Up close, she didn't look like someone built to unsettle his blessing.
She looked like any other girl who'd had a bad week and decided to drown it in alcohol and noise.
Her hair was long and dark, falling in half-messy waves that looked like they'd been carefully ignored rather than styled. Strands clung to her cheeks and neck from the heat, catching the neon light in uneven streaks. Her eyes were a deep brown, wide and still too bright in a way that didn't match the flatness in her expression.
Her wrists were thin where they emerged from the sleeves of her shirt, a pale contrast against the glass she held. Slender fingers curled around it like it weighed nothing, even though his senses told him everything about her weighed more than it should.
Her chest was a size too generous for the rest of her frame, the kind of imbalance that made clothes sit awkwardly and eyes linger longer than they should. The shirt she wore didn't exactly hide it, but it didn't scream for attention either. It was like the rest of her: slightly off, like she'd pulled herself together in a hurry and hoped no one looked too closely.
Hao realized he'd been staring.
Flip.
He dragged his gaze away a fraction of a second too late.
"Want some?" she asked.
She didn't turn fully to face him. Just angled her head a little, eyes still half on the party, half on the glass. She tilted it toward him, the liquid inside catching the light.
Her voice carried that raw edge of someone who had cried too much recently and was now trying very hard not to care anymore. Not hoarse. Just frayed.
"I'm good," he said. "You've had enough for three people anyway."
She snorted softly.
"You a cop or something?" she asked.
"Do I look like one?"
That got her to actually look at him.
The glow from the lights painted one side of her face blue, the other pink. Her eyes traced over him, slow, clinical, taking in the black T-shirt, the glasses, the water bottle still in his hand.
"Mm," she hummed. "You look like the guy parents warn their kids about."
"That's unfair," Hao said.
He held out his water bottle like a peace offering.
She stared at it as if it might bite her fingers.
"Who brings water to a party?" she said. "That's suspicious."
"Alcohol isn't my thing," Hao said. "You're not going to feel better by poisoning your liver."
Her lips twitched.
"You don't know what I'm trying to feel," she shot back. "Another cute guy trying to take advantage of a sad girl. I've seen this before."
"What," he said flatly.
His motes pulsed in annoyance, like they agreed with the assessment of this conversation.
She tipped her head back and finished the rest of her drink in one go. Her throat worked as the liquid slid down. Her heartbeat didn't change pace. No stutter. No acceleration. No flush of alcohol through her system the way he felt in everyone else.
Nothing.
She stepped away from the railing and casually tossed the empty glass over the side.
The liquid fell out first, catching the light like a tiny comet before vanishing into the dark below. The glass followed, spinning, then disappearing into the shadows between buildings.
Hao winced in anticipation of distant shattering, but either it landed in grass or the music swallowed the sound.
She brushed past him.
Her shoulder bumped his chest. The contact was small, but it felt like walking into someone made of packed sand instead of flesh. Dense. Grounded. Too solid.
Her scent lingered for a half-second. Not perfume. Soap. A hint of smoke that wasn't from the balcony.
Then she was gone, swallowed by flashing lights and moving bodies as she slipped back into the clot of the party. The crowd closed around her like water over a stone.
Hao stood there a second longer, his hand still half-raised with the water bottle, looking like he was about to offer it to a ghost.
The night air chilled his skin.
Follow her, his Anchor whispered.
That's stalking.
That's survival, it replied. Her body doesn't read like a normal human.
His motes thrummed in uneasy agreement. The wrongness around her wasn't fading with distance. It was dragging at them, warping their perception like gravity.
He hesitated exactly one heartbeat.
Then he moved.
The muffled thump of the party slammed into him again and again like a physical thing. Lights strobed. Bodies shifted. Laughter rose and fell in chaotic waves.