Zara woke in the middle of the night with her chest heaving. The scar on her neck burned as if it were alive, pulsing like a second heartbeat. She stumbled out of bed and grabbed her notebook, trying to distract herself with sketches and formulas, but the pen snapped in her grip. Ink bled across the page like a warning.
At school the next morning, she tried to act normal. Tammy waved her over at lunch, but Zara kept her hood up. Josh was watching her too closely.
"You look like hell," Tammy said. "Did you even sleep?"
"Studying," Zara muttered. "Too much caffeine."
Josh didn't buy it. His eyes dropped to the mark on her neck. He said nothing, but his silence felt heavier than words.
During class, the world tilted. Zara's hearing sharpened until every whisper stabbed into her skull. The scrape of a pencil, the hum of a phone in someone's desk, the words: "Freak. Look at her eyes."
She blinked—and in that blink she wasn't at her desk anymore. She was across the room, pressed against the wall. The entire class turned toward her in confusion.
"…Zara? Sit down," the teacher said, uneasy.
Her legs shook as she returned to her seat. She bit her lip hard enough to taste blood, praying no one had truly seen what happened.
That night, she tested herself on the rooftops. She stretched out a hand and threads of silk shimmered, snapping into nothing as they yanked her body across space. She teleported from ledge to ledge, the city below her a blur. But every jump left her weaker, hungrier, her stomach twisting like it wanted something she couldn't name.
"It's feeding off me," she whispered. "Every time I jump, it wants more."
Elsewhere, Reed—a senior with a reputation for running drugs—was in the boys' bathroom after hours. His veins bulged as he injected something stolen, a vial of discarded lab chemicals passed through the underground. His skin rippled, his eyes flashing inhuman. He grinned at his reflection in the cracked mirror.
"Guess I'm not just a dealer anymore."
The next night, Zara heard a scream echoing from the school gymnasium. She slipped inside and saw Reed pinning a girl against the bleachers, his mutated body twitching with violent energy.
"Step away," Zara said, her voice shaking but firm.
Reed turned and sneered. "Science nerd? Wrong place, wrong night." His jaw stretched wider than human, his body bulging with strength that shouldn't exist.
He lunged. Zara teleported above him, crashing a knee into his back. Silk threads snapped around his arms, but Reed tore through them like paper. He swung a bench, shattering it against the wall. She blinked again, dodging, reappearing behind him with a strike to his ribs.
His counter came fast—acid spit that burned a hole in the gym floor. Zara barely rolled clear. Blood dripped from her mouth.
She tightened her web around his throat, pulling hard as he thrashed. The girl in the corner screamed. Zara's pulse thundered in her ears.
He deserves it, she thought. I could end this now.
Her grip tightened. Reed's face turned red, his claws scraping uselessly at the silk. The hunger inside her begged for it—for the kill.
At the last moment, she forced herself to stop. She ripped the threads free, letting him crash unconscious to the floor. Her body trembled, her hands shaking from restraint.
The girl fled without a word. Zara stood over Reed, her veins glowing faintly beneath her skin, her chest rising and falling in ragged bursts.
She whispered to herself, "I can't stop."
From the shadows of the bleachers, Josh had been watching. His fists clenched as he realized the truth—Zara wasn't just hiding something. She was becoming something else.