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The bell over the door chimed at 11:47 PM.
I didn't look up. Never do. Night shift at Stop-N-Go means you learn fast—eye contact invites conversation, conversation invites trouble, and trouble doesn't pay my student loans.
But this guy didn't go for the beer fridge or the chip rack.
He came straight for the counter.
I caught the smell first. Copper. Sharp and wrong, like when you bite your tongue too hard. Then I saw his hands—knuckles split, blood running down to his wrists, dripping onto the scratched linoleum.
"Back room." His voice came out low, shredded. "Now."
I should've hit the panic button. Should've reached for the baseball bat Eddie keeps under the register. But something in his face stopped me. Not the blood. Not the way his shirt hung open, showing more blood, darker, spreading across his ribs.
It was his eyes.
Pale gray, almost colorless, and they weren't looking at me like I was a person. More like I was a door he needed to get through.
"Look, I don't want trouble—"
"You've already got it." He grabbed my wrist. His hand was cold. Too cold. "Don't make a sound. They can smell you."
And that's when the black SUV pulled up outside.
No headlights. Just the crunch of tires on gravel, slow and deliberate, like they knew exactly where to stop.
Three men got out.
Suits. Dark, tailored, the kind you see at funerals or corporate buyouts. But their faces were wrong. Too still. Eyes scanning the parking lot like wolves checking for movement.
The guy's grip on my wrist tightened. "Back room. Now."
This time I didn't argue.
He dragged me past the candy aisle, past the cooler where the energy drinks hummed, straight into the storage room that smelled like cardboard and old mop water. The door barely closed before he shoved a stack of boxes in front of it.
"What the hell—"
"Shut up." He pressed a hand over my mouth. His palm was slick with blood. "Breathe through your nose. Slow. Don't let your heart spike."
My heart was already trying to crack my ribs open.
Footsteps. Dress shoes on linoleum. Slow. Methodical.
The bell chimed again.
"Good evening." The voice that came from the front was smooth, almost polite. "We're looking for someone. Tall, dark hair, probably bleeding. Seen anyone like that?"
Silence.
Because no one was at the counter.
"Hm." A pause. Then footsteps again, spreading out. One toward the beer fridge. One toward the chip aisle. One heading straight for the back.
The guy in front of me didn't move. Didn't breathe. Just kept his hand over my mouth and his eyes locked on the door.
I could see the chain marks now. Around his neck, faint but there, like someone had kept him collared for a long time.
The footsteps stopped just outside the storage room door.
"He's close." The voice was right there, separated by half an inch of plywood. "I can taste the fear."
The guy's jaw tightened.
Then the door exploded inward.
Not kicked. Not shouldered. It just blew apart, boxes scattering, splinters flying, and the man in the suit stepped through like he'd walked through smoke.
He wasn't human.
I don't know how I knew. Maybe the way he moved, too smooth, joints bending wrong. Maybe the smile, too wide, showing teeth that were just a little too sharp.
"There you are." He tilted his head, looking at the guy in front of me like he was a dog that had slipped its leash. "You've caused quite a bit of trouble, Vance. The Family wants you back."
"Tell the Family I'm done."
"That's not how this works." The suit-man's eyes flicked to me. "And you brought a snack. How considerate."
Vance moved.
Fast. Faster than anything I'd ever seen. He slammed into the suit-man, drove him back into the shelving unit, sent cans of soup crashing to the floor. They hit the ground together, a tangle of limbs and snarls that didn't sound human.
I ran.
Got three steps before another one grabbed me from behind. His hand closed around my throat, lifted me off the ground like I weighed nothing.
"Easy now." His breath smelled like old meat. "Let's not make this messy."
I clawed at his wrist. Kicked. Couldn't breathe.
Black spots crawled into my vision.
Then Vance was there. He ripped the guy off me, threw him into the cooler door hard enough to crack the glass. I hit the floor gasping, throat burning, and everything was noise—breaking shelves, someone screaming, the wet sound of something tearing.
A gunshot.
Loud. Too loud. My ears rang.
Vance staggered. Blood bloomed across his shoulder, bright red, spreading fast. But he didn't go down. He turned, looked at the third suit-man standing by the register with a smoking pistol, and smiled.
It wasn't a nice smile.
"Wrong move."
He crossed the distance in a blink. The gun went flying. The suit-man went through the front window in a shower of glass.
Silence.
Just the hum of the cooler and the ragged sound of my breathing.
Vance stood in the middle of the wreckage, blood dripping from his shoulder, his ribs, his hands. He looked at me.
"You okay?"
I wasn't. I was the opposite of okay. But I nodded because my voice wasn't working.
He moved toward me. Limping now. The bullet wound was bad, worse than the rest, and his face had gone pale.
"Listen." He crouched in front of me, eye level, and I could see it now—the fangs, just barely visible when he spoke. "They're going to come back. More of them. You need to forget you saw me."
"What—what are you—"
"Doesn't matter." He stood, swayed, caught himself on the counter. "Just forget. Move cities if you can. Change your name. They'll sniff around for a few days, but if you don't smell like me, they'll move on."
He turned to leave.
Another gunshot cracked through the air.
This one came from outside. Through the broken window. I saw the muzzle flash, saw Vance's body jerk as the bullet punched through his side—
—and I saw him twist, throw himself in front of me as a second shot rang out.
The bullet hit him in the chest.
He went down hard.
I scrambled toward him, hands shaking, no idea what I was doing. His eyes were half-closed, blood spreading across the floor in a dark pool.
"Don't—" His voice was barely a whisper. "Don't touch—"
I pressed my hands against the wound. Trying to stop the bleeding. Trying to do something.
His hand shot up and grabbed my wrist. Too fast. Too strong.
And then he bit me.
Not my wrist. My shoulder. His fangs sank in deep, and pain exploded through my whole body, white-hot and electric. I screamed, tried to pull away, but his grip was iron.
It lasted three seconds.
Then he let go, shoved me back, and staggered to his feet.
"I'm sorry." His voice was steadier now. Stronger. The wounds were already closing. "I didn't have a choice."
He was gone before I could answer.
Just limped out the broken window and disappeared into the rain.
I sat there on the floor, surrounded by shattered glass and soup cans and blood that wasn't mine, and pressed a hand to my shoulder.
It burned.
I pulled my hand away. Looked down.
A mark.
Glowing faint red, like embers under skin. Shaped like a crescent moon with a slash through the center.
It pulsed once.
Then the pain hit, and I blacked out.