Darkwood turned, chalk trailing from his fingers like smoke.

  “The French Revolution,” he said, voice curling like incense, “was not a lesson. It was a feast.”

  His eyes glinted under flickering lights. For a second—just a second—his pupils elongated.

  “The aristocracy? Course one. The guillotine? A sommelier.”

  He glided down the rows of desks. His coat whispered against the floor.

  “Imagine the mob’s thirst. The heat of their rage.” His fingers brushed a student’s shoulder—she flinched, then stared ahead, glassy-eyed. “They called it La Terreur for a reason. Fear has a flavor, children. Metallic. Rich. Like a Bordeaux left to breathe.”

  He smirked.

  “Take Marie Antoinette. ‘Let them eat cake’—a queen’s jest, twisted into a war cry. But who here hasn’t… indulged when starving?”

  His gaze slid to Tyler, now hunched and silent.

  “Hunger makes monsters of us all.”

  I shivered. The cold gnawed through my hoodie.

  Thunder rolled outside. Shadows crept up the walls.

  “The revolutionaries believed they were gods,” he said, stepping between desks. “But even gods can bleed.” He paused, watching as sweat trickled down Tyler’s temple. “And what flows once… flows twice.”

  The bell screamed.

  The class jolted like cut marionettes.

  Darkwood’s voice sliced through the chaos.

  “Miss Mendez, was it?”

  Chila didn’t flinch. “Depends who’s asking.”

  A flicker of amusement. “Let’s test that insight. The Revolution’s leaders claimed they were cleansing society. But what happens…” He stepped toward her desk, shadows curling at his feet, “…when the surgeons become the infection?”

  The room held its breath.

  Chila's pen paused mid-doodle. Her smirk faded.

  She leaned forward, eyes fixed on him like he’d strung the moon in the rafters.

  Since when does Chila Mendez sit up straight?

  Darkwood circled her desk.

  “Imagine the sound, Miss Mendez. The blade’s shriek. The gasp of the crowd. The… wet sigh of a head hitting the basket.”

  She swallowed. “Poetic,” she said, voice trembling just slightly.

  “Poetry is lies,” he whispered, leaning in. “But blood? Blood is a testimony.”

  A beat.

  She didn’t blink.

  “Feels like a trap,” she said.

  “All good things are.” He turned, but not before I caught her eyes trailing after him—hungry, cautious.

  Chila propped her boots on the desk crossbar.

  “Same thing always happens when someone plays hero,” she muttered. “They start believing their own posters. Then they toss people into the fire to keep warm.”

  Darkwood’s eyes sparkled. “A pragmatic view. But fire purifies, does it not? Ash makes fertile soil.”

  She held his gaze. “Tell that to the ones burning.”

  “Oh, I have,” he said. His laugh was soft. Final. “They rarely answer.”

  He stepped closer, voice colder now. “But you… you listen, don’t you?”

  The temperature dropped. Frost feathered the windows.

  Teachers don’t talk like this, I thought. They don’t turn classrooms into séances.

  Darkwood leaned in, breath misting in the cold.

  “Tell me, Miss Mendez. If you could rewrite history’s ledger… would you erase the Terror? Or let it balance the books?”

  Her knuckles whitened around her pen.

  “Depends,” she said. “Who’s holding the pen?”

  Darkwood straightened. Clapped once.

  The sound cracked like a gunshot.

  “Astute.”

  His approval hit heavier than it should have.

  He turned away—and I saw it. His shadow stretched too far across the room, too long, fingers curling toward Chila’s desk before snapping back.

  The bell screamed again.

  He smiled.

  “Until next time,” he said, eyes still on her. “Do read Camus. He understood… hunger.”

  The bell’s scream faded, leaving the classroom hollow—like a gutted church. Students stampeded into the hallway, their laughter muffled by slamming doors.

  Chila lingered. She shot me a you-good? look.

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  I nodded.

  She left—but not before flipping Darkwood the world’s subtlest middle finger behind her back.

  He stood at the window, back turned, watching the rain claw down the glass like it was trying to escape the sky.

  “Mr. Ahmed,” he said, his voice a scalpel dipped in honey. “You’re the son of Vance Ahmed, aren’t you?”

  The name hit like a sucker punch.

  Vance Ahmed. My dad. The human tumbleweed. Always rolling toward some invisible horizon.

  I froze. “You knew my father?”

  He turned slowly, like a predator confident it had all the time in the world. Light knifed through the clouds, slicing across his face—pale, impossibly smooth. For a split second, his eyes shimmered. Not a reflection—a flicker. Like light trying to escape something beneath the surface.

  “Know him?” Darkwood smiled. It wasn’t a warm smile. It wasn’t even human. “Your father is... legendary in certain circles.”

  He lingered on the word. Circles. Plural. Heavy. Whispered like a name not meant for daylight.

  I thought of Dad’s “work trips.” The late-night calls. The locked briefcase he clutched like a heartbeat. I remembered the photo I found once, buried in a sock drawer—him grinning beside a man with a slit throat.

  “Funny,” I said, stuffing my hands in my hoodie pockets so he wouldn’t see them shaking. “He never mentioned you.”

  Darkwood stepped forward. Silent. His cologne hit—bergamot, with something underneath it. Old. Coppery. Like wet metal left in the dark.

  “How like him,” he murmured. “Vance always did love his secrets.”

  The air thickened. The shadows stretched.

  I could hear a clock ticking somewhere. I’d never noticed one before.

  Tick. Tick. Tick.

  He leaned in, voice dropping to a hush.

  “Tell me, Leo—does the name Valko mean anything to you?”

  The blood in my veins froze. Valko. The word was scribbled on a post-it in Dad’s office. Beneath it: Serbia. Midnight. No Feds.

  I tried to keep my face blank. “No,” I lied.

  Darkwood chuckled. Not a real laugh—more like a slow exhale through a cracked grin. Like something breathing through its teeth.

  “Pity,” he said. “I had hoped he’d left you… equipped.”

  Behind him, the window reflected the room in full: desks, chalkboard, rain-soaked glass.

  But not him.

  Just me—alone in the reflection. Pale. Wide-eyed. Floating in nothing.

  Coyote moment. That split-second before the fall, when the ground still pretends to hold you.

  Then it’s gone.

  “Class dismissed,” he said, though the room had been empty for minutes.

  I stumbled into the hallway, heart hammering. The fluorescents buzzed like wasps in a jar. Chila was gone.

  Tick. Tick. Tick.

  I turned back.

  Darkwood stood in the doorway, perfectly still, his shadow stretched across the linoleum like a dark tide creeping toward me.

  “Sleep well, Leo,” he said softly. “We’ll speak more about… legacy.”

  The door clicked shut behind him.

  LATER – LIBRARY INTEL DROP

  Chila twisted the timepiece under the lamp’s glow. Its face bore a wolf devouring its tail—Valko’s logo—above the inscription: Pour la soif de vérité ("For the thirst for truth").

  “Darkwood gave it to me after class,” she said, too casually. “Said it’d help with research.”

  Leo’s gut churned. The watch’s tick was off—too slow, like a dying heartbeat.

  “You trust him?”

  “Trust is a strong word.” She avoided his gaze, thumb brushing the engraving. “But he knows things. About your dad. About...”

  “Valko?”

  “Yeah. And why their ‘slaughterhouses’ only operate at night.”

  Chila spun the watch on the table.

  “He said it’s ‘for timing deadlines.’”

  Leo squinted. The engraving matched the Valko logo from her files. “You trust him?”

  “Trust’s for suckers.” She clicked open a tab: Valko Holdings—Nightshift Only. Employee Roster.

  The pieces were there.

  A wolf eating its tail. A watch that didn’t tick right. A dad who kept a machete under his bed labeled “camping gear.” But the human brain’s a coward—it’ll tie itself in knots before admitting monsters are real.

  Class dismissed. The words echoed in Leo’s mind like smoke after gunfire.

  Darkwood’s lecture still rang: Liberté, égalité, fraternité—spoken like a toast at a funeral.

  Leo had seen his eyes. Blue, but not the kind you find on a postcard. Older. Colder. Like glacial ice that never melts.

  VALKO

  Valko. The wolf eats its tail. The watch eats time. Darkwood? He eats answers and spits riddles.

  And Leo? He was chewing on crumbs.

  Crumbs that led to Dad. To Mom. To a dead end named Nathaniel “No-Reflection” Darkwood.

  It was the eyes—pupils that narrowed when the bell rang. Teachers don’t do that. Teachers do Starbucks and stale pretzels. They don’t make Chila Mendez—queen of cynics—stare like he’s the last Wi-Fi signal on Earth.

  AUTUMN – WALK HOME

  Bellview in autumn was a slow suicide. Trees bled rust, sidewalks cracked like old promises, and the air smelled of burnt pumpkin spice and regret.

  Chila walked beside Leo, boots scuffing dead leaves.

  “You’re staring,” she said.

  “At what?” Leo asked.

  “The void. Or my ass. Hard to tell with your ‘brooding detective’ face.”

  That smirk—flicker of the old Chila—the one who used to help him tape “KICK ME” signs to Tyler’s back in seventh grade.

  “Riggs called me a traitor again,” Leo muttered.

  “Tyler calls everything a traitor. Last week he accused the vending machine of selling out when it ate his dollar.”

  “He meant back then. When I tipped the cops about his dad’s—”

  The words curdled.

  Tyler’s old man, busted for meth trafficking. Leo’s tip.

  Tyler’s revenge: keyed locker, stolen bike, public exile from Algebra Club.

  “You did the right thing,” Chila said, arms crossed.

  “Right. Wrong. All I know is, he wasn’t always...”

  “...a walking Hot Topic explosion? Yeah. Puberty’s a war crime.”

  They walked again. Streetlights buzzed. Her shoulder brushed his—once, twice. The third time, she didn’t move.

  THE WATCH

  “Darkwood’s not just some teacher,” Leo said.

  “Oh boy,” Chila sighed.

  “He doesn’t have a reflection.”

  “Fluorescent glare. Or maybe your conspiracy goggles need recalibrating.”

  Leo stared at the wolf pendant. “Valko’s tied to him. To my dad. That watch? It ticks backwards.”

  “Time’s a flat circle, Leo. So’s your dating history.”

  “You’re avoiding.”

  “Avoiding what? That you’re jealous?”

  “Of what? His ability to wear a trench coat without looking like a soggy trash bag?”

  “Admit it. You wish you could pull off ‘pale and morally ambiguous.’”

  “I pirated Twin Peaks last week. That count?”

  “Rebel without a paused browser.”

  “He’s dangerous.”

  “So’s nostalgia. But I don’t ghost you over it.”

  A red leaf spiraled between them.

  There it was—the unspoken ghost: Before. The three of them, juice boxes in hand, dumb dreams in their heads. Tyler wanted to be an astronaut. Chila wanted to hack the Pentagon. Leo? He just wanted to keep up.

  But orbits decay. Stars collapse.

  And detectives? We dig graves for things we can’t fix.

  “You think I don’t see it?” Chila whispered. “The way he looks at us? Like we’re specimens.”

  “Then why defend him?”

  She touched the watch. “Because maybe not all monsters have fangs. Some just have really good hair.”

  The watch ticked. Once. Twice. Out of sync.

  They reached her porch.

  The moon hung like a bullet hole in the sky.

  “Stay out of the rabbit holes, okay?” she said.

  “No promises.”

  “Asshole.”

  “Hypocrite.”

  She vanished inside.

  A shadow peeled from the alley—tall, trench-coated, gone in a blink.

  Maybe it wasn’t real.

  Monsters do that. Make you question the cracks in the glass.

  HOME IS WHERE THE SHADOWS ARE

  Studio apartment. Microwave ramen. Existential dread.

  Walls papered with case notes. Red string connected Vance Ahmed’s “work trips” to nights tweakers claimed they’d seen “pale freaks” in the woods.

  Sink: mold ecosystem. Couch: shrine to insomnia.

  Answering machine: 12 missed calls. All from UNKNOWN.

  Dad’s signature.

  Age 14. Dad at the door. “Two weeks, kid. Tops.”

  He came back six months later.

  Left again three days after.

  THE CALL

  The phone rang twice.

  Static.

  “Leo.” Dad’s voice, rough and exhausted.

  “You picked up.”

  “You shouldn’t be calling.”

  A clink of ice cubes.

  “Why does Nathaniel Darkwood know your name?”

  Silence. Then glass slammed down.

  “Stay away from him,” Vance snapped. “Don’t ask questions. Don’t look.”

  “He’s my history teacher. He knows about Valko—”

  “Christ.” A fist hit something. “Should’ve known they’d circle back.”

  “Who? What’s Valko?”

  “He’s hunting,” Vance said, voice low. “And if he’s hunting…”

  The line crackled.

  “There’s a woman. Ingrid Voss. 23 Cedar Lane. If things get strange—if you see—”

  “See what?”

  “Just go to her. Don’t be stubborn. Don’t be… me.”

  “How do you even know he’s here?”

  “Because Darkwood always appears before the storm.”

  AFTERMATH

  Ten years of silence. Ten years of half-assed postcards and lies.

  Now this?

  “You don’t get to do this,” Leo whispered. “You don’t get to vanish and then play mentor. Where were you when I got suspended? When Mom’s birthday came and I drank her wine alone?”

  “Leo—”

  “You left. You keep leaving. And now you want me to trust you? Trust her?”

  “They’re real!” Vance shouted. “And if I could’ve—”

  “Could’ve stayed? Been a dad? Too late.”

  Silence.

  Then—

  “I tried,” Vance said, broken. “But the things I’ve seen… they follow. They hunger. I couldn’t let them follow you.”

  “You could’ve told me.”

  “Would you have believed me?”

  Leo’s voice dropped. “No.”

  A long pause.

  “I can’t come back. Not yet. But Ingrid… she’s good. Smarter. Let her help you.”

  “That’s your fix? A handoff?”

  “It’s a bridge. Until I can come home.”

  Home. The word hit like a sucker punch.

  “You’ll call?”

  “When I can.”

  “That’s not a promise.”

  “It’s all I’ve got.”

  The line died.

  Leo stood alone.

  Outside, the raven watched. Gold eyes gleaming.

  Somewhere, a car backfired.

  Or maybe a gunshot.

  In Bellview, you stopped guessing.

  THE DEVIL’S LULLABY

  Cleaning when your life’s on fire is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. But the caffeine cans were forming a sentient colony and the mold named itself Carl.

  8:03 PM. Leo’s apartment.

  Another ramen cup into the trash.

  The raven watched from the fire escape.

  Knock knock.

  There are two kinds of knocks at night: bad news, and worse news.

  Tyler Riggs at the door, Mai behind him, slumped like a broken marionette?

  That’s both.