Shadows and First Blood

Music that helped write this book Safehouse - Kami Kehoe x EkohTear you apart - She wants revengeThe Promise - In this momentHellfire - Late night saviorWildfire - Sub focusElectric Callboy - Everytime we touchDoomed - Phix x EkohRise from the ashes - StriaDemons - Written by WolvesChokehold - Sleep tolkenOxygen - Written by WolvesGravity - DefencesBlow- Ava under firebullet for my valentine - dont need youbullet for my valentine - venombullet for my valentine- your betrayalApashe x YMIR - Never changeBeg for me - BraekerThe trees wanted me dead.They reached with crooked fingers and tore at my jacket like some vindictive lover, snagging a seam and making me curse under my breath. Mud tried to keep me, roots tried to trip me, and the night air tasted of iron and bad decisions. Behind me, voices—human and hot with certainty—broke the dark into jagged pieces. Hunters. The kind that pray you’re only a story until they can put a crossbow bolt through your certainty.I s

He watched the steam curl from my mug like it was telling him a secret. “You ever play for people?” I asked, because if he was a wandering guitarist there was no better nonchalant probe.“Sometimes,” he said. “Mostly to convince bars I’m worth letting in. Or to make truckers cry softly into their napkins.” He made it sound absurdly heroic.“You make truckers cry?” I deadpanned. “That’s a niche talent.”He laughed, the sound sliding warm across the table. “Yeah. I specialize in sad choruses and bad puns. It’s a thing.”Marge refilled my coffee with an efficiency that suggested she had been practicing for the apocalypse. “You two gonna solve all the world’s heartbreaks tonight, or do you take reservations?” she asked, and I almost liked her for a second because she treated our chaos like a Tuesday special.Travis shrugged. “We’re taking names. Heartbreak’s expensive these days.”He leaned in like he was about to reveal a magic trick and then looked at me as if deciding whether I was the

The alarm clock on the motel nightstand was one of those cheap ones that ticked so loud it made you question every life decision. I didn’t need it. My body woke with the rhythm of the storm outside, pulse thrumming, senses keyed to a world that never slept. Travis, on the other hand, was still curled in bed, guitar tucked to his chest like a child, face relaxed in ways humans rarely allowed. I wanted to tell him how ridiculous that was—but didn’t. Let him have this fragile illusion of peace.I pulled on my jacket and slipped out into the corridor. The fluorescent lights buzzed lazily above me. The carpet smelled like mildew and old cigarette smoke, an olfactory reminder that safety was a polite fiction. The door clicked shut behind me, and I paused to listen. Nothing. Just the faint creak of the building settling, the distant drip of water. Hunters didn’t wait for alarm clocks, but neither did they appear when I expected. That made them dangerous in ways I could respect.Back in the c

The storm had no intention of letting us rest. Rain drummed against the car roof in a relentless rhythm, rattling windows and washing the world in silver. We’d pulled off the highway into the skeletal remains of an abandoned cabin, the kind of place humans left behind when life moved on. Its walls were warped, windows cracked, but inside, the air was warmer than the chill outside.Travis shut the engine off, and the sudden silence made my ears ache. He leaned back in his seat, one arm draped casually over the steering wheel, the other brushing against mine. That small touch, accidental or deliberate, made the fine hairs on my arms stand on end.“You always tense like that?” he asked softly, eyes scanning mine, a playful lilt in his voice.I lifted an eyebrow. “Always tense? I’m not tense. I’m… alert.”He grinned, not buying it. “Alert’s code for ‘ready to bite anyone who breathes wrong.’ Admit it.”I smirked despite myself. “Maybe. But if anyone’s going to survive the night, it’ll be

The night had teeth. Mist clung to the trees, low and suffocating, and the highway, slick with rain, reflected only fragments of light from broken lampposts. Every shadow could hide a threat. Every sound could be a hunter.Travis gripped the steering wheel with pale, knuckled hands, jaw tight. I sat beside him, senses sharpened to a razor’s edge, ears straining for any sound that didn’t belong.“They’re close,” I said softly, voice steady though my pulse betrayed me. “I can smell them in the wind.”He nodded, eyes scanning the road ahead. “I saw the other car back there. They’ve split up—classic tactic. One ahead, one behind.”“Which means we’re the prey in the center of the trap,” I muttered.“Charming,” he said, smirking despite the tension. “Really makes me feel alive.”I shot him a glance, half amused, half annoyed. “Alive’s relative. You might want to survive first.”The mist thickened, swallowing the road, and I tensed. Something moved—faint, deliberate. Hunters. They’d been pat