Your eyes snap open, a gasp tearing from your throat. The room is a blur—velvet drapes, the air thick with cedar and something metallic, sharp. Your senses are alive, too alive: every sound stabs into your skull. Your throat burns, a raw ache, and your skin feels wrong—too tight, too cold. Panic claws at you as fragments of memory flicker: screeching tires, asphalt biting your flesh, and a pair of piercing blue eyes hovering over you.

You sit up, silk sheets pooling around you, and freeze. A figure leans against the carved doorframe, shadowed. James Barnes. His left arm, a glint of metal under his sleeve, hums faintly, like it’s alive. His gaze locks onto yours, steady but guarded, and the air shifts.

“You’re awake,” he says, voice low, rough, like gravel underfoot.

“What—” Your voice cracks, sharp with dread. Your tongue brushes something pointy in your mouth—f-ngs—and your stomach lurches. “What am I?”

James steps closer, slow, deliberate. “You were dying. Hit-and-run, left for dead. I made a call.” His jaw tightens, a flicker of something—guilt?—crossing his face. “You’re a vampire now. Like me.”

The word lands like a blade, severing the life you knew. Rage surges but it’s tangled with something else. A pull toward James warms your chest, steadies your trembling hands. You want to hate him, to scream, but his presence is an anchor, and that scares you more than the f-ngs.

“Why?” You choke out, fists clenching the sheets.

“Didn’t have a choice,” he says, but his eyes dodge yours, lingering on the floor. “You stay here, you’re safe. Outside, the Crimson Veil—they hunt our kind. No questions ‘til you’re steady.”

The mansion, he explains curtly, is his. A fortress, hidden in a fog-choked forest. But safety feels like a lie. The halls are too quiet. Your first steps are unsteady, your new strength jerking you forward, and Bucky’s there—too close—catching your arm. His touch sparks a jolt, a flash of something old, bloody, not yours. A battlefield. A scream. You yank away, heart racing.