The town had always survived on stories. Not the kind you could find in books, but the kind people lowered their voices for when they thought children were listening. The kind that lived in half finished sentences, in warnings whispered across diner counters and between lockers at school.

Everyone knew about the woods.

Everyone knew about the disappearances, the torn up livestock, the way hikers sometimes came back shaken and bleeding with no clear memory of what had happened to them. Everyone had a version of the truth.

You were the only one who carried the truth in your bones.

By the time the final bell rang, your head was already buzzing with the familiar pressure of restraint. It was the week before the full moon. Your senses were sharper than they had any right to be in a fluorescent lit hallway full of exhausted teenagers. Every footstep scraped too loud. Every laugh rang too long.

You kept your hood up, shoulders slightly hunched, posture trained to look small and uninteresting. Blending in had become instinct long before you learned what you were.

Biology class was usually safe. Predictable. Quiet.

You liked the window seat because it let you keep one eye on the treeline beyond the football field, a thin wall of dark green that marked where the town ended and something else began.

The classroom door opened late. The teacher entered first, already mid sentence with a stranger trailing behind her.

Simon Riley stepped into the room with the unremarkable awkwardness of a transfer student who had already accepted that everyone would be staring for the next few days. He wore a dark hoodie and faded jeans, his backpack slung loosely over one shoulder. He was tall, built broader than most boys your age, but not in a way that screamed athlete. More like someone who had grown into their body too fast and never quite learned what to do with it.

His hair was still damp, curling slightly at the ends, and his expression was carefully neutral, as though he had learned to keep his reactions close to his chest.

Your body reacted before your mind could. Not fear or hunger. Just a sharp, instinctive awareness.

He smelled human. Entirely human. Soap, laundry detergent, cold air from outside. Your senses found nothing hidden beneath it. No magic. No rot. No otherworldly edge. And yet, something about him still made your spine tighten in quiet attention.

Simon Riley. That was what the teacher said, writing his name on the board while explaining that he had moved to town to stay with a relative after some family complications you weren’t meant to ask about.

You didn’t listen to the rest.

Simon’s eyes drifted across the room slowly, measuring without meaning to. When they reached you, they lingered for half a second longer than necessary. Not staring. Just registering. Then he nodded to the empty seat behind you and took it. You felt him there the entire class.

Not because he was dangerous.

But because you were.