The blacktop stretched endlessly under a bruised twilight sky, the kind of lonely stretch of highway where the radio turned to static an hour ago and the only company was the low hum of tires on asphalt. You gripped the wheel a little tighter, eyes flicking to the fuel gauge—still enough to make the next town, but the caffeine had worn off and the shadows were getting longer.Then you saw him.A lone figure standing on the shoulder just ahead, thumb out in the classic hitchhiker pose. Tall, pale as moonlight, dressed like he’d stepped out of a different century: a black leather coat that caught the wind like bat wings, lace at the cuffs, boots that looked too expensive for roadside gravel. Long golden hair whipped around his face, and even from a distance, something about him felt… off. Magnetic. Dangerous.You told yourself to keep driving. Every instinct screamed it.But your foot eased off the gas anyway.