The night smelled like rust and rain.
I ran anyway.
My boots slapped against the wet asphalt, breath catching somewhere between a sob and a snarl.
The city pulsed behind me — glass towers bleeding light through cracked alleys, sirens wailing somewhere far off, too late to matter.
My heartbeat was louder than all of it, loud enough to drown the whisper rising in my chest.
Stay. Sing. Survive.
No.
I bit down on it. Hard.
The voice wasn't mine anymore — not fully.
Not since the Awakening. Not since my skin had started to glow like something holy when I was angry, not since the scream that shattered glass and bones and memories I hadn't meant to lose.
I gripped the stolen bag tighter. Inside it, a burner phone, protein bars, an old photo of Kita and me at the lake, and a switchblade I didn't know how to use properly. That, and something no one could see — the guilt of a power I hadn't asked for and couldn't return.
Footsteps.
I stopped breathing.
Three men. No… four.
Shadows stretching long in the alley behind me, boots silent, too silent. Trained. Not cops. Not thugs.
Something worse — the kind that didn't announce themselves before the kill.
I ducked into a side street, heart scraping ribs, body trembling like it remembered how this always ended.
They'd find me. Again.
Unless I used my siren powers.
Unless I let it out.
But every time I did, it took more from me.
I pressed a hand to my throat. It was warm and humming.
The siren part of me begging to sing, to burn them down from the inside out.
One note. One word. That's all it would take.
I clenched my jaw.
And then I felt him.
Not like the others. Not close — yet. But watching.
My steps slowed.
A different shadow peeled itself from the wall ahead.
Lean and still.
Hat dipped low, long coat brushing the ground like smoke.
The way he moved didn't register as threat at first — too fluid, too quiet, like he belonged to the night.
I froze.
My hand reached for the blade, even something primal in me screamed not to bother.
"You gonna stab me with that, little siren?" he asked — his voice low, rough and amused.
My blood ran cold.
He knew.
He knew.
"Back off," I said, feigning more rage than courage. "I'll—"
"Sing?" he interrupted. "You could. But your voice is shaking. And they're closing in. You use that power here, you'll level half the street and pass out cold, like last time."
I blinked. "How do you know about—?"
He stepped forward and I stepped back.
Moonlight caught his face, just enough for me to see him clearly.
Sharp lines, light brown skin, stubble along his jaw, and eyes that didn't look entirely human. Not glowing. Just too still and too knowing.
"Because I was sent to stop you," he said.
And then, softer:
"But I changed my mind."
I don't remember dropping the bag, I don't remember the first scream — not mine — as one of the shadows lunged from behind.
But I remember what he did.
The man in the hat.
Zayn.
He moved faster than I could think.
One moment he stood there, calm and grim like death personified, and the next—
The alley flickered.
The darkness shifted.
And he was gone.
No — not gone. Just becoming.
What stepped forward wasn't a man.
It was shadow and fang and fury — a wolf made of midnight, eyes like eclipses, rippling with barely leashed violence.
He tore through the attacker like paper. Silent, precise and efficient.
And then he was human again.
Or close enough.
He was breathing hard. Blood spattered but it wasn't his.
He turned to me, gaze unreadable. "That was one. There's more."
I couldn't speak.
Because how could I?
After I saw what happened, I was shocked.
And my legs wouldn't move.
"You have two options," he said. "Run again. Or trust me, just this once."
"Why should I?"
Yeah, why should i trust him?. What if he does it exactly the same way, but to me? Just like he did to that attacker.
"Because I already saved your life," he growled, voice tightening. "Don't make me regret it."
The others were coming. I felt them like static in my bones.
I didn't trust him. But I was tired, alone and I can't run forever.
And part of me, the reckless, cursed, exhausted part — wanted to believe him.
So I did the stupid thing.
I nodded.
And followed the wolf into the shadows.
How's it? Lols