The card trembled in my hand as I held it up to the patrol gate.
One of the guards scanned it without speaking. The moment it blinked green, the silver bars began to pull apart.
No hesitation. No questions. Just... silent permission.
I glanced back over my shoulder.
Still no one chasing me.
No alarm. No boots pounding after me.
Just the watching figures, calm and distant, like they’d seen this happen before.
My legs ached, burning with each step. The cold had started to bite through my shoes, creeping up through the soles and settling in my bones. If I hadn’t been sporty, if I hadn’t spent years running track, I would’ve collapsed by now.
The trees thinned. The ground dipped. I followed the road, and finally—I saw it.
Streetlights. Traffic. Buildings. Civilization.
Relief burst like a flare through my chest. I choked out a breath that turned white in the freezing air.
It hung low in the sky, enormous. Glowing silver. Unnaturally close. If I stretched my hand upward, I could swear I’d brush its face.
Down the hill. Past a vendor unloading crates. Past a group of strangers in long coats who turned to watch.
People stared as I sprinted by—some curious, others amused, none helpful.
A payphone appeared across the street. I darted toward it.
A car swerved, horn blaring.
I barely missed the bumper.
My feet skidded on the pavement. The world spun. I caught myself on the side of the phone booth and dove inside, breath ragged.
I grabbed the receiver.
I searched my pockets. Nothing. Just lint, the card, and a trembling hand.
I pushed out of the booth, shivering, teeth chattering. I went from stranger to stranger. "Please—I just need a phone. One call—please."
Some gave me wide-eyed stares. Others rolled their eyes or picked up their pace.
They all seemed tall.
Every single one of them towered over me. Their steps were too quiet. Their eyes too sharp. I could feel them all slicing into me.
I saw a couple coming, laughing at a joke they only knew, despite seeing fangs glinting, they loomed normal enough. Unguarded, almost familiar.
I ran forward, desperate.
I tried again. "Please—ma’am, can I—?"
The woman turned. Her brown eyes gleamed... red.
My eyes widened to saucers not sure of what the hell I had just witnessed. I stumbled back but I had no chance..
Her pink manicured hand lifted.
I heard and saw flesh split in an instant, bones cracking but if she felt pain, she did not show it.
Her fingers stretched, curved, sharpened—
And claws tore through the back of my hand before I could react.
Pain shot up my arm like lightning. Blood spilled over my fingers.
She smirked, wiped her claw on her coat, and pulled her partner closer to her and walked away.
Like it meant nothing.
I stared at my hand. I could see the jagged cuts, the skin split open, but worse was the thing twisting in my gut.
The massive moon. The fact that they could transform.
It hit me all at once.
This wasn’t even my world.
That warped thing that had happened when we flew over the cliff—it hadn’t been metaphorical.
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An actual fucking portal.
And now... I was trapped in a world that didn’t give a damn if I bled on its streets.
That’s why they let me go.
Because they knew it didn’t matter.
I was never getting out.
The laugh started in my throat—tight, breathless.
I leaned back against the payphone, clutching my bleeding hand, and laughed.
Laughed like a lunatic.
I laughed until my lungs hurt, until my vision blurred, until the snow started to fall harder—covering my tracks, hiding my blood.
The cold hit me like a final betrayal.
With the adrenaline gone, my body remembered everything.
The burn in my calves. The sting in my hand. The numbness creeping through my soles like frostbite blooming from the inside out.
I dropped to the base of the payphone and curled in on myself.
The snow didn’t care. It kept falling.
My fingers trembled so badly I couldn’t feel them. My teeth chattered, not from fear anymore, but from a cold so deep it felt like it had cracked my spine open and settled there.
A sound escaped me—half sob, half breath.
Her voice, her touch, those warm brown eyes that always made everything better.
She would pull me in. Hold me close. Stroke my hair and whisper that I’d make it out. That I always did. That I was her girl and that I was strong.
I’d promised myself that I’d find him after the truth broke me on my eighteenth birthday. That I’d hunt the monster down, the one who destroyed everything.
But I couldn’t even stay on my feet.
The image of him flashed behind my eyes.
Tousled dark hair, streaked with bronze under the light.
It made me want to scream.
I hated that I looked like him.
I hated that the world felt like it was closing in.
I pressed my bleeding hand to my chest and rocked once. Twice. The pain kept me awake, just enough.
Then there was commotion.
Murmurs spread like ripples around me. Footsteps slowed. Heads turned. Some people stepped back. Others simply... stopped.
And then something warm settled on my shoulders.
Heavy. Luxurious. Scented faintly of smoke and cedar and something else I couldn’t name but I knew.
Platinum hair slicked back. Pale skin like porcelain. Those ice-blue eyes fixed on mine, unreadable. He stood tall, composed, not a speck of snow dared settle on him.
The man from the car.
The one who’d driven me off a cliff, through a portal, into this madness.
Still in his suit. Silent and watching.
The crowd around us didn’t move. They didn’t breathe.
But he did nothing, saying nothing.
Like the city itself held its breath with him.
And as I stared up at him, body shaking, blood still dripping into the snow, something inside me cracked.
Because somehow, this meant it wasn’t over.
He’d come back, like he knew he would find me here, desolate and utterly hopeless; defeated. With no strength left to resist.