too many nights choosing between impossible options.
“I’m thirsty,” I said finally.
The words felt insufficient. Almost childish compared to the wildfire spreading through my body.
“There’s no other way to explain it.”
The fire in my throat flared as I spoke. The simple act of forming words made my teeth ache faintly. My tongue felt heavy. Hyper-aware.
My uncle only nodded, like he had expected that answer all along.
“How’s Tatum really doing?” I asked.
Saying my cousin’s name steadied me – anchored me to something that wasn’t hunger.
“He has his good days and his bad ones,” Mason replied softly. “Today isn’t a good day.”
The burn sharpened.
“How much longer does he have?”
He hesitated.
It was subtle – barely noticeable to human perception. But to me, it was loud. His pulse shifted. His breathing altered slightly. A microexpression crossed his face before he smoothed it away.
“A month at the most.”
The finality of it landed heavily, even in a body that no longer required breath.
“I didn’t realize it had gotten that bad,” I admitted, my voice quieter now.
“It’s a very aggressive form of cancer.”
Cancer.
A human thing.
Flesh turning against itself.
I swallowed hard – not because I needed to, but because my mouth had begun to fill again at the steady sound of his heartbeat. It was stronger now that I was upright. Clearer. I could hear the rush of blood through the artery in his neck. I could almost track it as it traveled through him.
“Why didn’t you use the injection on Tatum?” I asked.
“He’s too weak to survive it,” Mason said, exhaustion creeping into his voice. “I’ve been studying this for a long time, Evan. The transformation isn’t gentle. It requires a body that can endure being… dismantled and rebuilt.”
Dismantled.
Rebuilt.
“How did you know I would survive?”
“Your DNA was a perfect match,” he said, meeting my eyes through the glass. “Tatum can only be changed if he’s bitten by someone who has already received the injection.”
The word landed slower this time.
“Bitten?”
He held my gaze.
“Me?” I asked.
“He’s hoping,” Mason admitted carefully, “that you’ll turn him as a last resort.”
The horror that spread through me was immediate and raw.
“You can’t be serious.”
My uncle nodded once.
“Why would he want to be a monster?” I demanded, anger cutting through the haze of thirst.
“He doesn’t see it that way,” Mason replied quietly. “He sees a disease that’s eating him alive from the inside. He sees a countdown clock. And now he knows there’s a way to keep living. Wouldn’t you want that option?”
I frowned – but my attention betrayed me.
It drifted from his eyes to his throat.
The vein there pulsed steadily.
Warm.
Alive.
My hearing sharpened further – painfully precise. I could isolate the rhythm of his heart from everything else. The steady thump. The faint rush of blood. The microscopic fluctuations when his emotions shifted.
My mouth flooded.
The scent hit me then – copper and salt beneath antiseptic and detergent. Human warmth radiating faintly through glass and distance.
“I wouldn’t have wanted to be a monster,” I said finally, though the words felt hollow.
I turned away from him abruptly.
Not because I was angry.
Because I was afraid.
“You should go, Uncle Mason,” I said, my voice tightening despite my effort to keep it steady. “I’m really thirsty… and I’m trying not to kill you.”
It wasn’t a threat.
It was a confession.
I clenched my teeth together, but that only made the ache worse. The image formed without permission – vivid, detailed, intoxicating. I pictured stepping through the reinforced door. I pictured closing the distance in less than a blink. I pictured leaning forward, inhaling the heat of him, sinking my teeth into the fragile skin at his throat.
The fantasy was so clear it made my body react.
A low growl rolled out of me – deep, vibrating through my entire frame. It wasn’t conscious. It wasn’t human.
And then I was moving.
One second I stood near the cot.
The next, I was at the glass.
My palms slammed into it with a force that rattled the reinforced window in its frame. The impact sent a shock up my arms – not painful, just powerful.
Mason’s heartbeat spiked.
My vision sharpened violently.
The flush of blood beneath his skin became almost luminous to me. My mouth watered uncontrollably. Saliva dripped from the corner before I could stop it. I swallowed again and again, but it didn’t matter.
He wasn’t my uncle in that moment.
He was prey.
The realization sickened me – even as the hunger roared in approval.
Mason didn’t panic.
He frowned – deeply, almost sadly – and reached forward to press a single button on the control panel.
The glass shifted instantly.
Reflection replaced transparency.
And I saw it.
Red eyes burned back at me – vivid and furious. Almost glowing beneath the harsh lights. My lips were pulled back, revealing sharpened teeth slick with saliva. My expression wasn’t confused.
It was feral.
Violent.
Hungry.
For half a second, I didn’t recognize the creature staring back.
Then understanding slammed into me.
I was the monster in the window.
The growl faded.
The hunger did not.
With a slow, deliberate breath I didn’t need, I stepped away from the glass. The room felt smaller now. Tighter. Like the walls had leaned in to watch.
I walked back to the cot and lowered myself onto it carefully, forcing my body into stillness.
“I’m a monster,” I thought bitterly, staring at the ceiling once more.
On the other side of the glass, Mason’s voice softened.
“Just relax, Evan. Sunset is in two hours. I’ll tell your cousin you said hello.”
Sunset.
The word carried implication.
Feeding.
“Thanks, Uncle Mason,” I replied quietly.
I listened as the outer door opened and closed. His heartbeat faded down the corridor until it was gone entirely.
The silence that followed was worse.
Because I knew I wasn’t truly alone.
Somewhere in the corner, a camera watched.
Recording.
Waiting.
Studying whether the monster they created would learn restraint — or break through reinforced glass the next time hunger took hold.
I lay back and stared at the ceiling again.
My throat burned.
My eyes slowly faded from violent red to something darker — controlled, but not calm.
Two hours.
Two hours until sunset.
Two hours until I found out whether I could live with what I had become.
“They’re doing final checks to make sure the building is secure, Evan,” Jon explained, his voice steady as he stood in the observation room with his arms crossed. Tyler lingered beside him, outwardly relaxed but watching me with a sharp, evaluating stillness. “Then, you’re going to go hunting with me and Tyler.”
Hunting.
The word alone made my throat ignite.
It wasn’t hunger the way I remembered hunger. It was fire – dry and blistering, crawling up from the hollow place inside my chest where my heartbeat used to be. My hand rose instinctively to my neck, fingers pressing against cool skin.
Nothing.
No pulse.
No rhythm.
Just silence.
“The burning won’t be as bad once you get past the newborn phase,” Tyler said with a shrug. “You just get used to it until then. Don’t let it control you. That’s the biggest thing.”
Don’t let it control you.
I nodded, even though I had no idea what control was supposed to feel like anymore.
The fluorescent lights overhead hummed faintly, filling the apartment with artificial brightness. The television mounted across from the couch reflected pale light off the walls. No windows. No shadows shifting with the sun. No way to know if it was afternoon or midnight without someone telling me.
I was waiting for sunset.
Waiting for darkness.
Because that was when I was supposed to exist now.
“Do you mind if we come in, Evan?” Jon asked, gesturing toward the heavy steel door between us.
The question surprised me.
“Aren’t you afraid of me?” I asked quietly.
Jon let out a small chuckle. “No. You won’t want to drink from me. My blood is poisonous to you.”
The matter-of-fact way he said it made my stomach tighten. Poisonous. As if that was comforting.
“If you think it’s safe,” I said after a moment, forcing my shoulders to relax, “then I guess you can come in.”
“Hold your breath,” Jon instructed as he and Tyler moved toward the door. “It reeks of humans out here.”
I drew in a slow inhale and held it.
I didn’t need to breathe – not technically. I’d learned that much during the change. But not breathing felt wrong, like pretending I was already something else entirely.
The door opened.
They moved too fast for my eyes to follow, slipping inside and sealing it shut in one fluid motion. The rush of displaced air hit me instantly.
Human.
The scent crashed into my senses like a wave.
Even without breathing, it filled me – sweat, soap, skin, iron-rich blood moving just floors above us. So many heartbeats. So much warmth.
My throat flared violently.
My mouth flooded.
My muscles locked tight, coiling without permission.
Then came other scents – earth and damp leaves, something like wet fur. Predator. And beneath it all, something faintly sweet, almost floral, that didn’t burn the same way the human scent did.
The door clicked shut.
I let the breath out slowly.
When I inhaled again, the apartment air felt muted, contained – but the damage was done. The fire in my throat burned brighter now, sharper. Less chaotic than before, but more focused.
Jon and Tyler stood near the door, watching carefully.
Measuring.
My body had gone rigid. Every tendon drawn tight. Ready to move – faster than anything human. Faster than I understood.
Jon crossed his arms and smiled lightly. “Well? Do you think you can get used to hanging around us?”
The normalcy of the question felt surreal.
I forced my shoulders to drop.
“Yeah,” I said slowly, rubbing the back of my head. “I could definitely use a few friends.”
The word sounded fragile.
“Make sure you remember that when you’re hunting in a little bit,” Tyler said with a quiet laugh. He glanced at Jon. “Have you ever taken a newborn hunting before?”
“Nope,” Jon snorted. “This’ll be interesting.”
“That’s not the half of it,” Tyler muttered, narrowing his eyes slightly as he studied me. “Tonight is going to be interesting.”
“Don’t you mean unpredictable?” Jon corrected.
“That too.”
Unpredictable.
“Am I that scary?” I asked.
There was no quickened heartbeat to betray nerves. No shaky breath. Just that hollow, unnatural stillness inside me.
“Not at all,” Jon said. “It’s just… newborns are volatile. And we don’t know you yet.”
Five days ago, I wouldn’t have blamed them for being afraid.
Five days ago…
The memory hit hard.
Five days of burning.
Five days of feeling like my bones were splintering beneath my skin. Like my muscles were being rewired while I was still inside them. I remembered thrashing. Metal bending in my grip. Voices trying to calm me while everything inside my body screamed.
I remembered trying to breathe.
Over and over again.
Even after realizing I didn’t have to.
And the worst part had been the silence.
No heartbeat.
Not fading.
Not weak.
Gone.
“You carried me?” I asked quietly, looking at Tyler.
He shrugged. “You weren’t exactly stable. We had to keep you from tearing the place apart.”
“That’s putting it nicely,” Jon added. “You broke a reinforced steel chair.”
A pause.
“Twice.”
I looked down at my hands.
They looked normal.
Too normal.
Smooth skin stretched over leaner muscle than I remembered having. No scars. No bruises. No evidence of what those five days had done to me.
Just pale skin under artificial light.
“You were transitioning for just over five days,” Tyler continued. “That’s… intense, but not unheard of.”
Transitioning.
As if that word could cover the violence of it.
“And now?” I asked.
“Now,” Jon said, “you’re hungry.”
The word settled heavily between us.
Hungry.
Not tired.
Not sore.
Not weak.
Just hungry.
The fire in my throat pulsed in agreement.
I glanced briefly toward the ceiling, even though I couldn’t see the sky beyond the layers of concrete and steel.
It was still daylight out there.
I assumed.
And I would wait.
Because that’s what I was supposed to do now. Wait for darkness. Move in shadows. Feed when the world slept.
“So we go after sunset?” I asked.
Tyler nodded. “Yeah. We’ll give it a little longer.”
Relief and dread twisted together inside me.
Part of me wanted it over with – to stop the burning.
The other part knew that once I hunted… once I fed…
There would be no pretending this was temporary.
Jon tilted his head slightly. “You ready?”
No.
But I nodded anyway.
Five days ago, I had a heartbeat.
Now, I had hunger.
And somewhere above us, the sun was still shining – on a world I wasn’t sure I belonged in anymore.
“You truly are amazing, young blood.”
The voice drifted through the observation room like velvet drawn over steel.
I turned sharply toward the sound, a low growl slipping from my throat before I could stop it. My eyes locked onto the window separating my apartment from the observation room.
She stood there as though she had always been there.
A beautiful woman with long black hair cascading in silken waves down her back. Snow clung delicately to the shoulders of her burgundy cloak, melting slowly against fabric far too elegant for the harsh concrete and fluorescent lighting surrounding her. Her hands were folded within the long sleeves, posture straight and composed — regal.
Ancient.
“Who are you?” I asked, unable to keep the tension from my voice.
She smiled.
The expression was warm – almost maternal – but it revealed teeth that were unmistakably sharp. Her eyes were blood red like mine, faint bruising beneath them marking her as one of us. Yet her skin looked as though it had once been far darker, as if centuries of sunlight had touched it before immortality drained it pale. Now it was luminous. Flawless.
A dark red cape fastened neatly at her throat. Beneath it flowed a long black dress that clung to her frame before rippling subtly with every slight movement. The fabric shimmered faintly beneath the fluorescent lights, like something that did not belong in a place like this.
It was Jon who answered.
“Good evening, Mother Arella,” he greeted her with a respectful bow.
Tyler lowered his head as well.
“Evan,” Tyler said gently, “this is Lady Arella. The Mother of Vampires.”
The title hit me harder than I expected.
The Mother.
“It’s nice to meet you, Lady Arella,” I said, attempting politeness despite the dryness in my throat.
She regarded me with quiet interest.
“Would you mind if I joined you, Evan?” she asked gracefully, gesturing toward the door. “The scent of humans in the corridor is… overwhelming.”
Jon snorted softly.
I ignored him.
There was something in her eyes — something impossibly old — that made me nod before I could overthink it.
“Yes,” I replied. “Of course.”
Tyler chuckled under his breath.
The door opened.
She moved inside with inhuman speed, slipping past the threshold before I had time to prepare.
The air followed her.
Human.
The scent hit me like a collision.
It was everywhere – sweat, soap, skin, the copper-rich pulse of blood moving through veins somewhere beyond these walls. My throat ignited violently. My knees nearly buckled as the hunger surged upward, sharp and ravenous.
I grabbed the edge of the metal table beside me to steady myself.
The steel groaned.
Caved.
Folded inward beneath my fingers like it was made of paper.
The sound of bending metal snapped my focus just enough to keep me from collapsing under the weight of scent and instinct.
I forced two slow breaths through lungs that didn’t need them.
When I finally straightened, the table sagged crookedly, permanently warped.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
Jon stared at the ruined furniture in disbelief.
“Wow,” was all Tyler managed.
Arella stepped closer, examining the damaged table not with alarm — but with fascination.
“I wonder what else he will be capable of,” she mused pleasantly.
“What?” I asked, confused.
Her gaze lifted to mine.
“I have walked this earth for five thousand years, young blood,” she said calmly. “I have watched civilizations rise and crumble. I have witnessed newborns burn cities to ash before they learned restraint.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly, not in threat — but in interest.
“And I have never seen one restrain himself so deliberately.”
“I almost didn’t,” I admitted.
“But you did,” she replied.
A soft, resonant chime echoed through the facility.
The sound was deliberate – controlled.
A speaker overhead activated with a subtle click.
“Attention all personnel,” a calm, professional female voice announced. “Facility lockdown will commence in five minutes. All individuals currently operating outside their designated security zones are required to return immediately.”
There was a brief pause before the announcement continued.
“Failure to comply prior to lockdown activation will result in disciplinary action. Please conclude your current tasks and report to your assigned sector. This is a mandatory security protocol.”
The message repeated once more, identical in tone and cadence.
Then silence reclaimed the building.
The fluorescent lights hummed faintly above us.
Lockdown.
The word settled heavily in the room.
“Any questions before we begin, Evan?” Jon asked with a faint grin.
Begin.
“How is this going to work?” I asked.
“I’m glad you asked,” Jon replied. “Tyler and I are going to take you toward the city. We’ll guide you to specific areas we use for hunting. Controlled environments. Minimal risk.”
“Tyler will assist me with body disposal between your kills,” he continued matter-of-factly. “And he’ll monitor for potential witnesses.”
“That’s the last thing we need,” Tyler added dryly.
Bodies.
The word lodged in my chest.
“Did you say bodies?” I asked quietly. “How many people do you think I’m going to kill tonight?”
Tyler’s expression shifted – not amused now.
“It’s always more than one, Evan,” he admitted. Then he reached out, resting a hand briefly on my shoulder. “Sorry.”
More than one.
The fire in my throat pulsed in anticipation.
Shame rose just as quickly.
Ethan will be so disappointed in me.
The thought cut deeper than the hunger.
Five days ago, I had been human.
Five days ago, the idea of killing anyone would have horrified me.
Now, I was waiting for the sun to set so I could do exactly that.
I glanced upward instinctively, toward the layers of steel and concrete separating us from the sky. I didn’t know what time it was. There were no windows. No shadows shifting across walls.
But I knew it wasn’t dark yet.
And I would wait.
Because that’s what creatures like me did.
We waited for the world to dim.
Arella watched me carefully, her ancient eyes thoughtful – patient.
Not as if she were observing a newborn preparing to hunt.
But as if she were witnessing the first step of something far more significant.
As if on cue, a bell chimed over the intercom system in the ceiling – a clean, sterile tone that echoed too long in the confined space. A woman’s voice followed, calm and detached, announcing that the facility was now secured for the evening. Her words were clipped and professional, as though she were sealing off machinery instead of locking living beings behind reinforced steel.
The burning in my throat flared instantly, sharp and vicious. The lock on the door clicked – loud, metallic, final – and the heavy steel door shifted inward slightly. The sound cut through me. I winced, not from fear, but from the scent that slipped through the narrow opening.
Blood.
Old. Faint. Human.
“Follow Jon to the tunnel, Evan,” Arella instructed smoothly from behind me. Her tone was composed, reassuring in a way that almost made the situation feel ordinary. “I’ll tell you what to do once we get outside.”
Outside.
The word stirred something restless inside my chest.
Jon pulled the door open the rest of the way and stepped into the observation room. He paused and looked back at me.
“Hold your breath, Evan,” he instructed casually. “You don’t really need to breathe anymore. It’ll just be uncomfortable when you can’t. Especially since you’re a predator.”
Predator.
The word rooted me to the floor.
Arella walked straight into my back when I stopped moving. Her hand steadied me.
I’m a predator, I thought bitterly.
Ethan is going to be disappointed.
“Come on,” Jon said, impatience creeping into his voice. “We don’t have all night.”
I forced myself forward and stepped into the observation room, holding my breath like he said. The air was thick with lingering human scent — sweat, anxiety, fear pressed into tile and steel. My body reacted instinctively. My fangs pressed painfully against my gums. My muscles tightened as if preparing to strike.
We moved into the hallway.
Jon broke into a jog without warning.
I followed – and then something shifted.
The world lurched.
One second I was trying to keep up. The next, I was beside him.
Running.
Not struggling. Not straining.
Running like I’d been built for it.
The hallway blurred. The fluorescent lights streaked overhead. My feet hit the ground in perfect rhythm, silent and powerful.
Jon glanced at me and laughed. “You’re just full of surprises.”
Behind us, Tyler kept pace effortlessly, his stride smooth and economical. Unlike Jon’s loose energy, Tyler moved with precise control – no wasted motion, no unnecessary sound. He didn’t look impressed.
He looked observant.
We twisted through corridor after corridor before Jon veered into a long tunnel that slanted upward. The incline didn’t slow me. If anything, it sharpened the burn in my throat.
Five days.
Just over five days of agony. Of bones breaking and reforming. Of skin burning from the inside out. Of silence in my chest where a heartbeat should have been.
And now this.
We reached the end of the tunnel where a massive steel wall blocked the exit. A speaker box sat mounted beside it. Jon pressed the button.
“We’re here.”
Static crackled faintly.
He returned to stand beside us.
“Don’t be surprised,” he added. “It snowed today.”
“I love the snow,” Arella said brightly.
The word pulled an image into my mind before I could stop it.
A dark country road.
White ground.
A young man standing in the center of it.
My Uncle Mason was right.
There had been no other choice.
The yellow strobe light above the door began flashing. Machinery groaned deep within the walls as the steel barrier split slowly down the center. With every inch it opened, cold air poured into the tunnel.
Pine.
Ice.
Earth.
Life.
The burning in my throat became unbearable.
I want this.
The thought stunned me.
The door widened enough to reveal a single industrial light hanging outside, illuminating falling snow in soft spirals. Beyond that circle of light stretched darkness and an untouched blanket of white leading to a dense tree line.
The stale tunnel air was replaced by clean winter wind. I inhaled deeply without thinking.
The world exploded.
Scents separated instantly – bark, frost, distant wildlife, frozen water, metal, gasoline far off. It was overwhelming and intoxicating.
I growled low in my throat.
“Relax,” Arella said softly, placing her hand on my shoulder. I barely noticed the contact. “We have all night.”
Jon didn’t wait. He took off toward the trees.
Tyler followed at once, smooth as shadow.
And I launched after them.
Snow burst beneath my feet as we tore into the forest. The cold didn’t bite – it energized. My body adjusted effortlessly to uneven ground. I cleared fallen branches without slowing, ducked beneath limbs without conscious thought.
Jon glanced sideways at me. “Try not to level the forest, Evan.”
“I’m not trying to,” I shot back.
Tyler increased his pace slightly.
Testing me.
I felt it.
And I refused to fall behind.
I pushed.
The distance between us vanished. Within seconds I was matching his stride.
For a flicker of a second, Tyler’s eyes narrowed – interest replacing neutrality.
“Impressive,” he admitted calmly. “Five days into the change and you’re already moving like that.”
Jon scoffed. “He shouldn’t be.”
“You weren’t,” Tyler replied smoothly.
“That’s not the point.”
Tyler ignored him. “You’re adapting quickly,” he observed to me. “Faster than most.”
I didn’t answer.
Because I heard it.
A heartbeat.
Strong. Human. Unaware.
I watched from the shadow of a bare oak tree as the blonde-haired woman stepped out of her car, the dome light briefly illuminating her face before she shut the door and plunged the driveway back into darkness. Snow drifted lazily through the cone of a single porch light, catching in her hair as she reached into the back seat and retrieved her purse. She moved with the absent ease of someone who believed herself safe — keys already in hand, thoughts likely on dinner, or warmth, or whoever waited inside.
The monster inside me stirred.
It did not feel like rage.
It felt like inevitability.
My throat burned – not the frantic blaze from earlier, but a focused, sharpened hunger that tunneled my vision and tightened every muscle along my spine. I could hear her heartbeat clearly now. Steady. Unaware. Trusting.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Arella stepped silently to my side. I hadn’t heard her approach. I hadn’t heard Tyler or Jon either, though I knew they were close – watching, measuring, judging.
Arella’s fingers brushed my shoulder.
Permission.
My body moved before my conscience could object.
One second I was beneath the tree.
The next, I stood behind her.
She startled at the sudden shift in air and turned halfway, breath catching – but she did not scream. Not yet. I was close enough to feel the warmth radiating from her coat, to feel the soft cloud of her exhale brush my chin. My skin, cooler than it should have been, registered the difference immediately. She was heat. I was not.
I slipped an arm around her waist.
She giggled.
“Jack,” she murmured playfully, leaning back into me. “At least wait until we get inside.”
Her hand slid upward along my chest – and then she froze.
Her fingers pressed against unfamiliar fabric. An unfamiliar body. Her pulse spiked violently beneath her skin.
I lowered my face to her neck.
The scent hit me fully then – honeyed skin and winter air and something uniquely her. My lips brushed the hollow beneath her ear.
The monster exhaled in satisfaction.
Her voice trembled. “You’re not-”
My fangs pierced her throat…
Her scream tore into the night but died quickly as I tightened my grip and pulled her against me. Hot blood flooded my mouth – rich, metallic, alive. It poured over my tongue and down my throat in thick waves, and the fire inside me quieted in a way that felt almost holy.
She struggled at first. Her fingers clawed weakly at my arms. Her heels scraped against the driveway.
Then her movements slowed.
Her heartbeat faltered.
Each swallow strengthened me. Every pulse I stole filled the hollow space inside my chest where a heartbeat should have been.
Her body went limp long before the last flutter beneath my lips ceased.
I lowered her carefully onto the snow.
Steam curled faintly from the wound at her neck. Crimson spread across white.
I stared down at her.
The monster was not satisfied.
It wanted more.
And the most horrifying part of all was that I did too.
The front door of the house creaked open.
I turned slowly.
A man stepped onto the porch, confusion already twisting his features. He took one look at the figure on the ground and then at me standing over her, and something inside him shattered.
“Alicia?” His voice cracked. He stepped forward, disbelief giving way to fury. “What did you do? I’m calling the police!”
He pivoted toward the door.
I was faster.
I didn’t even feel myself move.
One moment he was reaching for the handle. The next, my hand clamped around his shoulder and spun him back toward me. He swung wildly – a desperate, human punch fueled by grief.
I ducked effortlessly.
Another swing.
I stepped aside.
His movements felt slow. Predictable. Fragile.
The monster grew impatient.
I caught his wrist mid-strike and twisted sharply. Bone tore from socket with a wet pop. He screamed – raw and primal – and I kicked the side of his knee. It snapped with a sickening crack, and he collapsed.
I forced him down onto the porch, snow and blood mixing beneath us.
I grabbed his hair and wrenched his head back.
His pulse thundered beneath stretched skin.
Terror rolled off him in waves.
For a flicker of a second, something inside me hesitated.
Then I bit down.
His blood was hotter. Wilder. Laced with adrenaline and grief. It flooded my senses, thick and intoxicating. He tried to fight even as he weakened, but it was futile. His heart hammered desperately – then stumbled – then stilled.
I let him fall.
Silence returned to the street.
Snow continued to drift, settling on two cooling bodies.
I stood there, breathing out of habit more than need. My shirt clung heavily to my skin, soaked through with blood that was already beginning to chill in the winter air.
I felt powerful.
Awake.
Terrifyingly alive.
Arella stood at the edge of the walkway, untouched by the violence, her dark cloak unmoved by wind. Tyler lingered behind her, his expression unreadable. Jon leaned against a nearby tree, arms crossed, eyes sharp but quiet.
Arella approached me slowly.
When she reached me, she lifted her hand and brushed her thumb along the corner of my mouth. She examined the smear of red thoughtfully before bringing her thumb to her lips.
“Lucky you,” she said softly.
Her tone was almost affectionate.
I looked down at myself – at the blood soaking into fabric, at the stains across the snow, at what I had done with terrifying ease.
The burn in my throat was dulled now. Not gone. Never gone.
Just quieter.
Ethan’s going to be disappointed in me…
Smoke still lingered in the air.
The house – Alicia and Jack’s house – had been reduced to a skeletal frame of blackened beams and collapsing roof. Flames devoured what remained, crackling and snapping as Jon stood a safe distance away, hands shoved casually into his pockets like he was watching a bonfire instead of erasing evidence. The fire reflected in his eyes, bright and unbothered.
“Rule one,” he had told me while tossing my blood-soaked shirt into the blaze, “we clean up after ourselves. Rule two, we never leave patterns. Rule three, if the Elders hear about sloppy work, they send Hunters.”
Hunters.
The word had settled heavily in my mind.
“And now that the government’s poking its nose into things,” he’d added, “it’s not just the Elders we worry about.”
So the house burned.
And I stood bare-chested in the snow, feeling only the faintest suggestion of cold against my skin.
The night felt different now.
Sharper.
Alive.
Arella and Jon lingered near the tree line while Tyler stepped forward, his dark coat discarded somewhere behind him. He removed it with deliberate calm, folding it neatly and placing it over a fallen branch before turning his full attention to me.
“Let’s see what you can actually do,” Tyler said.
There was no mockery in his tone.
Only expectation.
I moved first.
I shot forward between the trees, zigzagging through narrow gaps that should have clipped my shoulders. The forest blurred past in streaks of white and black. My feet adjusted instinctively to roots and uneven ground. I didn’t think.
I reacted.
Thirty feet from a thick oak trunk, I jumped.
The ground dropped away instantly. Air rushed past my ears as I spun, twisting my body until my feet were facing the tree. Time seemed to stretch thin – every snowflake suspended in the air, every crack in the bark visible in impossible detail.
My feet hit the trunk.
The impact should have shattered bone.
Instead, my knees bent smoothly, absorbing the force. The tree groaned beneath the pressure.
For half a second I crouched there, horizontal against the bark, clinging by nothing but strength and balance.
Then I pushed off.
The force split the trunk with a violent crack as I launched backward. Wood splintered. I flipped once. Twice. Three times. The world rotated in slow, graceful arcs before my feet met the snow again without so much as a stumble.
I didn’t even feel winded.
Tyler was suddenly standing directly in front of me.
I hadn’t seen him move.
“Again,” he said calmly.
I smirked.
This time, I didn’t run.
I lunged straight at him.
He didn’t brace. Didn’t flinch.
I swung.
He caught my wrist mid-strike with effortless precision. His grip tightened slightly – not painful, but immovable.
“Too wide,” he commented.
I twisted, attempting to leverage my momentum into a spin kick.
He released my wrist only to step inside my guard, one hand pressing against my sternum.
The world flipped.
I hit the snow on my back hard enough to leave a crater.
Tyler stood over me, expression unchanged.
“You’re strong,” he said. “But you’re still thinking like something that needs to breathe.”
I rolled to my feet instantly.
“Show me,” I challenged.
A flicker of approval passed through his eyes.
He moved.
Not fast.
Precise.
One second he stood before me – the next, he was at my side, then behind me. I felt air shift before I felt him. His hand tapped my shoulder lightly from behind.
“Speed isn’t about how quickly you can cross distance,” he said, now suddenly in front of me again. “It’s about how little time your opponent has to process you.”
I bared my fangs slightly.
“Again.”
We blurred through the forest.
This time I focused – not on raw acceleration, but on silence. On angles. On anticipating where he would be instead of reacting to where he had been.
I cut him off mid-stride.
My hand caught his forearm.
He didn’t break free immediately.
Instead, he smiled faintly.
“There,” he murmured. “Adaptation.”
I tightened my grip and pushed.
He slid backward several feet through the snow before digging his heels in. The earth cracked slightly beneath the pressure between us.
His eyes narrowed – impressed now.
“You’re stronger after feeding,” he observed. “Significantly.”
“I can feel it,” I admitted. My entire body felt charged, like I was made of compressed lightning.
“Good,” Tyler said. “Then test the limits.”
I grabbed the trunk of a fallen pine and lifted.
The tree was easily thirty feet long, thick and frozen solid.
It rose from the snow with surprising ease.
I exhaled in disbelief.
Then I threw it.
The pine spun end over end before slamming into another tree with a violent explosion of splinters.
Jon whistled from behind us. “Well. That’s new.”
Arella’s expression remained serene, but I saw the subtle spark of satisfaction in her eyes.
Tyler stepped closer, lowering his voice so only I could hear him.
“You need to understand something, Evan,” he said. “What you’re becoming… it’s rare.”
I met his gaze.
“Five days,” he continued. “Most newborns can barely control their hunger by now. You’re sparring.”
A strange mixture of pride and unease twisted in my chest.
“I don’t know what that means,” I admitted.
“It means,” Tyler replied quietly, “the Elders will take interest in you.”
The word interest did not sound comforting.
We continued for nearly an hour – racing across frozen clearings, testing vertical leaps between trees, practicing sudden stops that split the earth beneath my heels. Tyler forced me to fight without wasted movement, correcting my stance, my angles, even the tilt of my head when listening for distant heartbeats.
By the time I returned to where Arella and Jon waited, the eastern horizon had begun to pale slightly.
The coming sun.
“What did you think?” I asked with a grin, not even slightly out of breath.
“That was rather entertaining,” Jon replied, clearly amused. “How do you feel?”
“Never better.”
Tyler didn’t smile this time. He studied me carefully, committing something to memory.
Arella stepped forward and placed her hand gently on my shoulder.
“The sun will rise in an hour or two,” she said softly. There was something almost regretful in her tone. “Jon will take you back to Section-9 Headquarters.”
“You’re not coming with us?” I asked.
“No.” She shook her head. “There are other matters I must attend to before the war begins.”
War.
The word hung heavy between us.
“We will meet again, Evan,” she continued. “You can be certain of that.”
“I hope so, Mother Arella.”
She smiled faintly at the title and lifted her hand to my cheek.
“You have so much potential,” she said quietly. “Immortality suits you.”
Tyler stepped forward then.
For once, there was no sarcasm. No subtle superiority.
He extended his hand.
I took it.
His grip was firm – solid – deliberate.
“You’re going to outpace most of them,” he said. “Don’t let it make you careless.”
“I won’t.”
His eyes searched mine, measuring sincerity.
“Control the hunger,” he added. “Speed and strength are meaningless if you lose yourself.”
A beat of silence passed.
Then, quieter:
“Try not to let Jon teach you everything.”
“I heard that,” Jon muttered.
Tyler’s mouth twitched faintly.
He released my hand and stepped back toward Arella.
For a moment, the four of us stood there in the fading dark – smoke from the ruined house drifting in the distance, snow glowing faintly beneath the paling sky.
Then Arella turned.
Tyler followed.
They moved together toward the deeper forest, their forms gradually swallowed by shadow and distance.
Just before he disappeared fully, Tyler glanced back at me.
A single nod.
Then he was gone.
The night felt different without them.
Quieter.
Jon clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Ready to go home, superstar?”
I looked toward the horizon where the first fragile hint of dawn threatened to break.
Home.
Section-9.
Secrets.
Hunters.
War.
And Ethan.
“Yeah,” I said finally.
But as we turned back toward the tunnel, I couldn’t stop thinking about what Tyler had said.
Rare.
And for the first time since I’d woken without a heartbeat…
I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.
Chapter 4