Damon’s presence in the cannery changed the air. Not just another body; a different energy. Where Ted brought frantic, intellectual analysis and Dee Dee brought heartfelt, folkloric support, Damon brought a quiet, physical competence. A creature of the body, of action, his calm, observant presence seemed to anchor the chaos Frankie had become.

  He offered no theories or comforting words. He just watched.

  He watched Frankie’s training continue as a litany of crushing failures. He watched her spar with Ted, who held a makeshift shield from a trash can lid. Her movements, stiff and telegraphed, mimicked a boxer, a memory of human mechanics betrayed by her new, monstrous strength. A jab meant as a light tap sent Ted stumbling backward, the trash can lid bent into a useless crescent.

  “I’m sorry!” Frankie cried, horrified. “I didn’t mean to.”

  “It’s okay,” Ted gasped, shaking his stinging hands. “Data acquired. You’re still way too strong.”

  Damon said nothing. He just watched from the shadows, his arms crossed, his expression thoughtful.

  He watched them try agility drills, Frankie attempting to leap between rusting pieces of machinery. Power she possessed, but grace she lacked. She would launch herself with too much force, overshooting her target and landing with a clumsy, crashing thud. She moved like a glitching video game character, her power uncalibrated and dangerous.

  After one particularly bad leap where she almost impaled her leg on a jagged piece of rusted metal, she slumped to the floor, her shoulders heaving with frustration.

  “I can’t do this,” she said, her voice a raw whisper of defeat. “It’s useless. The power is in charge, not me. I’m just a passenger in a stolen car, and I don’t know how to drive.”

  Ted and Dee Dee rushed to her side, offering words of encouragement, but their platitudes proved useless against the wall of her despair.

  That’s when Damon finally moved. He stepped out of the shadows, his footsteps quiet on the concrete floor.

  “That’s because you’re holding the steering wheel all wrong,” he said, his voice a low, calm rumble that cut through Frankie’s frustration.

  The three of them looked at him.

  “What are you talking about?” Ted asked.

  Damon walked over to Frankie, crouching down to her level. He did not look at her with pity. His gaze held the focused intensity of a coach.

  “You’re trying to fight like a human,” he said. “You’re thinking like a human. You’re trying to force this new power into the old rules. It won’t work. You’re not human anymore, Frankie. Not entirely.”

  The words, blunt but not cruel, hung as a statement of fact.

  “I watch you on the water,” he continued. “The best surfers, they don’t fight the wave. They don’t command it. They listen to it. They feel it. They become part of its power. They flow with it.” His eyes met hers, serious. “You’re trying to fight the wave. You need to learn to flow with the monster.”

  A flicker of understanding, or maybe just intrigue, sparked in Frankie’s eyes.

  Damon stood up. “Stop thinking,” he said. “Stop trying to plan your moves. Just… react.”

  He walked over to a pile of junk and picked up a small, soft bundle of old, oil-stained rags. “Ted, Dee Dee, back up. Give us some space.”

  His friends retreated to the edge of the factory floor, their faces a mixture of confusion and hope.

  “Frankie, stand up,” Damon commanded. “And close your eyes.”

  “What?”

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  “Close your eyes,” he repeated. “You’re relying on them too much, and they’re just feeding you confusing information. I want you to stop seeing and start feeling.”

  Hesitantly, Frankie stood. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. The darkness behind her eyelids offered a welcome relief. But the sounds of the cannery instantly intensified. The drip from the ceiling. The wind whistling through a hole in the roof. The scuttling of a rat. Her frantic heartbeat.

  “I can’t focus,” she said, her voice tight. “There’s too much noise.”

  “Good,” Damon said. “Don’t focus. Just listen. Listen to all of it. Let it become a map of the room.”

  He waited a moment. “I’m going to throw this at you,” he said, his voice coming from her left. “Don’t think about it. Don’t try to catch it. Just… let your body do whatever it wants to do.”

  Before she could protest, she heard it. A faint whoosh of air displacing. A tiny sound, almost imperceptible, but to her new ears, clear as a bell.

  No time for thought. Her body moved on its own. Not a clumsy, human dodge. A fluid, instantaneous shift of her weight, a slight tilt of her head to the right. The bundle of rags sailed past her cheek, so close she felt the breeze, and landed with a soft thud on the floor behind her.

  Her eyes snapped open. She had not told her body to do that. It had just… happened.

  “How did I…?”

  “You didn’t,” Damon said, a slow, impressed smile spreading across his face. “It did. The thing inside you. You let it drive for a second.” He picked up the rags. “Again. Eyes closed.”

  This time, she embraced it. She closed her eyes and let the soundscape of the room wash over her. She let go of the rigid, human need to control her limbs.

  The whoosh came from her right. Her hand shot out, impossibly fast, and plucked the bundle of rags from the air. Her fingers closed around it before her brain registered the throw.

  She opened her eyes, staring at the rags in her hand as if an alien object.

  “Again,” Damon said, his voice full of a new excitement.

  He started throwing them faster, from different angles. One after another. And Frankie, with her eyes closed, became a phantom. She moved with a liquid grace she had never possessed. She did not dodge. She flowed. Her body would bend at an impossible angle. Her hand would snap out and intercept a throw she could not possibly have known was coming. A dance. A beautiful, terrifying, predatory dance.

  Ted and Dee Dee watched from the sidelines, their mouths agape. This was not the clumsy, frustrated Frankie from ten minutes ago. This was something else. Something powerful. Something magnificent.

  Finally, Damon stopped throwing. Frankie stood in the center of the floor, breathing evenly, her eyes still closed. For the first time, a sense of harmony with the power inside her replaced the conflict.

  “You see?” Damon said, his voice soft with awe. “It’s instinct. A hunter’s instinct.”

  He walked closer, his voice dropping so only she could hear. “I don’t think this is just a random vampire curse, Frankie. I think your bloodline… the Rivera blood… it does something. The thing that made you a target is also what gives you this. It’s like… you’re a natural predator to their kind. You’re not just a monster. You’re the monster that hunts other monsters.”

  The idea settled in her mind. Terrifying. And empowering. Her curse was also her weapon.

  “Okay,” she said, opening her eyes. They were clear and focused. “Let’s try sparring again.”

  She turned to Damon. “You and me.”

  A nervous energy filled the room. This would be different. Damon was a skilled surfer, strong and agile. A capable fighter.

  He nodded, getting into a defensive stance. “Ready when you are.”

  Frankie did not adopt a stance. She just stood there, relaxed, her eyes on him. But she did not just look at him with her eyes anymore. She analyzed him. She could feel the subtle shift of his weight, anticipating his next move, the infinitesimal tremors in the earth beneath his feet, betraying his unease. She registered the whisper of his clothes as he moved, a testament to his suppressed tension, and the frantic drum of his pulse in his ears, a symphony of his burgeoning fear. She detected the faint human scent of his sweat, a primal tang of fear and adrenaline, a clear indicator of his vulnerability.

  He lunged, a quick, feinting jab. The old Frankie would have tried to block it, and probably would have broken his arm.

  The new Frankie was not there. She flowed backward, a single, effortless step that made his punch hit nothing but empty air. It looked like he had missed by a mile.

  He tried again, a sweeping leg kick. She did not leap away. She simply bent her body at the waist, an impossibly fluid arc, and the kick whistled harmlessly over her back.

  He could not touch her. Like fighting smoke. She expected his every move, not because she was a better fighter, but because on some primal, instinctual level, she knew what he would do before he did.

  After a minute of this frustrating, impossible dance, Damon stopped, wheezing, a look of pure disbelief on his face.

  Frankie stood before him, not even breathing hard.

  And for the first time since this nightmare had begun, a smile touched her lips.

  Not her old, carefree grin.

  A slow smile touched her lips, but it didn't reach her eyes. It was all sharp edges and confidence. A predator's smile. The smile of a girl who was finally, terrifyingly, learning how to hunt.