Bite Me Softly

Chapter 6: Wild Pursuit

He didn’t carry me far, just to the edge of the forest where the trees thinned and the world felt less like a trap. The edge of the woods was bathed in gold from the setting sun, painting long shadows on the mossy floor.

Kade stopped beside a fallen log and lowered me onto it gently, like I might break. He crouched in front of me, expression unreadable.

My legs shook. My hands were scratched and bleeding, my clothes torn. But I could only focus on his eyes, still glowing faintly, like embers refusing to die.

He opened his mouth, then closed it. His jaw clenched. His whole body radiated tension.

And I couldn’t help it. The fear. The confusion. The exhaustion. It all collapsed inside me.

“What the hell was that?” I whispered.

Kade stared at the ground, his hands braced on his knees.

He didn’t answer.

Of course he didn’t.

He stood, rubbing the back of his neck, then ran a hand through his already-wild hair. Blood smeared across his collarbone.

“Do you trust me?” he asked, his voice low.

I blinked. “I don’t know.”

“Fair,” he muttered.

I wanted to ask a thousand things. What was in the woods? What was he? Why me?

But all I said was, “Thank you.”

He gave a single nod. Then, just like before, he turned and walked away, disappearing into the trees without another word.

I stayed on the log long after he was gone.

And when I finally stood, I realized I was shaking.

Not from cold.

From knowing the forest had secrets.

And I was now part of them.

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.

By the time Monday rolled around, everything felt louder. Harsher. I moved through the halls of Crescent Ridge High like I was walking on cracked glass, just waiting for it all to give way beneath me. But what I really noticed more than anything was the way people moved.

Groups stuck together like magnets. Tight clusters with unspoken rules. The way they walked, turned corners, laughed; it was synchronized. Pack-like.

There were five or six of them, scattered around campus. Not just friend groups. Something more primal. They didn’t all wear the same clothes or sit at the same lunch table, but you could feel it in the way they carried themselves.

The Thornhills had one.

Kade, Ryker, a few others I didn’t know by name. They didn’t talk much, but they didn’t have to. Everyone gave them space, like even the teachers knew better.

In gym, I caught sight of one of the boys from Kade’s group watching me from across the field. When our eyes met, he didn’t look away. He just barely nodded and turned back to his game like he hadn’t just made my skin crawl.

And it wasn’t just them. Other cliques moved in strange formation too. Like rival packs, always aware of where the others were, never overlapping. There were lines here. Lines no one crossed.

Except me.

Unknowingly. Unwillingly.

And somehow, I was being watched for it.

I passed a group of students in the hallway near the science wing. Their voices hushed as I approached. One girl, all sharp eyeliner and judgment, narrowed her eyes at me. Her friend leaned in and whispered something I couldn’t hear, but I caught the tone: warning, not curiosity.

I didn’t belong. And not in the usual new-kid way.

In the something’s-wrong-with-her way.

After lunch, I sat in the library, trying to study but unable to focus. My notebook was filled with half-sentences and doodles I didn’t remember drawing. My hand kept twitching, mind racing. Kade’s face kept surfacing in my thoughts: wild-eyed, bloodied, glowing.

What was he?

I didn’t believe in monsters. Or magic.

But then again, I didn’t used to believe in being hunted through the woods by something not quite human either.

The seat across from me scraped suddenly. I looked up.

Kade.

He looked… tired. Dark circles under his eyes, his hoodie pulled low over his forehead.

We stared at each other in silence.

"You shouldn’t be asking questions," he said finally.

My heart kicked in my chest. "I’m not. Not out loud, anyway."

His mouth twitched, but it didn’t become a smile. "Doesn’t matter. They can tell."

"Who’s they?"

He hesitated. "Just... stay out of the woods. And stay away from my brother."

I bristled. "He’s the one who sat with me."

"I know."

Another pause stretched out between us. The hum of the library, the ticking of the clock, it all faded beneath the weight of whatever truth he wasn’t telling me.

"You’re not ready for it," he said, softer this time. "The truth."

I clenched my fists under the table. "Try me."

He shook his head, stood, and walked away.

That night, I sat on my bed staring at the ceiling, the moonlight casting silver shapes across my walls. I couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d said … or what he hadn’t.

You’re not ready for the truth.

Then, just after midnight, someone knocked on my window.

Not the door. The window.

I froze.

Another knock, softer this time.

I pulled back the curtain, heart hammering.

Kade.

He was leaning against the wall, barely upright. His shirt was torn. His face streaked with blood and dirt. One arm was wrapped around his ribs like he was holding something in.

He looked up, eyes wild.

"I need your help," he said.

Then he swayed and collapsed.

I stumbled back from the window with a sharp gasp. My heart thudded like a war drum in my ears. The rational part of me screamed to call someone my aunt, the cops, anyone. But I didn’t move.

Kade lay just beneath my window, half in shadow, blood soaking into the grass beneath him.

I hovered a second longer, frozen, torn between panic and… something else. Something colder. Deeper. That same heavy, humming instinct that had filled the woods just before the growl.

I climbed over my bed and unlatched the window, struggling to slide it open quietly. The night air hit me fast- cool, crisp, smelling faintly of pine and wet dirt. I scanned the yard for movement.

Nothing.

No glowing eyes. No shadows. Just him.

"Kade," I whispered, trying to keep my voice from shaking.

He groaned, one arm twitching as he tried to push himself upright.

Without thinking, I grabbed my phone and shined the flashlight on him.

Big mistake.

Blood streaked his chest, smeared down his side, soaked into the waistband of his jeans. There were scratches, long, angry, too clean to be from branches,and bite marks. Not deep enough to be fatal, but jagged and fresh. His hoodie was shredded like he’d been through a blender.

And worst of all, his eyes. They fluttered open at the sudden light.

They glowed again.

Dimmer than in the woods, but still unmistakably gold.

I killed the light instantly and swallowed down the rising panic. He blinked slowly, chest rising and falling in shallow, ragged movements.

"Door," he rasped. "Please."

My body moved before my brain caught up.

I slipped out of my room, careful not to wake my aunt, and crept through the hallway. Each step felt like it echoed too loud in the silence. The lock on the front door clicked too harshly, the hinges creaked too much.

When I pulled it open, Kade had managed to make it to the porch, gripping the railing with blood-slicked fingers. He looked like a ghost. A hurt, exhausted, glowing-eyed ghost.

I reached out, instinct guiding my hands to his arm. His skin was burning up, and he winced at my touch but didn’t pull away. Slowly, with both of us breathing hard, I helped him inside.

"Sit," I whispered, guiding him to the couch.

He collapsed into it with a grunt, one hand still clutching his ribs. Blood dripped onto the hardwood floor, and I stared at it for too long, too afraid to wipe it away.

"I’ll get a first aid kit," I murmured, but I hesitated.

His eyes had closed, but his breathing stayed shallow and alert, like even in rest he was ready to run.

Or attack.

No, not attack. I didn’t believe that.

But I wasn’t sure why.

I ran to the bathroom, grabbed the small white box under the sink, and filled a bowl with warm water and a towel. Back in the living room, Kade hadn’t moved, but his jaw clenched as I knelt beside him.

Up close, the cuts looked worse. They’d crusted over in places, but others still bled freely. His side was a mess of bruises and gouges.

"What happened?" I asked softly.

His eyes opened again, but he didn’t answer.

"Kade…?"

He shook his head, just once.

I dipped the towel in water, wrung it out, and gently pressed it against a cut near his collarbone. He hissed through his teeth, muscles jumping under my hand.

"Sorry," I whispered.

"Not your fault."

I worked in silence, cleaning the worst of the blood, covering the deepest scratches with gauze. My hands shook, but I kept going.

Kade’s breathing slowed. The tension bled out of his shoulders little by little.

And still, the questions burned like fire inside me.

Who or what had done this to him?

What had he been fighting?

And why had he come to me?

"You could’ve gone to a hospital," I said quietly. "Or your brother."

"Couldn’t risk it."

That was all he offered.

I sat back on my heels, watching him. He was still pale. Still bleeding. Still very much a walking mystery I had no business trying to solve.

But he was here.

And whatever he wasn’t telling me, he trusted me enough to knock on my window.

"Why me?" I asked finally.

His eyes met mine. Bleary. Glassy. But sharp beneath it all.

"I don’t know yet," he said.

And somehow, that was worse than anything else he could’ve said.