This is the final proof of my first chapter of my debut YA Urban Fantasy novel that’s launching on January 26th. If you enjoy it, please follow on Goodreads and preorder on Amazon!

The night I saw the swollen moon turn red like a titan’s heart was also the night I found the courage to approach my crush.

Where I came from, etiquette dictated that boys approached girls, not the other way around. Stares from the other students burned through the back of my skull, and their insults bored into my brain. And yet, out of the many things I regretted before I died, that was not one of them.

The party was overcrowded—a far cry from the environment where I thrived. Did I look as awkward as I felt? I’d practiced walking in front of my mirror until I thought I could pull off confident, but I don’t think I was pulling off anything. And all that time I spent getting my bronze waves to fall just right? Totally wasted. I knew they’d betray me and shift back to the side that bothered me so much. I tried smiling, but my face probably looked more like it was contorting than anything else. Although my biggest fear was losing my footing in my high heels. Melanie didn’t need any more material to torment me with.

He watched me stumble toward him.

Alan Grayson was untouchable. He carried himself with the grace of a fashion model as he moved about with aristocratic flair. At sixteen or seventeen, his elegance mystified everyone. He didn’t belong in our pint-sized Pacific Northwest town. He was too well-dressed, too well-spoken. Everything went his way, and his persona was all around perfect—as if his aura alone interwove with the ether to make it so. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find out that he’d been front cover of Teen Vogue or cast as an elven prince to star in the next Rings movies that my brother Marcus groveled over so much. He was just that gorgeous and charismatic.

His frame was lithe, his limbs toned. His white-blond hair was slicked back, keeping his flawless features in full display. Almost everyone wanted to be his friend; some, his rival. He was one of, if not the most popular boy at Farpoint High School.

I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, facing down the abyss into which my social status could plummet with one false move.

There was still time to turn back, to pretend something else had caught my attention, but some madness in me drove me forward, and I tottered into his personal space.

The music overwhelmed my voice before a word came out of my taut lips, which prompted this otherworldly beauty of a boy to lean down with his ear toward me. I produced a meek “Hi.”

“What’s that?” Alan said loudly. He scratched the back of his head, as if not wanting to state the obvious.

Against the din of frantic guitar strings and students hooting and pushing, I would have to speak louder than I was comfortable with. Thankfully, the stroboscopic lights concealed my reddening cheeks.

“No need for words if we get on the dance floor,” I said louder, pulling the sweetest smile I could manage. My face flamed red. Now I would’ve welcomed the sweet release of death.

Perhaps there was reason to hope, but judging by his reaction, I’d failed miserably. Alan stiffened on the spot, and the boys flanking him stopped mid-conversation to snicker. He threw them a murderous glance. “Guys, shut up,” he said, before turning back to me. “I’m sorry, Scarlett, but I hate dancing.”

He knew my name even though we weren’t classmates. That, at least, gave me a small boost of confidence. But my heart still thundered against my ribs.

I couldn’t stop fidgeting with my hands. “Just so happens I don’t enjoy it either, so maybe we could... do something else?” From his baffled look I hurried to add, “Talk? I mean.” His eyes were a mesmerizing gray, like liquid silver. It was easy to become lost in his gaze.

That was if he didn’t yank you out. “It seems we’re not on the same page,” he said, standing straight, hands tucked in pockets. One of his friends burst out laughing, and he glared at them. “Guys, I’ll kill you for this.” He eyed me then, and I thought I saw something harsh and stern in him mellowing out a little. “It’s me they’re laughing at, not you. And it’s not the reason you think it is. Look, it’s hard to explain these things because...” He had the answer on the tip of his tongue, I knew it. I just didn’t understand yet why he wouldn’t tell me. “I mean, you’re not my type. And I mean that on many levels. There’s no tale to tell here.”

I couldn’t help the inquisitive furrowing of my brow. “On many levels. You mean as in, not into girls? I mean, that’s fine.” I stumbled over my words, every syllable hurling the bits and pieces left of dignity into the abyss of social awkwardness. “Really, I d-don’t judge. I mean... if that’s what you meant?”

“What?” He gave me a tight-lipped smile that spelled out defeat and turned to his friends. “Help me out here, what else am I supposed to say?”

“That’s why it’s hilarious,” one said.

“Or, you know? Just don’t say anything,” another quipped. “Sorry, man, you’re on your own.”

This time, Alan wore an annoyed expression. Whatever had mellowed out earlier in him came back in exasperation now. My legs quivered a little. “I don’t feel like explaining myself. I have my reasons. I don’t want to dance, and no, I don’t want to talk either, so save your breath and ask somebody else. Many will say yes, you can bet on it.”

My brain shifted gears back to its default setting, focused on who else might be watching, judging my every move, my every word. This would become school-wide news by tomorrow. Melanie surely kept a watchful eye, dissecting the interaction to its entrails. If there was one thing I couldn’t be surer of, it was that she’d be savoring every one of my missteps that could be used as ammo against me. I could feel hers and her friends’ leers lasering me from all sides in the shifting masses in the dimness.

I gave Alan a thin smile before retreating through the ever-shifting amorphous crowds that covered the makeshift dance floor. “Hilarious, Evan. No, I won’t be guarding anybody from my temper.” That was the last thing I heard before their voices got drowned out in the blasting music.

I wanted nothing more than to hide the fact that I was so upset, but sad eyes made for terrible liars. If only I could vanish from this world. Going home was my first impulse. At least no one would see me curled between my bed sheets, clutching my pillow.

I strained my sight in all directions, searching for a sign of my friends. Last I knew of Rick and Amanda, they were making out on the couch by the chimney. And Tiffany had offered me a drink before my ‘daring venture,’ though I had to reject her offer. Flickering beams of light flashed across my eyes and left burns before my retinae. They spun around in the hall and living room, fuzzed out by cigarette smoke and small devices jetting billows of fog, so it was hard to make out faces.

It was no surprise I didn’t find my friends by the couch; their clothes were probably flying about in the second floor’s bathroom by now. The more I dwelled on my screwup and the fact that now the whole school would know about it, the more I wanted to hide, to disappear, to die, so there was no point in looking for them. In fact, it was better if they didn’t find me. I couldn’t stomach tonight anymore.

I headed for the front porch, threading my way among drunk dancing couples and students shuffling and swaying, halting just as one spilled his tamarind vodka over his sneakers. As I snatched my black faux-fur coat from the peg at the entrance, I felt her presence looming behind me. I pitied the family member who had to feed that mouth to near adulthood.

Melanie Noir stood at least three inches taller than me and easily weighed five tons more. “Gee, wonder why he turned you down. You look like a skanky ho vampire,” the raven-haired vixen sneered. Ever since that clash we had at the Homecoming dance last year, I’d become a target of her cruelty. Poking fun at my porcelain skin tone was something she loved doing.

“I don’t think he’d be into big cows,” I said, before slinking out into the chill of night, leaving Melanie to her outraged scowl and her stuttering mouth fumbling with insults.

Outside, the boisterous noise in the house made for a stark contrast with the nocturnal silence otherwise shrouding the whole town. Music rocked the windows in their frames. A trio wearing hoodies and tubed jeans puffed out trails of smoke on the steps. Two of them leaned against each of the banisters, and the third sat on the topmost step.

“Want a cig?” one of them offered.

I slid past between them and turned sharply toward the end of the road. I shrank into my coat’s warmth and hugged myself tightly to ward off the autumn chill.

The meandering side streets along Elder Grove Tr. came to dead ends and cul-de-sacs with forested patches circling the suburbs. Above them towered some of the tall hills that dominated Farpoint, our fair and insignificant dot in Washington State. The pinewoods rose in tight, unbroken ranks, their tops sharp as teeth, jagged and crooked, pointing to the night sky as if to devour it.

A thin, faint mist had settled over the lawns like a membranous spider web. Cars rested along the curb like slumbering sentinels. One of the wonderful things about Farpoint was that everything was within walking distance. Full-time residents didn’t need cars for their commutes. Of course, people owned them anyway.

I looked above me for the moon. The first thing I noticed when my family and I moved here from Seattle last year was that it could be appreciated in greater detail here than anywhere else, especially when full. Somehow it seemed bigger, and so clear you could count its craters. At first, it was uncanny. But living here, you got used to it. It watched over us, our great white guardian. Yet, every time we traveled to Seattle or out of state, on our return, it never failed to shock me just how big it was, like the first time.

But now it was only a great dark giant in the darkness. A thin silver line like a sewing thread was beginning to wax it. About two weeks from now it would be a full moon.

Towards the end, I turned on Winding Hills Av. and followed it down to Weeping Willow Dr., the street I lived on. The low, rumbling noise of music dimmed to complete silence. Pockets of light glowed along the sidewalk, and one of the lampposts blinked for a beat. That fleeting millisecond of darkness yanked me to the present moment, as I was falling into reverie, and pulled me from how I was going to repay Melanie when she reinaugurated my humiliation trial. I couldn’t help noticing my shadow as it appeared, elongated, vanished, and reappeared past every streetlamp.

It turned hypnotic. How many times did I watch it go past me? It made me realize, after a mile from the party, that the streetlights were my source of safety. If they went out, I’d be blind in the open darkness.

A wolf’s howl echoed in the distance. Then I realized the loudest sound in town was coming from my high heels clicking on the gravel. It made for an unsettling rhythm. Tack-tack-tack-tack. A gust made the trees rustle and the leaves scatter across the pavement, sending a cold shiver down my spine.

Tack-tack-tack-tack interspersed with twick, much softer and almost out of earshot. Just barely. Once.

A flurry of air took dried leaves to flight, and it seemed to whisper something to my ears, so quietly I might have dismissed it. Except, it wasn’t the wind. It carried the noise with it, like something quickening its pace behind me.

Someone had been following me for the past quarter of a mile. What at first was a hunch, I now felt his presence without a doubt. A stab of dread surged from my core. Goosebumps prickled along my arms and my throat went dry like sandpaper.

I looked over my shoulder. Streetlights formed glowing pools of light in a sea of pitch darkness. Towering pine trees watched over me from the sides, their needle-laden boughs giving concealment to any stalker. I hurried on, my heart at my throat. My rapid breathing came out in wisps of mist, wafting away with the chill of the night.

Something creaked a short distance away from me—a leaf or a twig, now closer. With a quick glance, I caught movement like someone lunging forward, a fleeting shadow within the gloom, and I turned tail, kicking off my high heels and running as fast as my feet could take me.

I heard his footfalls on the hard ground as he took off after me in a sprint.

I dug into my coat’s pocket for my flip phone and thumbed the call button.

My street was a few dozen yards away. I cut through the park, darting over moist grass, as the soles of my feet found relief to run faster.

Three numbers. That’s all I needed. I couldn’t tap 9 as the running and swaying motions made me miss. Delete. 9-1-1. He was close to me now, his huffing like a bear’s feet away from me.

Somehow, he’d cleared the distance much faster than I expected. I caught a glimpse of his face, concealed in shadow, a transitory blur that would forever haunt me if I lived.

It was too late to scream, but I shrieked my lungs out anyway before a sturdy hand wrapped over my mouth and drowned out my cries for help. The phone slipped between my fingers and thudded on the grass. It never rang. I glimpsed a set of three piercings over his eyebrow, glistening against the lamplight while I struggled to free my mouth.

“Hush, sweetheart. You only get to enjoy this once in your life,” he growled. His breath stank of iron. I tried to kick him back, but I might as well have tried to kick a statue. His free hand went over my breasts. Tears dribbled down the side of my face. A memory I thought I had repressed stormed to the forefront of my mind as I tried to squirm free. “See you in the afterlife, darling.” Instead, he did something I didn’t expect, never would’ve expected.

He swept the hair away from my neck, and bit down.

There was a stab of pain for a fleeting moment. Then I went numb—a lingering tingling sensation. My lifeblood drained out of my body, along with all my strength and wits. I stopped fighting back. My will to resist had simply abandoned me. A burning feeling took over my entire body, as though ants had come out of the ground to swarm and eat at my insides. I lay there in his arms, blinking at the starry night and now the full red, bloody moon engorged over the sky.

Nothing made sense. And everything made sense at the same time. As the last drop of blood left my body, so many regrets filled me—the things I never had the courage to do or say because I didn’t dare stand out or speak up. Approaching Alan was part of the change I had wanted to see in myself.

The stranger let go, and I tumbled on the sweet-smelling grass without protesting.

The moon continued to blaze red.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

A titan’s heart floating in the sky. It seemed to bleed into the cosmos.

Soon, the edges of my vision blackened, and I became one with the dark.