The storm hit before sunset.
Rain hammered the old highway in sheets, turning the world beyond Vayra's windshield into a smear of gray streaks and frantic wipers. Her knuckles were white on the wheel, shoulders stiff, jaw clenched just enough to ache. She'd driven this road hundreds of times, but tonight the familiarity felt false—like something had been peeled away, revealing something ancient underneath.
The kind of night where the darkness didn't just fall. It crawled.
Vayra leaned forward, squinting through the blur. "Come on," she muttered. "Just ten more minutes."
Her phone buzzed beside her. Another message from her sister.
Come home quick. Dad's getting worse.
Her chest tightened. She didn't need the reminder. That was the entire reason she was here—racing a storm to reach a hospital bed she'd been avoiding for months. Her father's illness was the kind that stole things slowly at first—names, memories, faces—and then suddenly all at once. The guilt in her ribs had its own weight.
She turned the radio up, anything to drown the pressure building in her head.
Static.
Of course. Out here, the mountains swallowed signal like an animal swallowing bones.
Lightning flashed, white and violent. For an instant the world lit up—valleys, trees, the metal guardrails lining the road. Her breath caught. There, on the shoulder, slipped into the edge of the light—
—was a figure.
Tall. Still. Facing her.
Then gone, swallowed by the dark as if he'd never been there at all.
A chill chased down her spine.
"Probably just a stranded hiker," she whispered, even though her voice didn't sound convinced.
She kept driving. The road wound higher, the storm thickening into something savage. Thunder growled across the peaks like something alive.
But the feeling lingered. Like she wasn't alone in the car.
Like eyes were on her.
Inside her.
Under her skin.
Another flash.
Another figure at the roadside.
No—the same one.
Her pulse slammed.
This time she saw more. Broad shoulders. A coat whipping in the wind. A stance too deliberate to be accidental. He wasn't seeking help. He wasn't waving her down. He was just… watching.
And watching her specifically.
She felt it.
Her breath went thin. She sped up.
The storm swallowed the road again, the world collapsing into a tunnel of rain and headlights. Her heart hammered as the hillside curled upward on her right and dropped into instant death on her left.
"Just keep going. Don't stop. Don't think."
But something had already cracked open in her chest—an old fear she didn't like to name. The kind you don't get from strangers. The kind that comes from being recognized.
---
Five minutes later, the road curved sharply—and that was when her headlights caught something lying across the asphalt.
A fallen branch. Thick. Sprawled across both lanes.
"Shit!"
Vayra hit the brakes too late.
The tires skidded on the soaked pavement. The car fishtailed, slamming into the branch with a violent jolt. Her body snapped forward, seatbelt locking hard across her chest. The car lurched sideways, wheels lifting just slightly before thudding down again.
It was over in seconds.
Too fast to scream.
Too slow to pretend it didn't happen.
Vayra's breath came in little shocked gasps.
She tasted copper on her tongue.
The car still ran, vibrating with a sick sound. Smoke curled faintly from the hood. Her heartbeat was loud enough to fill the small cabin, louder than the rain, louder than anything.
"Oh God…" she whispered. She reached for her phone—
Dead.
No signal.
No service.
The storm had eaten everything.
She rested her forehead against the steering wheel, trying to breathe.
"You're okay. You're fine. It's just a branch. You can move it."
But when she lifted her head, something in the rearview mirror made her freeze.
There was a shadow behind the car.
Standing completely still.
Not shaped like a tree.
Not shaped like anything natural.
Her fingers trembled as she pressed her palm to the window for balance. She turned, slowly, as if any abrupt movement would shatter her.
Nothing.
Just darkness and rain.
Her mind was playing tricks on her.
It had to be.
She shoved the car door open and stepped out into the cold. The rain slapped her skin instantly, soaking her clothes, stealing her breath. She wrapped her arms around herself and moved to the fallen branch.
"Just drag it. That's all."
The branch was heavier than it looked—wet, swollen, freshly broken. She dug her heels into the asphalt and tugged with all her strength, teeth clenched, rainwater mixing with the sweat on her forehead.
Halfway through dragging it aside, something prickled down her neck.
A presence.
Her spine stiffened. Her grip faltered. She straightened slowly, dread thick as mud in her lungs.
Behind her, somewhere just beyond the curtain of rain, a voice whispered her name.
"Vayra."
Every muscle locked.
Her heartbeat went silent.
The world went still.
She didn't turn.
Couldn't turn.
No one knew she was out here.
No one should know her name.
Except him.
The one she had been trying to forget.
The one she had dreamed of.
The one she had feared.
No—
She swallowed hard, forcing herself not to shake. That voice…
It couldn't be him. He didn't exist. He was a nightmare she'd created from a childhood she barely remembered. A myth in her blood. A story told to frighten children.
So why did her body react like it recognized him?
Thunder cracked overhead. The voice didn't repeat. It didn't need to.
She ran back to the car, slipping on the wet asphalt. Her hands fumbled the door handle. She yanked it open, dove inside, slammed the lock. Her breath came in panicked bursts as fog gathered on the inside of the windows.
"Go. Go. Go—"
The engine sputtered.
Coughed.
Died.
"No—no, please—"
She tried again.
Nothing.
Her shaking fingers left smears on the ignition.
"Come on!"
The car remained dead.
Lightning flashed.
This time, when the world lit up, the figure stood in front of her car.
Closer.
Motionless.
Watching.
Thunder swallowed her scream.
Just as suddenly, he was gone.
She wasn't imagining him.
He was real.
He was here.
And he'd said her name.
Her vision blurred. She squeezed her eyes shut, counting her breaths, trying to gather enough courage to even think. She had two options: stay in the car and hope he left—or run into the forest for possible shelter.
Neither option felt like survival.
Then something hit the back of the car.
Hard.
A dull metallic thud that rattled through the frame.
Vayra froze. Her body went cold.
Another thud.
Closer.
Slow.
Deliberate.
He was moving around the vehicle.
Her hands tightened on the steering wheel, useless but anchoring her to something.
Lightning cracked again—and she saw him through the passenger window this time.
A silhouette.
A broad body.
A presence that made the air itself shrink.
He stood inches from the glass.
Watching her.
Not with curiosity.
Not with confusion.
With possession.
She didn't breathe.
Didn't blink.
Didn't move.
Then, in the brief lull between thunder and rain, she heard it—
A soft, low whisper.
A voice that brushed her skin like smoke.
"Found you."
The storm roared to life again, drowning everything.
Vayra's body broke into helpless tremors. Her vision tunneled, the edges of the world collapsing inward.
"No… no…" she whispered, as if denial could make him disappear.
But then the passenger door opened.
She hadn't even heard him break the lock.
The cold rushed in first. Then his scent—dark, unfamiliar, intoxicating. Something wild. Something not entirely human.
Her pulse fluttered wildly.
He stepped inside the car with her. Slowly, like he was giving her time to absorb the inevitability. The door shut with a soft click that felt like the world sealing her fate.
Vayra pressed herself against the driver's door, her breath short and fast. Her lips trembled. She opened her mouth to scream—
A gloved hand slid over her thigh.
Firm. Warm. Claiming.
Her scream died in her chest.
He leaned close, and she felt the whisper of his breath on her ear.
His voice was dark velvet, deeper than she remembered from her nightmares.
"Don't run from me again."