Skylar's POV continues
The school day wasn't entirely over yet. Coming here, I didn't hear the final bell ringing, neither was the parking lot occupied. It was quiet. So quiet, I could feed from a human being and no one would see.
No humans were in plain sight, no lingering students, no hurried teachers. Just the long, stark shadows of the buildings and the bare, bony branches of the winter trees.
But I could smell them. About five different human scents, lingering on the cold air, each with a distinct signature. Two scents out of the five were mixed with a powerful, almost overwhelming flavor—a rich, primal blend that spoke of raw emotion, of physical contact.
The other three, fainter and somewhat near but less defined, I couldn't separate hers...she could not be one of the scent who had the scents of each other on themselves. I couldn't follow the scents to know who my mind Intruder was as I couldn't decipher which one was hers.
I looked around the school, although I could hear muffled voices. I wanted to her the only voice that had brought me here. I listened closer to the voice i had heard in my mind.
Maybe she wasn't thinking anymore, maybe her talking voice is different from the voice in her mind; maybe she'd probably be talking to her friends or worse—Making out with petty humans.
The voices echoed faintly down unseen hallways, a distant murmur of life. A snippet of what sounded like a lecture. Then, a sudden, bright laugh. A door closing with a sharp, impatient thud. Sounds of life happening just out of reach, a vibrant, oblivious world continuing without me.
From the very moment I came out of the woods, I had been wanting to here her voice,
I had switched my 'mute switch' off as Micha would say. I wanted nothing more than to hear, that unique, brilliant mind-song, . My senses strained, reaching out, trying to find that compelling mental presence that had pulled me from the hunt.
I am regretting not meeting her when I had first heard her.
If she could breach my mind, I doubt she was an ordinary human being and my only way of finding her was slim to absolute zero.
Her playful but vengeful mind, gone.
Completely.
One second, it had filled my skull like a jolt of pure electricity, a vibrant, undeniable presence. The next, nothing. No lingering trail, no faint whisper, no echo. Like it had never been there at all, a ghost of a sound in the vast silence.
If my instincts weren't wrong, if the fragmented remaining lingering of her voice from my own disturbed mind were to be trusted, she must have witnessed the intense, private pleasure shared between those two humans.
My starting point had to be the incident. I had to begin there, to meticulously sift through the lingering traces, to decipher her scent from the other two.
I moved closer, drawn by an invisible thread, toward the direction where the intense, private moments had taken place. It turned out to be in a beat-up blue Subaru, which was a bit unremarkable in every way.
As I approached, the scent grew stronger. Steam still lingered, a ghostly sigh, on the windshield. The windows were still fogged, hazy with the residue of passion. And there, clinging to the cold metal, I caught three distinct scents.
One was unmistakably hers, maybe. And the other two? They smelled of raw desperation and cold deceitfulness. A bitter, complex mixture.
But her scent? It was still there.
Faint at first, carried on the crisp breeze, elusive as a memory. But then, as I drew nearer to the Subaru, it solidified. I knew what I was smelling. I'd heard her thoughts, seen the flashes in my mind. She'd watched them. She'd recorded them. And now, I could smell her amusement, the sharp, triumphant satisfaction still clinging to the air around the car, faint like the very last note of a song that had already ended.
I kept walking, my gaze sweeping the asphalt, my senses reaching out.
Near the other end of the lot, a new scent drifted to me, something sharper.
Stronger.
Also her scent.
Somewhat different—closer, more recent. It was as if she had lingered here, her presence more potent, more tangible.
I followed the trail, tracing it around a sleek black Lexus with polished rims and waxed paint, reflecting the dull sky. It was the kind of car someone parked with an almost arrogant pride, a statement of ownership. And there, etched across the driver's side door, was a tiny scratch. It looked fresh. But not that deep enough to make a definite mark, maybe someone had done it on purpose.
I barely registered it, the scratch a minor detail in my focused hunt.
Because just beneath the driver's mirror, nestled in the patchy, snow-dusted grass, something glinted.
I crouched low, my eyes fixed on the small, reflective object.
A keychain.
Silver. It looked heavy, substantial. Its edges were clean-cut, precise. This was not a cheap trinket. Not common.
I turned it slowly in my fingers, feeling its weight, its cool surface. And that's when I smelled it—
Blood.
So this was why her scent was stonger.
A single, dark drop, stark and vivid against the intricate silver. It was still wet, glistening faintly.
I pressed my bare thumb to it, a strange compulsion guiding my hand. The smear came away easily, a warm, slick sensation against my skin.
I hesitated for a moment, I held my breath aa the cold air stung my lungs.
Then, without thinking, my thumb moved, almost on its own, to my mouth.
The taste hit immediately.
It wasn't copper, the familiar taste of mundane blood. It wasn't the dull ache of hunger.
It was heat. A sudden, fierce warmth that spread through me.
It was emotion. A chaotic, beautiful symphony of anger and triumph.
And then—her.
Not just her voice, that clear, captivating mental presence.
Her mind.
Flashes. Fast. Vivid. Raw.
I saw the car, the beat-up blue Subaru. The swirling, milky fog on its windows. Her lips, curled in a triumphant smile, barely visible as she lifted her phone, aiming it. The guttural sound of moaning, muffled but clear, vibrating behind the glass. And the feeling in her chest—a surge of satisfaction, bright and sharp and utterly delicious.
She hadn't dropped this because she wanted to. This was just an accidental loss.
She'd bled on it, distracted by the atrocious act in the blue Subaru, she forgot about it.
Left a trace. A deliberate breadcrumb.
And I'd found it.
A soft footstep behind me. Micha. He had followed.
"You good?" he asked, his voice slower now, cautious. His gaze was fixed on me, searching, trying to decipher my stillness.
I didn't answer. My focus was still on the keychain, on the blood, on the connection it offered.
He stepped closer, his eyes falling on the silver object clutched in my hand. He saw the faint crimson smear.
"What is that?" he asked, his voice low, filled with a dawning recognition.
"She was here," I said quietly, the words feeling heavy, significant.
"You think that's hers?" His voice was wary, his eyes flickering between me and the blood-stained silver.
"I know it is." A certainty pulsed through me, unwavering.
He eyed me carefully, his concern deepening. "You're acting weird." His usual impatience was gone, replaced by a quiet, watchful intensity. He felt it too, the change in the air, the shift in my focus.
I stood, slowly, my gaze moving from the keychain to the black Lexus.
Then, with a deliberate, almost ritualistic motion, I pulled the silver ring off my finger, the one I used to keep the silence. I walked up to the Lexus's door, the scratched one.
And I scratched a clean line beneath the tiny one already there.
It wasn't a jagged, angry mess. It was a single, slow, deliberate stroke. Smooth. Precise.
Satisfying.
The sound it made was sharp, piercing the quiet afternoon. Like a knife dragged across bone, a high-pitched scrape of metal on metal.
Micha flinched, a visible shudder running through him. "Dude." His voice was a strained whisper of disbelief.
I slid the silver ring back onto my finger, feeling its familiar weight. Then I turned away from the marked car, away from the scene I had just added to.
"What was that for?" he asked, his voice still edged with shock.
"Well I think she forgot to do what she came here for," I said, my voice calm, almost detached. "I just helped her."
"You think that's normal?" His question was filled with a mixture of fear and confusion.
"No," I said, looking at him directly, my gaze steady. "But it feels right."
I tucked the bloodied keychain into the pocket of my leathered jacket, feeling its strange, comforting weight.
Something in me had shifted. Permanently.
Not pulled. No, it wasn't a temporary tug or a fleeting attraction.
It was tied. A new, unbreakable bond.
And whoever she, I wasn't done with her. Not by a long shot.
I am going find her.
Micha trailed behind me, boots crunching quietly against gravel as we left the lot.
"Don't tell me you're keeping that thing," he said.
I didn't answer.
"You are, aren't you."
His tone was half disbelief, half resignation. He wasn't shocked, not really. He just didn't want to admit what it meant.
"I can smell a human blood on that item and I know you tasted the blood," he added after a beat. "And now you're acting like it's yours... like she's yours"
"She's not."
"Then drop it."
I said nothing.
We hit the tree line, reentering the frozen cover of the woods. The branches clawed at the sky like something caged.
Micha shoved his hands deeper into his pant pockets. "I should've stopped you."
"You couldn't have."
"That's the problem."
He said it without heat. Just tired.
I moved ahead. Let the silence settle again, not the kind I create with my gift—but the real kind. The kind that happens after something has shifted too far to reverse.
My hand brushed the outside of my jacket. Felt the shape of the keychain through the leather.
One drop of blood. Some flickering memories. And now I couldn't stop thinking about her.
Not her face. I didn't know what she looked like.
Not her name. She hadn't thought it, not once, which I'd find strange if I could think about anything else right now.
Just... her. The feel of her mind. The sharpness of it. The way her thoughts had bit down on the world like she owned it.
I didn't just want her. I wanted the presence back; that electric feeling of her inside me, laughing. Burning.
I didn't feel thirsty. I didn't feel human, either. I felt... alert. My eyes open in a new way. Tethered.
Micha was right. It wasn't normal. But it wasn't over, either.
I didn't say anything as we made our way deeper into the trees. I didn't need to.
I already knew.
I was going to find her again.
Whatever this was—whatever she was—
I'd already marked her.
Even if she didn't know it yet.