Bite Me Softly

Chapter 7: Silent Tension

Kade didn’t come back to my window the next night, or the one after that.

But he started showing up more at school.

Not in the dramatic way you might expect from someone who bled all over your couch and then vanished before morning. He didn’t walk me to class or hover in the hallways. But I started catching him in small moments. At the lockers across from mine. Cutting through the courtyard during lunch. Sitting two rows behind me in English.

He always noticed me. Always.

And now, he started to speak.

It began in the library. Again. I was pretending to study, highlighter in hand, book open to the same page for ten minutes, when he slid into the seat across from me. No warning. No dramatic flair. Just a soft creak of the chair and his familiar scent, like pine and smoke and something darker.

I glanced up.

"You really like this table," I said.

He leaned back, arms crossed, mouth twitching with something not quite a smile. "Maybe I like the view."

I blinked. "Of the dusty bookshelves?"

His eyes gleamed. "Sure. Let’s go with that."

There it was. That game he played. Always circling the truth, never landing.

I went back to highlighting nothing in particular. "You don’t seem like the type who actually needs to study."

"That’s a compliment, right? Or are you accusing me of being lazy?"

I shrugged. "Maybe both."

He chuckled softly, low and rough. The sound curled around my spine.

Silence stretched between us, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Just heavy, like there were things neither of us knew how to say. Or weren’t ready to.

I thought about the gauze I had thrown away, the blood stains I had scrubbed from the floor before my aunt woke up. I thought about his words, or the lack of them.

There was so much I wanted to ask. About the woods. About what had attacked him. About the thing he fought. About him.

But instead, I asked, "How’s your side?"

Kade looked at me a moment too long, like he was deciding how much to tell.

"Better," he said. "Thanks to you."

I nodded. "You should probably stop getting torn up by wild animals."

His mouth curved, just slightly. "I’ll work on it."

More silence. More almost-answers.

"So," I said carefully, keeping my voice light, "what do you and your pack of brooding hallway lurkers actually do for fun?"

Kade raised a brow. "Pack?"

"You know what I mean. You all move like you’re choreographed. It’s weird."

He tapped a finger on the table. "We keep to ourselves. That’s all."

"Hmm. Very mysterious."

He smiled. Really smiled. It changed his whole face. Made him look younger. Softer.

"You like mysteries?"

I hesitated. "I think I’m stuck in one. So. I guess I have to."

His gaze flicked toward the window, toward the trees just beyond the school grounds.

"Some things are better when they stay unanswered," he said.

"But those are always the most interesting," I murmured.

We fell quiet again, and I found myself studying the way his lashes cast shadows on his cheeks, the faint scar near his temple, the edge of a bruise still healing along his jawline.

Kade Thornhill was a walking question mark.

And somehow, I kept getting closer to the answer.

Later that week, we crossed paths in the empty stairwell near the science wing. He appeared behind me without a sound.

"You really have to stop doing that," I said, clutching my chest.

"Maybe you should stop being so jumpy."

"I wasn’t jumpy before I moved here." Not exactly true, but he didn’t need to know that.

"Crescent Ridge has that effect."

I leaned against the cool metal rail, watching him. "And you don’t?"

He gave a slow grin. "Me? I’m harmless."

"Liar."

He stepped closer, close enough that I could smell that woodsy warmth again. "Probably."

The stairwell held its breath around us.

"You never asked me why I came to your window," he said.

I swallowed. "I figured you’d tell me when you were ready."

His eyes flickered, something unreadable in them. "What if I’m never ready?"

"Then I guess I’ll have to keep guessing."

We stood there, the air thick between us, buzzing with everything unsaid.

Then the bell rang.

He didn’t move for a second, just held my gaze.

"Careful, Aria," he murmured. "Mysteries bite back."

And then he was gone.

And I was left there, in the stairwell, getting no more answers that I had before.

Even though I had no idea what game we were playing.

Only that I didn’t want it to end.

Later that week, things started to change.

/The full moon was coming. I didn’t need a calendar to know it. I could feel it. So could he./

Kade got quieter. Sharper around the edges. Still present, still hovering in my orbit, but with a tightness in his jaw that hadn’t been there before. His movements were quick, calculated, as if he was burning through a fuse no one else could see.

Then there was Ryker.

He appeared beside me in the courtyard one afternoon, dropped into the empty seat with that same lazy grin, again like we were old friends.

"You know," he said, biting into a granola bar, "you should hang out with people who aren’t allergic to fun."

I raised a brow. "You mean you?"

He pointed the granola bar at me. "Exactly. I’m a delight. Ask anyone."

I snorted, glancing toward the edge of the courtyard. Kade was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, watching us. He didn’t look happy.

Ryker noticed too. "Ignore him. He’s always like that when the moon gets close. Broody. Grumpy. Moody. Basically a werewolf cliché."

I laughed, but it caught in my throat. Because of course it was a joke. But still, it left a strange feeling in my gut.

"You’re quiet today," Ryker said, nudging me with his elbow. "Thinking about him?"

I looked at him. His smile didn’t falter, but there was something behind it. Something calculating.

"You don’t need to protect me from your brother," I said softly.

He gave a short laugh. "Oh, Aria. I’m not trying to protect you. I’m just giving you options."

The bell rang. Ryker stood and tossed his wrapper into the trash.

"See you around, new girl," he said.

Kade was gone.

That day, I kept expecting to see Kade again. At lunch. In the hall between classes. Even just lingering outside the school like he sometimes did, a shadow near the tree line. But he didn’t show.

By last period, a strange pressure had begun to build in my chest. A tight knot of something I couldn’t quite name. Worry. Dread. Anticipation.

After school, I lingered longer than usual. Pretended to fumble with my locker. Took the long route to the bike racks even though I walked to school. Still, no sign of him. Not in the shadows, not in the trees, not anywhere.

That cold prickle returned, the same one I had felt in the woods before the growl. The same one that whispered when I looked at Kade too long.

Where was he?

And why did it feel like something was about to snap?

I walked home with my hoodie pulled tight against the wind, my mind buzzing. My feet took me down back roads, the long way around the forest. And for some reason, I glanced over my shoulder much more than once.

When I finally got home, I stood on the porch and didn’t go in.

Instead, I sat on the steps and stared out across the darkening street, my backpack still slung over one shoulder.

I had felt this before. That waiting feeling. That quiet before everything falls apart. It reminded me of those long nights when I was little, when both my parents would disappear for hours, sometimes days, leaving me alone in the house with nothing but silence and shadows.

I used to sit at the top of the stairs with a blanket around my shoulders, listening for the sound of tires on gravel. Sometimes I’d fall asleep there, the lights still on, a half-eaten sandwich on the table. And when they finally came home, the air would shift. Not with relief. But with dread.

You never knew which version of them would walk through the door.

That same silence hung in the air now.

The kind that means something is coming.

I just didn’t know what yet.