Jade
The air was sharp and biting as I cut through the deserted side street, my bag slung tight over my shoulder, my boots crunching over the brittle remnants of winter. I shouldn’t have stayed so late at the library. I told myself a hundred times that it was safe enough, that the danger had passed with the seasons and the wounds I was still trying to heal. But some part of me, some quiet, gnawing instinct, had known better.
The first hint of footsteps behind me made the hair on the back of my neck rise. I quickened my pace, my heart hammering louder with every step, but the sound behind me only grew closer, more urgent. Fear clawed up my spine, raw and real, as I ducked into a narrow alley, hoping to cut across and lose whoever was following me.
It was a mistake.
Before I could cry out, a hand grabbed my arm, yanking me backward so hard that my bag went flying from my shoulder. I stumbled, fighting against the iron grip, my fists pounding uselessly against the stranger’s chest. His face was twisted into a snarl, his breath hot and foul against my skin as he shoved me hard against the brick wall. Panic crashed over me, wild and suffocating. I screamed, but the sound barely left my throat before he clamped a hand over my mouth.
And then — the air changed.
A growl, low and inhuman, rumbled through the night, making the ground seem to vibrate beneath my feet. In the blink of an eye, my attacker was ripped away from me, flung backward with such force that I heard the sickening crack of bone against brick. I gasped for air, stumbling forward, and that’s when I saw him.
Zade.
His body was a blur of movement, faster and more brutal than anything I had ever seen. He slammed the man against the wall again, his hands fisted in the attacker’s jacket, his teeth bared in a snarl so fierce it barely looked human. His eyes — once so warm, so full of something tender — were black with rage now, wild and feral.
“Zade, stop!” I shouted, my voice breaking under the weight of my fear, but he didn’t hear me. Or maybe he didn’t care.
Zade drew back his fist and punched the man again, and again, the sickening sound of flesh meeting flesh echoing down the narrow alley. The man slumped, blood spilling from his mouth, but Zade didn’t let go. His entire body shook with the force of his fury, his chest heaving with ragged breaths. He looked like he might tear the man apart with his bare hands.
I stumbled toward him, my hands trembling as I grabbed his arm, trying to pull him back. “Zade, please!” I cried, desperate to reach him, desperate to stop whatever darkness had taken over him before it was too late.
For a moment, he didn’t move. His muscles were coiled so tightly it felt like touching a live wire, dangerous and electric. Then, slowly, he turned his head to look at me. The change was immediate — a crack in the monster he had become — but the damage was done. I could still see the violence simmering just beneath the surface, could still feel the raw, terrifying power radiating off him in waves.
I stumbled back, shaking my head. “I don’t need you,” I said, the words tasting like blood and regret. “I don’t want your help.”
Pain flashed across his face, sharp and fleeting, before he masked it with that same cold, unreadable expression he had worn the last time he let me walk away. He released the attacker, letting the man collapse into a broken heap on the ground, and wiped the blood from his knuckles without looking at me.
“You would have been dead if I hadn’t come,” he said, his voice low and rough, but it wasn’t pride I heard there — it was something colder. Possessiveness. Fury.
“You think that makes this okay?” I snapped, my hands clenching into fists. “You think saving me excuses everything else? That it erases what you did, what you said?”
His mouth tightened, but he said nothing.
The worst part was, some tiny, broken piece of me still wanted to run into his arms, still wanted to feel safe there even after everything. But that part was shrinking under the weight of the truth I could no longer ignore.
This — him, us — it would never be safe. It would never be simple. Loving Zade wasn’t soft and easy. It was a war. A bloodied, endless war that left me battered and terrified of the man who was supposed to be my protector.
I turned away before he could see the tears gathering in my eyes, before he could see just how deeply he still had the power to break me. I scooped up my bag with shaking hands and forced my legs to move, forcing myself to walk away from the boy who had once been everything.
Behind me, I heard Zade’s breathing slow, heard the faint shuffle of him moving away from the broken man on the ground. He didn’t call after me. He didn’t chase me.
He just let me go.