Bite Me Softly

Chapter 4: Warning Signs

I hadn’t slept much. After the dream, or vision—or whatever that had been—I kept waking up expecting to see glowing eyes watching me from the corner of my room. Of course, there weren’t any. Just shadows, my own heartbeat, and the lingering warmth of something I didn’t understand. Something I wasn’t sure I even wanted to understand.

I spent the morning in a fog. I missed breakfast. Barely remembered brushing my teeth. My reflection in the mirror looked pale and too still, like a ghost that hadn’t realized it was supposed to move on. I layered on a hoodie despite the warming spring air, tugging the sleeves down past my wrists like armor.

On the way to school, every c***k in the sidewalk felt like it echoed too loudly under my feet. Birds chirped overhead, but it sounded off-pitch, too sharp. The closer I got to Crescent Ridge High, the more I felt like I was walking into something I wasn’t prepared for.

And maybe that feeling wasn’t new.

Back home—if I could even call that place home anymore—the sidewalk cracks had been sharper. Jagged. They matched the broken window in our kitchen and the chipped enamel on my mom’s favorite mug, the one that shattered when she threw it during one of their fights. I remembered the weight of my bag that night, stuffed full of clothes, my sketchbook, and three crumpled twenty-dollar bills I’d swiped from his wallet. My mom hadn’t woken up. Or maybe she had and just didn’t care enough to stop me. Either way, I left without saying goodbye.

Sometimes I wondered if I should’ve felt guilt. But guilt was a luxury I couldn’t afford.

By the time I made it to school, I felt like a balloon stretched too thin. Every noise too loud. Every glance too sharp. And worst of all, I knew he would be there.

Kade.

But it wasn’t Kade who greeted me.

It was his brother.

Ryker Thornhill.

I didn’t even realize he was approaching until he dropped into the seat beside me at lunch like he’d always belonged there. A tray full of food, zero shame, and a grin that could probably short-circuit half the girls in the cafeteria.

"Well, well," he said, biting into an apple. "You’re the girl Kade’s all gaga over."

I blinked, startled. "I—I don’t know what you mean."

He looked me up and down—not in a gross way, more like he was sizing me up, trying to solve a riddle. I tried not to squirm under the attention, lowering my gaze to the table.

He didn’t seem fazed. If anything, it encouraged him.

"You know," he said, still chewing, "I gotta say, this is kind of wild. Kade doesn’t usually even acknowledge people. He’s got the emotional range of a cactus. I’ve seen him ignore teachers, principals, entire assemblies. And now suddenly, he’s going all broody wolf-boy over the new girl. That’s something."

Wolf-boy? Was that a metaphor? A joke? Something else? Weird. I guess that's the kind of nickname you get when you go around growling at random high-school girls.

He didn’t stop talking.

"You’re Aria, right? I figured. We don’t get new students often, especially not ones who look like they might actually have brain cells. Most people around here peak in sophomore year, and then it’s all downhill—bad tattoos and truck modifications. But you... You’ve got a different vibe. Quiet. Mysterious. Definitely Kade’s type, if he even has one."

He finally took a breath and gave me a wink.

Internally, I sighed. He really didn’t have an off-switch, did he?

I opened my mouth, then closed it again. Anything I might’ve said would have either come out as a whisper or a squeak.

He grinned wider. "You’re shy. That’s cute. Look, I’ll get to the point before I run out of apple slices. Kade’s... complicated. Like, emotionally constipated complicated. And you? You seem like the kind of girl who reads sad poetry and cries at animal shelter commercials. No offense."

I shrank into my hoodie a little. "I can handle myself."

It came out quieter than I intended, and my cheeks burned instantly.

Ryker tilted his head. "Maybe you can. But people who think they can handle Kade usually don’t understand what they’re getting into until it’s too late. He doesn’t do soft. Doesn’t do feelings. He barely does words, honestly."

Internally, I was screaming. Not because of the warning—though that was mildly terrifying—but because Ryker had a way of talking that never, ever stopped. It was like a firehose of charm and chaos.

But his words stuck. "He doesn’t do soft."

People had said that to me before. That I was too soft. Too sensitive. I’d heard it from social workers, from foster parents, from teachers. It was always some version of the same message: toughen up, don’t make waves, don’t be so emotional. I used to think it meant I was weak. But weakness was letting someone else tell you who you were.

I didn’t know who I was yet. But I knew I wasn’t going to let someone like Ryker—or Kade—decide that for me.

"Anyway," he continued, standing up and dusting off invisible crumbs, "I like you, so I’m giving you the heads-up. Consider it a Thornhill family freebie."

He tossed the rest of his apple onto his tray and strolled off like we hadn’t just had the weirdest conversation of my week.

I spent the rest of the day trying not to think about it. About Kade. About Ryker. About the fact that maybe something really was wrong here.

But as I made my way down the hall after the final bell, I felt it again.

That shift. That subtle but unmistakable tension in the air. My chest tightened, like my body was reacting to something it hadn’t identified yet. My hearing sharpened, footsteps sounding like drumbeats, locker doors slamming like gunshots.

That hypervigilance—it never really left me. Back then, it had been useful. I’d learned to read the tension in a room before I stepped into it. Learned how to disappear before fists or words were thrown.

I turned the corner to my locker.

And froze.

Deep, ragged scratches tore across the metal surface. Four lines, long and deliberate, carved right through the paint.

Claw marks.

They looked like real ones. How had someone managed to do this without drawing any attention from teachers or staff? I mean, shredding metal had to make some kind of noise.

I looked around. The hallway had emptied fast. No one else seemed to notice. Or maybe they didn’t want to.

I reached out, hesitated, then touched the grooves with my fingertips. The metal was still cold, but the feeling that crawled up my spine was anything but.

It felt like a warning.

And I had no idea who it was from. Could it be Ryker? The conversation this morning, was this the follow up? Or maybe Cody, revenge for the other day?

As I stood there, the fluorescent lights above flickered—just once, but enough to make the shadows shift and the hallway feel colder than before. My breath caught in my throat.

Somewhere down the hall, I heard a soft thud. A door maybe. Or footsteps. Something out of rhythm. I couldn’t tell where it had come from, but the sound wasn’t ordinary. It was deliberate, too heavy to be the building settling and too faint for a person to make on purpose.

I turned slowly, scanning the corridor. Lockers stretched in both directions, some open, some dented. A janitor’s cart sat abandoned near the stairwell, wheels turned awkwardly like it had been pushed in a hurry. Nothing moved. No one was there.

But the hairs on the back of my neck rose. That old instinct I hated—the one that kept me alive when I was younger—told me this wasn’t just nerves.

It was real.

A prickling sensation crawled down my arms like static, like the electricity in the air before a lightning strike. I was being watched.

Not just watched. Studied. Dissected.

I swallowed hard and backed away from the locker, hugging my bag to my chest like it could shield me from whatever presence had made those marks. My steps felt slow and heavy, echoing too loud in the quiet corridor.

One of the scratched locker vents creaked, just slightly, and I spun toward it, heart punching my ribs. Still nothing.

But the shadows behind me stretched longer than they should have. A cold draft kissed the back of my neck.

As I walked away, a nugget of frustration lodged in my chest. I hadn’t done anything to get this attention. Why couldn’t everyone just leave me alone?

Whatever this was, it wasn’t over.

And somehow, I had the sinking feeling it had only just begun.