The café had grown quieter, the midday rush tapering into a lull of soft conversation and the occasional clink of dishes behind the counter.

  Hazel stirred the coffee she hadn’t touched, her gaze fixed on the swirling liquid but her focus firmly on the woman across from her.

  "You haven’t looked in a mirror since it happened, have you?" Alex asked, her voice soft, almost amused, but not unkind. She leaned on one elbow, chin in her hand, watching Hazel with eyes that saw more than they let on.

  Hazel didn’t answer right away. She lifted her eyes, golden and sharp even in the dim light. "It’s hard not to. Every reflection feels like it’s watching me back."

  Alex chuckled, low and knowing. "It doesn’t go away. That feeling, I mean. Like you're wearing your own face for the first time—and it fits better than it should."

  Hazel studied her, the way she smiled just enough to be human, but never too much. Everything about Alex seemed banced on a knife’s edge between predator and person. "And does it ever start to feel... normal?"

  "No," Alex said simply. "But it stops feeling wrong."

  A silence settled between them, filled with the weight of unspoken truths. Outside the window, life continued—cars passing, people walking, ughter drifting from a pair of teenagers at a nearby table. Normalcy. Fleeting, distant. Beautiful, even.

  Hazel finally spoke again, her tone edged with dry humor. "It’s the eyes, I think. That’s what unsettles people. Not just the color—something deeper."

  "They look too long. Like they’re trying to see what you were before," Alex agreed. "Most people don’t know what they’re looking at. But they feel it. Like an animal scenting blood."

  Hazel gnced out the window. “And each other? We smell it too?”

  Alex nodded. "We’re designed to. Even if they never told us what this virus does, our bodies would recognize the same predator. You didn’t flinch when I sat down. That’s not instinct anymore. That’s memory."

  Hazel tilted her head slightly. "So we know each other now. On sight, on scent."

  "Exactly. It’s not trust," Alex said, voice lowering. "It’s recognition."

  Hazel’s lips twitched into something almost resembling a smile. "Recognition, huh? Like we’re all part of some secret club."

  Alex leaned back in her chair and stretched her arms behind her head. "Yeah, a very gmorous, gender-flipping, eternally-anemic club with control issues."

  Hazel snorted softly, almost despite herself. "That’s one way to put it."

  The warmth of their strange camaraderie lingered for a beat before Alex’s expression shifted, her gaze drifting to the window.

  "My family thinks I’m possessed," she said after a pause, the humor draining from her voice without making it heavy.

  "Literal demon. My mom—deeply religious. The moment she saw me after the change, she screamed and started throwing holy water. I told her it was just distilled tap."

  Hazel blinked. "Seriously?"

  "Oh yeah. She called the pastor. He brought three other people and a damn Bible thicker than my arm. They tried to stage an exorcism in the living room while I was still dizzy from the fever."

  Alex chuckled, but it was a tired sound, full of something old.

  "I thought they’d calm down once they saw I wasn’t some snarling monster. But turns out, being beautiful and feminine overnight doesn’t really help when they think Satan personally did your makeup."

  Hazel let out a breath through her nose. "I’m sorry."

  Alex shrugged, brushing it off. "Don’t be. They were looking for a reason to be afraid. I just gave them one with eyeliner and a heartbeat at five beats a minute."

  A quiet settled between them again, less tense than before. Outside, a bird fluttered across the café window. Inside, the moment felt still.

  "You still miss them?" Hazel asked gently.

  Alex gave a noncommittal sound. "I miss who they were, not who they chose to be. I think that’s different."

  Hazel nodded, understanding. "It is."

  The waitress passed by with a pte for another table, pausing briefly to gnce at Hazel and Alex.

  Her expression held the vague curiosity that most people seemed to get around them—somewhere between admiration and unease. She moved on without a word.

  "So," Alex said, lightening her tone as she swirled her coffee, "how about you? Anyone think you're a harbinger of doom yet, or are you still in the closet as a divine femme vampire?"

  Hazel gave her a dry smile. "My sister’s still waiting for her brother to 'get better.'" She looked down into her own cup. "I haven’t had the heart to tell her this is better."

  Alex met her gaze, softer now. "We don’t get to go back. But we don’t have to go forward alone, either."

  Hazel gave a small nod, the coffee finally cooling enough for her to sip. Bitterness clung to the taste—but she didn’t mind. It was real.

  Alex pulled her phone from the pocket of her jacket and slid it across the table. "Give me your number. In case something happens. Or if you just want to talk without dodging silver-eyed baristas."

  Hazel arched a brow but took the device, her fingers gliding with practiced ease across the screen as she typed in her contact. "You seem awfully invested for someone who just met me."

  “I’m invested in anyone who’s not actively losing their mind,” Alex said with a lopsided smile. "That narrows the pool down to… maybe three of us."

  Hazel handed the phone back. "You should meet my sister. You’d be amazed what denial can preserve."

  Alex chuckled, stood, and slid her phone away. Her movements were fluid, precise—almost feline in how they held both ease and presence. She adjusted her jacket and offered Hazel a two-fingered wave.

  "Don’t get yourself caught bleeding in a church, Hazel. I hear that’s still frowned upon."

  Hazel smirked. "I’ll add it to my growing list of new rules."

  With that, Alex turned and walked away, weaving through the café without a second gnce back. Patrons noticed her—of course they did—but none could expin why. She was the type of person the world made room for without understanding how or why.

  Hazel remained seated for a moment, watching her go, then let out a slow breath. The warmth of their conversation clung to her like a shawl that hadn’t yet slipped from her shoulders.

  She paid the bill in cash, nodding politely at the curious waitress who still couldn't quite meet her eyes. Then Hazel stepped out into the early afternoon sun, the brightness no longer painful, just… a little too sharp.

  She pulled out her phone and checked the time. Stel’s csses would be ending soon. Too far to walk, not far enough to justify the bus.

  She adjusted the dark coat she wore, slipped her phone back into her pocket, and began to move—gracefully, steadily—her pace just a touch too smooth for a city sidewalk.

  One step at a time, she made her way toward the college, weaving through the crowd with the quiet elegance of someone who knew how to be noticed—and how to disappear.

  The college campus hadn’t changed in the two weeks since Hazel had gotten sick—but Hazel had.

  She stepped past the wrought iron gates, shoulders back, chin lifted. Her presence rippled through the space like perfume in still air: quiet, striking, and impossible to ignore.

  A few students turned to look, then kept looking. Some with appreciation, some with confusion. A few with something else entirely.

  She was beautiful now—undeniably so. But more than that, she was familiar.

  "I swear, that looks like—"

  "No. Can’t be. He—he—was taller, right?"

  "But look at the eyes. That’s definitely—"

  "She’s one of them. You can tell by the way she moves."

  Hazel heard them. Of course she did. Her senses didn't allow for blissful ignorance anymore. Every whispered word cut through the ambient noise like thread through silk.

  The blood in their veins moved faster when they noticed her. Some pulses quickened with attraction. Others stuttered with fear.

  She kept walking.

  The brick buildings and rust-colored trees blurred in her periphery as she neared the English hall, her boots quiet against the pavement.

  She passed beneath the same archway she used to walk through on her way to css—back when she’d still been a student, back when her voice had been deeper, her shoulders broader, her name still spoken the way it appeared on old enrollment rosters.

  A few more students whispered as she passed, one murmuring to another, "No, look, I’m telling you—that’s him. Or it was."

  Hazel gave no sign she’d heard them. Her bck coat swayed with each step, the afternoon light kissing the edges of her in a way that made her seem half-shadow, half-dream.

  She paused outside the hall where Stel’s css would end soon, tucking her hands into her coat pockets, her eyes scanning the crowd with practiced calm.

  There was a time not long ago when Hazel might have flushed, might have stammered through her presence here. But now? She simply waited—collected, unbothered. Transformed.

  And yet, in her stillness, the tension hung thick around her like smoke. She was a disruption. An unanswered question. A cautionary tale rewritten in beauty and unfamiliar grace.

  She could feel the space between herself and the crowd—not measured in distance, but in understanding.

  And then, the bell rang. Students poured out of the building like water breaking a dam.

  Hazel straightened just slightly, eyes fixed on the door.

  She was here for one person. Just one.