Chapter 3 Simon
SIMON
He didn’t move for a long time after punching the wall.
The sound had rung through the house, shaking plaster from the ceiling and scattering dust like gray snow. I should’ve taken that chance to bolt.
To slip through the half-broken window, vanish into the woods, and put as much distance between me and him as possible. But I didn’t move either. Maybe it was shock or maybe it was stupidity.
Or maybe it was the fact that the man standing a few feet away from me, knuckles bleeding, eyes dark with something halfway between fury and grief, didn’t feel like the kind of monster my sire had warned me about.
Except he was worse.
He was a hunter, and I knew what that meant.
I could smell it on him beneath the whiskey and sweat. The faint metallic tang of silver, the sharp bite of gun oil and iron. His knife glinted in the faint light like a promise.
Even though he looked drunk, even though his shoulders sagged and his stance wasn’t steady, he was still dangerous. Hunters were always dangerous. My sire had made that clear.
I’d only known him a few days before he left. I hadn’t even caught his name. One night he’d dragged me out of an alley behind the clinic where I worked, his eyes feral and his hands cold.
The next thing I knew, my neck was burning, the world tilting. Then darkness. Then hunger.
When I woke up, everything hurt. My heart beat too fast, my throat burned, and the world was too much. I could hear rats under the floorboards, feel the hum of the city like electricity beneath my skin.
He’d been standing over me, smoking, his expression unreadable.
“Don’t talk,” he’d said before I could even ask what happened. “Listen.”
I’d listened.
“Hunters will come for you if they find out what you are. They’re trained to kill our kind before you even open your mouth. If you see one, you run. You don’t argue. You don’t fight unless you have to. You don’t beg. Understand?”
I’d nodded, my throat raw, tears stinging my eyes.
“Good,” he’d said. “Good luck. Try to survive a little longer. You’re one of my more successful experiments.”
Then, just like that, he’d left. No goodbye, no instructions, and no help. I hadn’t seen him since.
I’d tried to hold onto his words like a map through the dark, but right now that map was useless, because there was no running. The hunter stood between me and the door.
Even if I did make it past him, he’d find me again. I had a feeling he was relentless.
He hadn’t spoken since he’d punched the wall. Just stood there, chest heaving, blood dripping slowly from his knuckles. His knife gleamed faintly in his other hand.
He looked… tired.
Not just physically, though that too. There were dark circles under his eyes, shoulders tense in a way that looked like pain. However, there was something else in his face when he finally looked at me again.
Something that made my stomach twist. Not hatred. Not exactly. Something softer. Sadder.
It was gone almost as soon as I noticed it, shuttered behind the familiar hardness hunters wore like armor. Maybe I’d imagined it. Probably. My sire had told me hunters were cold, efficient, merciless.
This one looked like a man who’d lost something. Then again, it didn’t matter. He’d attacked me first.
My arm still throbbed from where the knife had grazed it, the burn sharp and angry. I could feel the wound trying to knit itself closed, too slow because I hadn’t fed properly in days.
The world tilted faintly, the edges blurring. If I didn’t do something soon, I’d be too weak to even stand. It was be killed or… well, not kill, but hurt him. Just enough to get away.
My gaze darted around the room, desperate. The place was full of garbage. Old furniture, broken bottles, and dust thick enough to choke on.
I finally spotted a chair by the wall, one of its legs half-broken but still solid enough to use. I moved slowly, not wanting to draw his attention.
But hunters weren’t stupid, even drunk ones. His head snapped toward me the moment I shifted.
“Don’t,” he said.
The single word froze me mid-step.
His voice was low, rough, with the kind of weight that came from too much regret. It wasn’t a threat, but a warning. Like he didn’t actually want to do what came next.
But I didn’t have a choice.
I lunged for the chair, grabbed one of the legs, and swung. The motion was clumsy. I wasn’t strong enough yet and not fast enough either, but the leg caught him across the shoulder.
He grunted, staggering back a step, then moved faster than I could follow. The next thing I knew, he’d slammed me against the wall.
The impact knocked the air out of me. The chair leg clattered to the floor. I struggled, instinct taking over. My hands went for his wrist, for the knife still poised near my chest.
He was stronger, his grip iron around my arm. My fingers scraped against his coat, found the edge of his collar, felt the heat of his skin beneath.
He smelled like smoke, whiskey, and metal. Like storms. I shoved at him, but he didn’t move.
“Stop,” he growled, voice close enough that I felt it in my bones.
I froze again, half from fear, half from something else I didn’t want to name. He was close, too close. His breath brushed my cheek, hot against my skin. His eyes, dark and sharp, locked on mine.
Up close, he didn’t look like a killer. He looked like a man unraveling, and that scared me more.
Because men like him, broken and hurting, were the kind who didn’t stop once they started.
“Why aren’t you fighting back?” he demanded, knife trembling slightly in his grip.
I didn’t answer. Couldn’t.
He pressed me harder against the wall, his forearm across my chest. The old plaster crumbled beneath us, showering dust down our shoulders.
My fangs ached from restraint, from panic. From the scent of him, alive, human, and far too close. For one impossible moment, the world narrowed to his face.
There was a flicker there. Hesitation. Recognition. Like he saw something in me he didn’t want to admit to. The knife didn’t move.
I should’ve taken advantage of that, shoved him away, run. But I was frozen, caught between fear and fascination. Between instinct and something almost magnetic.
His gaze flicked to my mouth, then back to my eyes. The muscle in his jaw jumped.
Then he inhaled sharply, and everything shifted. He stepped back. Just an inch. Enough for me to breathe again. The tension snapped all at once.
I shoved him, hard, trying to break free, but he caught my wrist and twisted. Pain shot up my arm. The knife clattered to the floor. We both went down.
He rolled first, fast and practiced, pinning me before I could scramble up. His knee pressed into my stomach, his weight keeping me down.
I clawed at his coat, but my strength was fading fast. I hadn’t fed properly in days; my limbs felt like lead.
He grabbed my jaw, forcing me to look at him. His knuckles brushed the corner of my mouth, smearing the dried blood there. His expression changed when he saw it.
His brows drew together, confusion breaking through the anger.
He touched his fingers to the red smear, brought them close to his nose.
“Animal,” he murmured, more to himself than to me.
The word seemed to unspool something inside him. His knife hovered inches from my throat, but his grip trembled.
“Why?” he asked quietly. “Why would you do that?”
I swallowed hard. My throat felt dry as dust. “Because I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
The truth came out before I could stop it.
For a heartbeat, neither of us moved.
Then his knife lowered, just slightly. The hardness in his expression cracked. It was only a fraction, but enough. His eyes searched mine, like he didn’t know what to do with what he saw there.
I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. The space between us felt too small, his breath too warm, his presence too human.
It was the first time anyone had looked at me like I wasn’t a monster since I’d woken up dead. Then, just as quickly, it was gone.
He shoved off me, standing, breathing hard. His expression shuttered back to cold control.
“Stay down,” he said hoarsely, voice rough like he was talking to himself as much as me.
I didn’t move. Couldn’t. My arm throbbed, my ribs ached, and my head spun.
He wiped his bloody hand on his coat, picked up his knife, and backed toward the door.
The house had gone quiet after the hunter left.
I sat in the wreckage of the front room, the air still tasting like dust and anger. My arm ached where he’d slammed me into the wall.
A normal man would have broken something, but I only felt the dull throb that came with a body that refused to heal properly.
I should’ve run. Hunters didn’t change their minds. They regrouped and came back sharper. Yet something in the way he’d punched the wall, instead of me, kept me rooted.
His face had been a blur of fury and something else. Then the quiet shifted. A scrape against wood. Too heavy to be the wind.
I froze. The sound came again, closer this time. A dragging step, nails scraping plaster. My stomach turned cold. I knew that sound.
When my sire changed me, he’d called me and others he had changed his experiments. He told me some didn’t take the blood right. They turned wrong. Feral, half-rotted, their minds eaten by hunger.
One of them had followed us after he changed me. They moved in a distinct matter. Slow, then fast, like a stutter in the dark. A shape filled the doorway.
Pale, blistered skin, cloudy eyes, mouth slick with dried red. The smell hit first. Stale blood and rot.
“Oh no,” I whispered.
It lifted its head, sniffed. Its lips peeled back in a hiss. I could almost hear my sire’s voice. If you ever see one of them, run. They’ll kill you.
My back hit the far wall before I realized I’d moved. The thing crouched, ready to spring, and a shadow crossed the threshold behind it. The hunter.
He looked worse than before. Hair disheveled, blood streaked down one arm, but his knife gleamed steady in his hand. His eyes locked on the creature, then flicked to me.
I expected him to finish what he’d started. Instead, he lunged past me.
The feral met him halfway. The impact cracked through the room, sending plaster raining from the ceiling. The hunter moved with brutal precision.
He slashed across the creature’s chest, ducking when it swung. The feral’s claws tore his jacket open anyway, blood blooming down his ribs.
I grabbed the broken leg of a chair. It felt pathetic compared to his blade, but it was something. When the vampire shoved him backward, I swung.
Wood splintered against undead flesh. The creature roared, backhanding me across the floor. Pain flared in my jaw. The hunter was on it again before I hit the ground.
He stabbed upward, silver knife flashing. The feral vampire shrieked, the sound ripping through me like glass. For a heartbeat I thought it was over. Then the creature twisted, dragged the hunter down with it.
They hit the floor hard, rolling. The knife skittered away.
I forced myself up, blood pounding in my ears. The chair leg was still in my hand. The feral had the hunter pinned, its fangs inches from his throat.
I drove the jagged wood through its ribs. Once. Twice. It howled, convulsed. The hunter shot his hand up, catching his knife, and together we pushed until the point pierced its heart.
The body jerked, then went limp.
The hunter rolled onto his side, gasping. The wound at his shoulder leaked down his arm in dark streaks. The smell hit me full force. He smelled warm, metallic, alive.
My throat burned. Every instinct screamed at me to feed. I should’ve stepped back, ran out the door. Instead, I stayed and I wasn’t sure why.