The morning arrived not with a sunrise, but with a slow thinning of the gray. Oakhaven was draped in a mist so thick it felt like walking through wet wool. Clara woke up in the armchair by the window, her neck stiff and her mind tangled in the remnants of a dream she couldn't quite catch.
She looked out at the clearing where the creature had stood. The grass was flattened in a large, heavy circle, frosted over with a delicate layer of rime. It wasn't the footprint of a bear. It was too deliberate, too lingering.
She needed coffee, and she needed to see a human face that didn't look like it was hiding a century of secrets.
The town center was a cluster of salt-bleached buildings hugging the harbor. Clara walked into The Rusty Anchor, a diner that smelled of fried ham and decades of spilled secrets. Evelyn, the owner, was behind the counter, her hair a stiff wave of silver that looked like it could weather a hurricane.
"You look like the fog got ahold of you, honey," Evelyn said, sliding a thick ceramic mug of black coffee across the laminate.
"I didn't sleep well," Clara admitted, her hands trembling slightly as she gripped the warm mug. "The wind was... loud."
"It's the geography," Evelyn replied, though her eyes lingered a second too long on Clara's face. "The way the cliffs are shaped, it traps the sound. Makes people hear things that aren't there. Or things that are."
Before Clara could ask what that meant, the bell above the door chimed. The cold air rushed in, and with it, Reid Blackwood.
He looked worse than he had the night before. He was wearing a fresh ranger uniform, but his face was gaunt, his skin pulled tight over his cheekbones. He walked with a slight limp, his right hand wrapped in a makeshift bandage of white gauze.
He didn't see Clara at first. He walked straight to the end of the counter, leaning heavily on the stool.
"Black coffee, Ev. Double," he muttered.
"You're late, Reid," Evelyn said, her voice softening into something maternal. "And you're hurt."
"Brush fire near the ridge," Reid said, his voice a dry rasp. "Tripped on some deadfall. I'm fine."
Clara watched him from her booth. She saw the way his fingers twitched against the counter, the way he seemed to be flinching at the clatter of silverware and the hum of the refrigerator. He looked like a man whose nervous system was raw, exposed to the air.
She stood up, her coffee forgotten. She didn't know why she was drawn to him—perhaps it was the restorer in her, the part of her that couldn't leave a jagged edge unfiled.
"That's a lie," Clara said softly, standing a few feet away from him.
Reid spun around. The speed of his movement was jarring, a blur of motion that ended with him standing in a defensive crouch, his eyes wide and wild. When he realized it was her, he forced his shoulders to drop, but the tension didn't leave his jaw.
"Clara," he breathed. The way he said her name sounded like a prayer and a warning.
"You didn't trip on deadfall," she said, nodding toward his hand. "And you weren't at a brush fire. It rained all night, Reid. There hasn't been a fire in this county for months."
Reid looked down at his bandaged hand. The gauze was beginning to show a dark, rusty stain. He looked trapped. He looked at Evelyn, who suddenly found a very important reason to go into the kitchen, leaving them alone in the corner of the diner.
"Why are you still here, Clara?" he asked, his voice low. "Most people from the city, they see this town for a day and they realize the silence is too much for them. They leave before the first week is out."
"I'm not most people. I fix things, Reid. I look at what's broken and I try to find the missing pieces." She took a step closer. The heat was back. Even in the drafty, air-conditioned diner, he was radiating a warmth that felt like a furnace. "You're hurting. Let me look at your hand. My father was a doctor before he... before he moved here. He taught me how to stitch."
"I don't need stitches," he snapped, his voice hitting a low, vibrato note that made the spoons in the sugar jar rattle.
He regretted the tone instantly. He closed his eyes, taking a long, shuddering breath through his nose. "I'm sorry. I haven't... I didn't sleep either."
"Come back to the house," Clara said. It was a bold request, one she hadn't planned on making. "I have a proper first-aid kit. And it's quiet. You look like the noise in here is killing you."
Reid looked at the door, then back at her. For a moment, the wall he had built around himself the one that screamed stay away cracked. Underneath it was a man who was desperately, dangerously lonely.
"I shouldn't," he whispered.
"But you will," she replied.
The drive back to the cabin was silent. Reid sat in the passenger seat of Clara's old Volvo, his knees nearly touching the dashboard. He seemed to be vibrating, his eyes fixed on the treeline as they passed.
Inside the cabin, the fire she had started earlier was now just glowing embers. Clara led him to the kitchen table and pulled out a metal box of medical supplies.
"Sit," she commanded.
Reid sat. He looked out of place in the small, domestic space. He looked like a wolf in a parlor.
Clara took his hand and began to gently unwrap the gauze. As the layers fell away, she let out a sharp, indrawn breath.
Across his palm and over the back of his hand were three deep, jagged furrows. They weren't from a fall. They were claw marks long, rhythmic tears that looked like they had been made by something with incredible strength. But the strangest part wasn't the wound itself.
It was the fact that the edges of the skin were already knitting together. The blood was drying, and new, pink tissue was forming right before her eyes.
"Reid..." she whispered, her heart skipping a beat. "What are you?"
He tried to pull his hand away, but she gripped his wrist. Her skin was cool, and to him, it must have felt like ice on a burn. He groaned, a sound of pure agony and relief, and leaned his forehead against her shoulder.
"I'm a mistake," he choked out. "I'm a ghost story that didn't have the decency to stay in the dark."
Clara didn't pull away. She did the only thing that felt human. She wrapped her arms around his broad, shaking shoulders and held him. She felt the muscles in his back, hard as iron, and the frantic, double-time thud of a heart that beat much faster than a man's should.
"You're not a ghost," she murmured into his hair, which smelled of rain and pine needles. "Ghosts don't bleed. Ghosts aren't this warm."
Reid pulled back just enough to look at her. His eyes were no longer the earth-brown of the morning. They were shifting, gold bleeding into the iris like ink in water.
"You saw me last night," he said. It wasn't a question. "In the clearing. You saw the shape."
"I saw something beautiful," she lied, though it felt like the truth in her heart. "And I saw something that looked like it was protecting me."
Reid's hand, the one that was healing with impossible speed, reached up and hovered near her face. He was afraid to touch her, afraid that the violence inside him would leak out through his fingertips.
"I wasn't protecting you, Clara," he whispered, his face inches from hers. "I was trying to convince myself not to break down your door."
The honesty of it should have terrified her. But as Clara looked into the eyes of the man the world called a monster, she didn't feel fear. She felt a pull, a gravity that defied logic.
"Why didn't you?" she asked.
Reid's thumb finally brushed her cheek. It was a feather-light touch, but it left a trail of heat that made her vision swim.
"Because," he said, his voice breaking. "I remember what it feels like to be human. And humans don't ruin the things they love."
Before she could respond, a low, guttural howl echoed from the woods—not from Reid, but from the ridge. It was a call, a summons.
Reid stiffened, his eyes snapping toward the window. The vulnerability vanished, replaced by a cold, hard mask of survival.
"He's coming," Reid said, standing up so quickly the chair toppled.
"Who?"
"My brother," Reid said, grabbing his jacket. "And he doesn't remember what it's like to be human at all."