The blue and red lights of the police cruisers pulsed against the wet leaves, turning the forest into a rhythmic, nightmarish disco. Each flash felt like a physical blow against my eyes, a staccato reminder that the world had fractured. The air was thick—heavy with the smell of ozone from the storm, the scent of damp wool, and that unmistakable, metallic tang of blood that seemed to cling to the back of my throat, refusing to be swallowed. Paramedics swarmed around Vicki, their voices clipped and professional, a sterile contrast to the primal violence that had just occurred in the mud.
I stood at the edge of the chaos, my arms wrapped so tightly around my chest that my ribs ached. My sweater was a heavy, sodden weight, dragging at my shoulders, but I couldn't feel the cold. I couldn't feel anything except the phantom pressure of Jax's icy fingers on my neck and the terrifying, beautiful emerald fire that had consumed Silas's eyes before he had turned to face his brother.
I should tell them, I thought, my internal monologue a jagged shard of glass cutting through my brain. I should walk over to Sheriff Forbes and tell her that it wasn't a wolf. I should tell her that the monsters from the old stories have names and faces and a manor on the hill. But who would believe me? I am the girl who died on Wickery Bridge. To them, I am a walking tragedy, a girl whose mind is as fragile as a bird's wing. They would look at me with that suffocating pity and tell me it's the trauma. They would say my grief has finally manifested into monsters.
I watched as they lifted Vicki onto a gurney. Her face was a mask of grey marble, her eyes closed, her throat hidden beneath a thick, white dressing that was already beginning to bloom with a dark, crimson flower. Matt was a ghost of a man, standing by the open doors of the ambulance. His varsity jacket, usually a symbol of his status and strength, was stained dark and wet. He looked small. He looked human. And for the first time, I felt a distance between us that was wider than the river.
"Lyra? Lyra, look at me."
The voice was like a low vibration in the earth. I turned slowly, my boots squelching in the mire. Silas was standing a few yards away, sheltered by the deep, impenetrable shadow of a towering pine. He looked perfectly composed—there was no blood on his chin, no dark veins pulsing beneath his eyes, and his clothes appeared dry, as if the rain itself were afraid to touch him. But his expression... it was a landscape of absolute, soul-crushing exhaustion. He looked like a man who had been carrying the weight of a century on his back and had finally heard his own spine begin to crack.
"Is she...?" I couldn't finish the sentence. My voice was a dry rasp, the words catching on the fear in my throat.
"She's alive," Silas whispered, his voice barely audible over the hum of the ambulance and the distant, fading music of the party. "Jax didn't finish. He was just... playing. It's what he does when he's bored. He likes to see the light go out, but he likes the chase even more."
"Playing?" I stepped toward him, my fear momentarily eclipsed by a sharp, burning rage that flared up from my stomach. "He was drinking her, Silas! I saw his face. I saw your face. Don't lie to me anymore. Don't treat me like I'm one of them—clueless and safe. What are you?"
Silas closed his eyes for a long moment, and I saw his jaw tighten until the bone threatened to break through the skin. When he looked at me again, the emerald of his irises seemed to have deepened, reflecting the flashing police lights in a way that felt predatory and ancient. He didn't move toward me. He stayed in the shadows, an inhabitant of the dark, as if the light would burn him.
"You already know, Lyra. You've known since the moment I pulled you from that car," he said, his voice dropping to a haunting, melodic resonance. "Your mind is just a fortress trying to protect you from the truth. But the fortress is falling."
"Tell me," I demanded, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. "Say the word. I want to hear it from you."
"I am a creature of hunger," Silas said, the words falling like stones into a well. "I am a predator that has spent a hundred years trying to forget how to kill, and my brother is a predator that has forgotten how to stop. We are the myths your ancestors tried to burn. We are the shadows that never leave the corner of your eye. I am a vampire, Lyra. And in my world, there are no happy endings."
The word hung in the air, impossible and heavy. A vampire. It should have been ridiculous—the stuff of cheap movies and paperbacks—but standing in the rain, looking at the stillness of his posture and the unnatural glow of his eyes, I knew it was the only truth that mattered.
"I came back here because I wanted to be human again," he continued, his voice trembling with a vulnerability that broke my heart even as my instincts screamed for me to run. "I saw you on that bridge, and I saw a life that was worth saving. I saw a spark that I haven't felt in myself for a lifetime. I thought if I could protect you, if I could just be near your light, I could remember what it felt like to have a soul. But Jax... Jax is my reminder that we don't get to have souls. We only have the hunger."
"He said I look like her. Kora." I spoke the name like a curse, my mind racing back to the portrait in the manor. "Is that why you saved me? Because I'm a ghost? Am I just a doll for you to play with because you couldn't save the other one?"
Silas flinched as if I had struck him with a physical blade. He looked away, his gaze drifting toward the dark ridge where their manor sat like a tomb overlooking the town. "I saved you because you were dying. And I couldn't let another beautiful thing be destroyed by the dark. But Jax is right about one thing—staying near me is the most dangerous thing you will ever do. He won't stop. He wants to hurt me, and the easiest way to do that is to destroy the only thing I care about."
He looked back at me, and for a split second, the mask of the monster slipped. I saw the boy he had once been—the boy who had loved the sun, who had probably had a family and dreams before the darkness took him. "Go home, Lyra. Forget about the falls. Forget about the manor. If you see me in the halls tomorrow, look the other way. Pretend I'm just another stranger. Please. For your own sake."
Before I could reply, Sheriff Forbes called my name from the ambulance, her voice sharp with authority. I looked away for a heartbeat, and when I turned back, the shadow beneath the pine was empty. Silas was gone, vanished into the trees as if he had been made of the fog itself.
The drive home was a blur of wet asphalt and flashing lights. I don't remember steering the car or stopping at the red lights. All I could think about was the weight of the secret I was carrying. It felt like a physical burden, a heavy, cold stone in the center of my chest.
When I finally walked through the front door of the Vance house, the silence was deafening. Jenna was asleep on the sofa, a heavy law textbook open on her chest, her breathing slow and rhythmic. Jeremy's door was closed, but I could hear the faint, scratching sound of his pencil against paper—he was drawing again. I climbed the stairs like a sleepwalker, my body aching with a fatigue that went deeper than muscle or bone. It was a weariness of the soul.
I went into the bathroom and turned on the shower, letting the water run until the room was filled with a thick, white steam that obscured the walls. I stripped off my ruined clothes—the sweater that smelled of Jax, the jeans stained with Vicki's blood—and stepped into the spray. I turned the handle until the water was scalding, turning my skin a bright, angry red, but I needed to feel the heat. I needed to prove to myself that I was still warm, still alive, still human.
I leaned my forehead against the cold tile, the water drumming against my back. I can't go back, I told myself. The world I knew is gone. The trees aren't just trees anymore. The history of Mystic Ridge isn't just dates and names in a textbook; it's a ledger written in blood. It's a story of hunger and shadows, and I've just been cast in the lead role.
I stepped out of the shower and wiped a circle in the fogged-up mirror. I looked at my reflection—the dark hair plastered to my neck, the pale skin, the eyes that looked like they had seen the end of the world.
Am I Lyra? I whispered to the empty room. Or am I just a vessel for a ghost?
I walked into my bedroom, refusing to turn on the light. The darkness felt safer now, more honest. I sat on the edge of my bed, staring at the window where the rain was still tapping against the glass—a soft, rhythmic sound like a heartbeat.
I reached for my journal on the nightstand, wanting to pour the terror onto the pages, but my hand stopped mid-air.
There, resting in the center of my white pillow, was a single, ancient-looking coin. It was made of dull, heavy gold, stamped with a crest I didn't recognize—a bird with its wings spread wide, rising from a bed of flames. A phoenix. It was cold to the touch, so cold it felt like it had been sitting in a freezer.
I picked it up, my heart beginning to gallop. I looked toward the window. It was locked from the inside, exactly as I had left it. But the scent was there—the faint, lingering smell of expensive bourbon and woodsmoke.
Jax.
He had been here. While I was downstairs, while Jenna was sleeping, he had walked through my walls like a ghost. He had stood over my bed, watched me breathe, and left a token of his presence. It wasn't just a coin; it was a promise. A threat. A reminder that no door could keep him out.
I gripped the coin so hard the metal bit into the flesh of my palm. I looked out into the darkness of the yard, toward the old oak tree where the shadows were deepest.
"I'm not afraid of you," I whispered into the darkness, though my voice trembled.
But as I lay down and finally closed my eyes, the image of the black-veined eyes and the blood-stained lips of the Thorne brothers burned behind my lids. I could feel the town of Mystic Ridge breathing all around me—a living, pulsing entity full of secrets and teeth.
The episode of the girl who drowned was over. The girl who survived was gone.
The season of the shadows had begun.
Silas was in his room, I knew, staring at the shattered remains of Kora's portrait, mourning a woman who had been dead for a century. Jax was in the cellar of the manor, the taste of Vicki's life still sweet on his tongue, planning his next move. And I was in my bed, clutching a coin from a dead century, waiting for the sun to rise on a world that would never be bright again.
Down in the kitchen, the old clock chimed three times. The sound echoed through the hollow house, a funeral knell for the life I used to have. Somewhere in the woods, a crow cried out, and then there was only the sound of the rain, washing away the evidence of the night, but leaving the stains on our souls.
The screen of my life faded to black, the credits rolling in my mind over the image of that gold coin, glinting in the dark.