{ Mia }
As soon as I arrived home I threw my bag on the bed and jumped got straight to work.
" Scarlett, any new messages from ShadowHire87 ?"
"Client pinged you earlier," she said. "Short, terse. Wants updates."
" How the hell does he expect me to find her?" I groaned reopening the first message.
]]]]]]]]]]]
Client Username: ShadowHire87
Request Title: Need assistance locating
someone.
Details:
I'm searching for a person who may be in hiding. Female, early to mid-teens. Last known area: within city limits. This must be done discreetly. No police. No questions. High compensation guaranteed upon results.
If you're good at digging without leaving traces - consider it done.
]]]]]]]]]]]
The packet from ShadowHire87 sat on my screen like a dare. I stared at it until the words blurred—discreet, no police, high compensation—and felt a small, dangerous spark flare under my ribs. If someone wanted a ghost found, then maybe the answer wasn't to chase shadows but to build a lantern.
"Scarlett," I said, voice flat with too much caffeine, "open a new project. I want a finder. A stupidly obsessive finder. Anything I type in—name fragments, photo fragments, a color, a smell—should return the exact person it belongs to. No garbage. No noise."
Scarlett hummed, that soft machine-whistle she gets when she thinks you're mad or brilliant (sometimes both). "Assemble in sandbox. Expect heavy resource demands and ethical screaming."
"Do it," I said.
It took work—more than I liked to admit. Building Finder felt less like coding and more like coaxing a jealous god into a shape. I stitched together layers of logic and pattern, a visual forensics skin, a thread that could follow a scrap of data until it met a face. Scarlett made it pretty; I made it merciless. The crow watched from the desk, white feathers a stark punctuation.
The first tests puked out junk: dead ends, false positives, a smear of coincidences dressed as leads. I rewired parts that felt too eager, throttled the appetite where it wanted to devour privacy for sport. At three in the morning, half the street asleep and my hands raw, Finder finally stopped lying.
I fed it the freelance header—ShadowHire87's breadcrumb. The little eye in the app blinked, whirred, and then, quietly, without fanfare, a card slid into focus: a grainy still, a timestamp, a short dossier—female, early teens. Abnormal signature suspected. My name sat there like a stone.
Finder had done what I'd asked. It brought the lantern to the thing in the dark.
I quickly shut the laptop, looked around the room, closed the blinds and fell to the ground.
" Is swore I would never do this again... 'I whispered clutching my pillow.
' Mia, you don't have to stress just shift... I swear I'll help you...' Ash whispered in my head.
" I don't even know who's after me..." I whispered my throat closing up.
' Mia you have to let the pressure go... You'll...explode... Just teleport then trans—' Ash said in a hurry before her voice vanished.
" Scarlett... I love you ...." I whispered before quickly teleporting to the forest.
The forest hit me like a shockwave. One second I was in my room, heart racing, hands trembling; the next, I was here—green shadows stretching around me, moss soft beneath my claws, wind tearing at my hair.
I couldn't stop myself. The shift had taken over completely, muscles coiling, fur spreading, senses sharpening to unbearable levels. Red bloomed behind my eyes, a flare that drowned out everything except the pulse in my veins.
I ran. Didn't think. Didn't breathe properly. Didn't care where. Only movement mattered. My paws dug into the earth, branches scratched at my face, roots tripped me, but I kept going. Faster, harder, further. The forest became a blur, trees melting into streaks of green and brown, the sky a fading smear above.
And then the world spun.
My legs buckled, lungs burning, and panic clawed its way up my throat. I didn't know where I was. Didn't know how to stop. Didn't know if I could. My claws scraped against stone and dirt, teeth bared in a silent scream, and everything—everything—was too much.
I stumbled over a root, chest slamming forward, vision red and tearing. I was going to collapse, go down hard, and break something. My claws scraped uselessly at the dirt.
A sudden weight landed on my shoulder, light, feathered, impossibly cold.
"Breathe," a voice said—soft, low, grounding.
I blinked, and the world shifted. The white feathers dissolved into gold, the sharp beak into human lips, and his arms wrapped around me just before my knees hit the ground. Lucian. My crow. My constant shadow. My savior.
"You need to calm down," he said quietly, pressing me against his chest. "I've got you. You're okay. Just… breathe."
I sagged completely into him, limbs trembling, body shaking, eyes burning behind lids I couldn't lift. "I… I can't…" My voice broke. "It's too much… I can't control it…"
"You can," he said, calm as still water. "But not like this. Not tonight. Not while you're running blind."
I tried to push away, to see him properly, but my muscles refused. My mind spun with fear, exhaustion, and the remnants of my unbridled power. Red flared again behind my eyes, but his steady presence pressed it back, like gravity holding me in place.
"I… I don't know what's happening," I whispered, voice hoarse.
"You're shifting too fast. Too hard. You need to trust yourself. And trust me," Lucian said. "That's it. Just… breathe. Feel the forest. Feel your pulse. It's not going to kill you."
I let my head fall against his chest, finally letting my body obey gravity. The trembling slowed, the heat of the red behind my eyes dulled slightly. I was faint, but alive.
He didn't speak again, just held me, letting the forest sound fill my ears—the wind, the rustle of leaves, the distant call of birds.
And then, the world faded to black.