“Then maybe normal is overrated.”
The next morning, Lyanna entered Ridgewood through the side doors.
She hoped avoiding the main courtyard would mean avoiding Damon.
It did not.
He was waiting near the lockers.
“Hey.”
Lyanna kept walking.
Damon stepped in front of her.
“I said hey.”
“I heard you.”
His friends laughed.
Damon’s smile faded.
“Yesterday you embarrassed me.”
Lyanna looked genuinely confused.
“I dropped my own lunch.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No.”
That was the wrong answer.
Damon leaned toward her.
“Everybody here learns eventually.”
“Learns what?”
“How things work.”
Lyanna’s pulse increased.
She could feel students slowing around them.
Phones not out yet.
But attention had shifted.
“I don't want trouble.”
“Then stop acting special.”
“I’m not.”
“You don't talk to anybody. You walk around like you're too good for everyone.”
Lyanna almost laughed at the absurdity.
She avoided people because she was afraid of them.
Damon interpreted it as arrogance.
“I just want to go to class.”
Damon stepped aside.
“Then go.”
She walked past.
As she did, he whispered:
“Next time, say good morning.”
That day, Leo sat beside her during biology.
Not because seats were assigned.
Because he chose to.
At lunch, he waved her toward a table where two other students sat.
A girl named Mia Santos.
A boy named Aaron Price.
Lyanna hesitated.
Leo said, “Damon doesn't own this one.”
Mia rolled her eyes.
“He thinks he does.”
Aaron looked at Lyanna.
“He thinks he owns oxygen.”
Lyanna sat.
It felt dangerous.
Not Damon.
Friendship.
Friendship created attachments.
Attachments created questions.
Questions created discovery.
But Leo kept talking about a robotics competition.
Mia complained about chemistry.
Aaron argued that Ridgewood’s pizza violated international law.
By the end of lunch, Lyanna had said eleven sentences.
Leo counted.
She threatened to leave.
He stopped counting.
For the first time since arriving at Ridgewood, Lyanna walked into afternoon classes without checking over her shoulder every thirty seconds.
Damon noticed.
The next week became a quiet war.
Nothing big enough to report.
That was Damon’s talent.
A shoulder into Leo near the stairs.
Aaron’s backpack knocked off a bench.
Someone pouring soda into Mia’s open locker.
Whispers.
A note on Lyanna’s desk.
FOREST FREAK.
She stared at it.
Nobody at Ridgewood knew about the reserve.
Nobody knew about Shadow.
Forest freak could be coincidence.
Or Damon had been following her.
That possibility made her hands cold.
She tore up the note.
Leo saw.
“What did it say?”
“Nothing.”
“Lyanna.”
“Nothing.”
She walked away.
That afternoon, she took a different route home.
Shadow appeared anyway.
“You need to stop.”
He followed.
“I mean it.”
Shadow moved through the brush.
“You don't know what's happening.”
He did not.
But again, he knew her.
That night Mara checked the reserve’s perimeter cameras.
At 6:12 a.m., Shadow climbed over a fallen tree near the outer service fence.
At 6:19, he disappeared into forest outside the licensed enclosure zone.
At 7:02, he returned.
Mara stared at the footage.
She checked the next day.
Same thing.
And the next.