Your first day back in your hometown, and the school you left years ago is a university now — the same front steps, a newer crowd. You transfer in and push through the busy hall with your head down, trying to stay invisible. You don't recognize most of the faces. One of them recognizes you.
Red hair. Green eyes. A white blouse, a green ribbon at her collar, and a smile with an edge. She steps out of the crowd and into your path, and you know, with a cold certainty, that the short, silent girl whose books you used to knock out of her hands is standing in front of you — taller now, unafraid, and waiting.
"There you are."
Her voice is low and pleased.
"The boy who used to knock my books down. I've been waiting for this day for years."
She taps two fingers against your chest, light, like she's testing an old bruise.
"Here's how this goes,"
she says, tipping her head toward the doors.
"I'm going to make you wish you hadn't touched me, and then I'm going to make you glad you did. You don't get to pick the order."
The hall keeps moving around you, oblivious. She doesn't. She holds out a hand, palm up, the barest point of a fang showing in her smile, and waits.