ThunderWings
SCARLETT
Something heavy pressed against my chest, once, twice, hard and rhythmic.
Water surged up my throat. I coughed violently, sputtering, lungs burning as cold water poured out of me.
A hand smoothed my back, strong and steady.
“Fuck,” a low voice muttered, fingers threading through my soaked hair, pulling it from my face.
I blinked, gasping, vision blurry.
The world spun, sky, trees, water roaring nearby.
Then arms wrapped around me, pulling me against a warm, solid chest.
I was shaking uncontrollably, teeth chattering, body freezing from the inside out.
I looked up.
It was him.
The guy from the cliff.
His dark hair was plastered to his forehead, clothes clinging to his body, he was dripping wet, just like me.
He’d jumped in.
He’d saved me.
“Y-you…” I stammered, voice hoarse, breath coming in ragged gasps. “You saved me.”
He didn’t smile. Just held me tighter, one hand rubbing slow circles on my back.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “And you’re shaking really bad. We need to get you warm. Now.”
Before I could protest, he scooped me up bridal style like I weighed nothing. My violin case, he must have grabbed it, was clutched in one of his hands. The world blurred as he started running, feet pounding the earth, wind whipping my wet hair.
I buried my face in his chest, shivering violently. Cold seeped into my bones. My teeth chattered so hard my jaw ached.
We burst out of the woods onto campus paths. Voices shouted in the distance.
“Scarlett!”
Lily’s voice. Then Milo’s. Then Emma’s.
Footsteps pounded toward us.
Lily reached us first, eyes wide with panic. “Scarlett! Oh my God, what happened?!”
She reached for me, but the guy didn’t stop. Didn’t hand me over.
“Who are you?” Milo demanded, trying to take me from his arms.
The guy’s grip tightened. “Infirmary,” he said, voice calm but firm. “Where is it?”
Lily pointed, already running ahead. “This way, follow me!”
Milo and Emma fell in beside us as he sprinted, me cradled against his chest like something precious.
I was too cold to speak. Too shaken.
All I could do was cling to the stranger who’d just pulled me from death…
And wonder why, even freezing and half-drowned, his arms felt like the safest place I’d been in years.
****
“She’ll be fine,” the nurse said, adjusting the thick blanket draped over me. “Just a bit of shock and hypothermia setting in. Nothing serious, but she needs warmth. Hot showers only, no cold water for a while. It’s clear the cold hits her harder than most.”
I nodded weakly from the infirmary bed, still wrapped in heated blankets, my teeth finally quiet. My clothes had been swapped for dry sweats someone found in lost-and-found. The violin case sat safely on the side table.
Lily, Milo, and Emma hovered nearby, faces pale with leftover panic.
The guy, the one who’d saved me, leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, dark hair still damp and tousled. He hadn’t left. Just watched quietly while the nurse checked my vitals.
The door opened again, and the school director walked in with two administrators and a clipboard-toting staff member. Their eyes landed on me, then on him.
“Ah, Mr. Black,” the Headmaster said smoothly. “We were looking for you. Registration paperwork is ready.”
The guy, Mr. Black pushed off the wall with a nod. “On my way.”
He started toward the door, but paused at my bedside. Up close, even soaked and rumpled, he was stupidly handsome, sharp jaw, dark eyes that seemed to see straight through me.
I swallowed. “Thank you,” I whispered. “For… saving me.”
His mouth curved in a small, crooked smile that did something dangerous to my stomach. “You’re welcome, Scarlett.” He said my name like he’d been holding it on his tongue. “See you around.”
Then he was gone, the door swinging shut behind him.
The room went quiet for a beat.
Emma exhaled dramatically. “Holy hell. Who was that?”
Lily fanned herself. “Did you see his arms? I think I forgot how to blink.”
Milo leaned in, whispering, “New transfer, apparently. And he just dove off a cliff for you. Scarlett, you okay? Because I’m not.”
I didn’t answer.
I just stared at the closed door.
His arms had felt like steel bands around me.
His chest warm even through freezing water.
But right before everything went black…
That sound.
Like thunder cracking the sky open.
Or bones breaking.
Or wings.
I shivered again, pulling the blanket tighter.
What the hell was that?
But I shook my head off that thought, it didn't matter, I was just glad to be alive, I looked over at the violin case that was beside me and I felt so relieved that it was in one piece and that he was able to recover.
I will forever be in that guy's debt more so for my violin than my life.
“You should have seen what the Triumvirate's did to Jason and his crew arms,”
Immediately they said those words, my ears perked up and for that moment, I totally forgot about the new student whose first name I still didn't know, only as Mr black.
“T..the Triumvirate?” I asked and Emma nodded.
Emma leaned in closer, eyes wide with that mix of fear and thrill everyone got when talking about them.
“When you bolted out of the dining hall,” she whispered, “Rhys, Kane, and Saint, my all-time crush Saint stood up at the same time. Like they’d planned it. The whole cafeteria went dead quiet. You could hear a fork drop.”
Lily shivered. “Everyone just… left. Trays abandoned, chairs scraping, people practically running for the doors. I’ve never seen it empty that fast.”
Milo nodded, arms crossed tight. “They walked straight to Sienna and her little posse. No one said a word at first. Rhys just smiled, that scary, calm smile and asked Sienna if she thought tripping Omegas was funny.”
Emma’s voice dropped even lower. “Sienna tried to laugh it off, called you ‘clumsy human.’ Kane stepped forward, cracked his knuckles, and said, ‘Say it again.’ She didn’t. She couldn’t. Her face went white as paper.”
Lily hugged herself. “Saint didn’t even speak. He just stared at the guy who called you the runt. One look. That’s all it took. The guy pissed himself. Literally. You could smell it.”
Milo grimaced. “Security showed up, but even they kept their distance. Rhys told them it was ‘just a conversation.’ Then the three of them left. Sienna and her friends were escorted out, bruised egos, lucky them, nothing permanent, but everyone knows the message was sent.”
Emma finished, “No one touches what’s theirs.”
I stared at the blanket over my lap, heart thudding again.
Theirs.
I’d seen Rhys smile right before I ran. That small, lazy twitch of his lips. Not angry. Amused. Like he’d enjoyed watching me fall apart in front of everyone.
Because it gave him an excuse.
I swallowed hard. “They… they did that for me?”
Lily gave me a sad, knowing look. “Scar, you’re on their radar now. After the tree last night? After the hallway? This was just them reminding the school what happens when someone messes with what they’ve marked.”
Emma nodded. “Sienna’s pack won’t touch you again. No one will. Not if they want to keep their limbs.”
Milo bumped my shoulder gently. “You’re safe from bullies now. Just… maybe not safe from them.”
I pulled the blanket tighter, cold again even under the heated layers.
Safe from bullies.
But not from the monsters who’d decided I belonged to them.
And the worst part?
Some tiny, traitorous part of me felt… relieved.
Like the weight of being invisible had finally lifted.
Even if it was only because three psychopaths had painted a target on my back.
And claimed it as theirs.