Chapter 4 Don't Call Me Hima

"Don't call me that," Joce said, her voice dropping with quiet displeasure.

She hated it. The name, the reminder of what she was born as. The fact that Terran blood ran through her veins made her skin crawl, had always made her skin crawl.

She turned her sharp gaze on Lucas. Around them, the other Bloddy began murmuring to each other, curious about whatever was passing between her and their leader.

Lucas smiled faintly. He raised one hand and brushed the top of her head, unhurried and gentle.

"Was that too much?" he asked.

The question made her look at him. He already knew it would. He had always known exactly where she was soft.

"Don't do it again," she said, quieter this time.

Lucas didn't answer. His gaze had already shifted, catching movement at the edge of the group.

Dante returned from patrol, stepping back into the formation with easy confidence. A thin smear of blood still clung to the corner of his mouth.

"Finished your lunch?" someone called out.

Dante laughed lightly and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He stepped forward without acknowledging the jab, stopping directly in front of Lucas.

"Sir. No sign of Hima or Terran in the area," he reported.

Joce listened carefully. The news settled something restless in her chest. She had told them it was nothing, and it was nothing. Just as she predicted.

"However," Dante added, letting the word hang.

Joce glanced at him.

"I found a dead deer. Bite marks on the neck. Fang marks."

Fang marks.

"You're sure?" Lucas asked, his tone cooling.

"Yes, sir. The blood was still fresh. I finished what was left." Dante grinned.

Lucas went quiet. Thinking.

It wasn't his people. But whatever made those marks wasn't Terran either, and it wasn't Hima. If it had been a Hima, Joce would have sensed them. She hadn't.

So if not Terran, not Hima.

Then what?

———

Evelyn pressed a hand to her chest, her breath coming fast and uneven, not from exhaustion but from the panic that still hadn't fully released its grip. She hadn't even pushed herself that hard running from the Bloddy.

"That was too close," she murmured, willing her breathing to slow.

When her head cleared, she realized how far she had run. She was nearly at the edge of Aloew Forest, the last stretch of tree line before Terran territory began.

In ten years, she had never once considered crossing into that land. Even with Terran blood in her veins, that world had never felt like hers.

She exhaled slowly.

She was still hungry. She hadn't finished the deer. And going back into the forest wasn't safe, not with the Bloddy still moving through it. If she returned to her shelter now, they would find her trail.

"If I go back now, they'll find me," she whispered.

She leaned against an old tree and looked up. The full moon hung pale behind a thick layer of fog, its light diffused and distant. She reached out with her senses, searching for any Terran presence nearby.

Nothing. The fog must have driven the hunters home tonight.

Then it hit her.

She couldn't stay here either. The road connecting Aloew to Terran territory was the same one the Bloddy were using. Whatever their business was over there, she didn't want to know. She just needed to not be found.

"Where am I supposed to hide?" she muttered, pressing her eyes shut.

She searched her memory, pulling at every corner of it, looking for somewhere safe. Somewhere the Bloddy wouldn't think to look.

The answer came slowly. Then all at once.

A faint smile crossed her face.

"That's right," she whispered. "I can hide there."

———

"This is it," Evelyn breathed, her voice unsteady.

She had stopped walking without realizing it. The ground beneath her feet was wet, mud pulling at her shoes, but she barely noticed. Her eyes were fixed on the ruins ahead, on the broken foundations rising from the earth like fractured bones.

One by one, the memories came.

Her gaze caught a wooden sign half-buried in the mud. Split down the middle, the paint faded to almost nothing. But she knew the words before she could fully read them.

The Quirk.

This was her home. The place she was born, where she had laughed and run between houses that no longer stood. All of it taken in a single night.

She walked to the sign and touched it. Her hand trembled.

Then she saw the other sign. New wood, clean lettering, planted firmly in the ground beside the old one.

Bloddy Territory.

Evelyn went still. The rage she had spent years pressing down rose in one sharp wave. She grabbed the sign with both hands, wrenched it from the ground, and threw it into the mud. Then she stomped on it. Once. Twice. Until it cracked and split and disappeared into the dirt.

"Bloddy territory," she snarled, her voice breaking between fury and grief. "This is The Quirk. This has always been The Quirk."

She stood over the broken sign, chest heaving, hands shaking at her sides.

She made herself breathe. Made herself look up.

Her feet carried her toward the remains of her house before she consciously decided to move. The walls had long since fallen. What was left barely resembled the place she remembered.

And then she saw it.

The wooden chest. Half-buried under rubble, but still whole. Still standing.

Evelyn stopped. Something moved through her that had no name.

She crouched in front of it and pressed her palm to the cold, damp wood.

This was where she had hidden that night. Where her parents had placed her, sealed her away with a protection spell powerful enough to make her invisible to the Bloddy. Her mother's tears had fallen while she cast it. Her father had closed the lid. Then they had walked out to face what was coming.

"Thank you," Evelyn whispered. Her voice nearly broke on the words.

She gripped the sides of the chest and stayed there, head bowed, until she trusted herself to move again.

When she finally straightened and turned, her eyes caught something beneath a collapsed section of wall. A picture frame. She lifted it carefully, brushing the dust away.

Her parents looked back at her through cracked glass. Smiling.

Evelyn stared at the photo for a long time. Then her hand moved to the necklace at her throat, the only thing they had left her.

"Don't worry, Mom," she said softly. "I'm still keeping it safe."

A tear hit the glass. She wiped it away quickly.

Then she held the photo against her chest, and her face hardened into something quiet and certain.

"I will make them pay," she said. Low. Steady. Absolute. "I'll take everything from them. Their people. Their home. Their pride. More than they ever took from me."