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Chapter 3 - chapter 3- shadows don't miss

Cole's house didn't feel like enemy turf—it felt like family turf.

The air was heavy with weed, sure skunky and sweet but it mingled with the smell of spiced nuts roasting somewhere in the kitchen. On the counter, his mom had lined up mismatched cups, pouring cheap soda like it was vintage wine. His dad drifted between rooms with the calm weight of someone who'd seen a hundred nights like this and knew exactly how to keep it under control.

The living room itself was chaos wrapped in comfort. Smoke hung thick over a coffee table buried in grinders, half-empty chip bags, and a hookah pipe old enough to qualify for retirement. Bass from a Bluetooth speaker rattled the walls, cycling between cheap rap and psychedelic guitar riffs, like even the playlist couldn't pick a mood.

Aria sank into a soft couch, boots up on a crate. The blur in her chest wasn't just from the smoke it was from how weirdly normal this felt. A gang's hideout that doubled as a family's living room. Laughter, snacks, smoke, banners with crows sprayed sloppy on the walls. It was too ordinary. That's what made it surreal.

Tarō was already holding court from a beanbag, eyes glassy, voice loud.

"Listen, listen so this Serpent guy comes at me, right? Full ribs ink, glowing like a damn radiator. And what do I do? I puff out my chest, stand tall, and I tell him " He paused for effect, hand raised high. "'Bro, wrong guy. I'm vegan.'"

The room broke. Smoke coughed out of someone's nose, another guy nearly dropped his joint laughing.

Cole leaned against the doorway, smirk wide, tattoos alive in the shifting glow.

"Vegan, huh? That why you inhale chicken wings by the kilo, Taro?"

"Plant-based chickens, my dude!" Tarō fired back, throwing his hands up. The room roared again.

Aria's lips twitched despite herself. She tugged her hood lower, hiding the star under her eye, and glanced at Cole. He pushed off the wall, crossed the room, and dropped onto the couch beside her. Close—closer than he needed to be.

His knee brushed hers. Maybe an accident, maybe not. He reached for the joint, drew in, then tilted his head her way. Smoke curled from his lips like a secret.

"You ever notice," he said, voice low, lazy but sharp, "how you walk in and the whole room tilts? Like gravity's got a crush."

Aria snorted, but her pulse kicked harder than she'd admit. She took the joint slow from his fingers, her nails grazing his skin, and pulled until her lungs burned. Exhaling sideways, she shot back:

"Gravity's overrated. I prefer freefall."

His laugh came deep, rough, carrying history with it. "Still reckless."

"Still staring," she countered, not breaking eye contact.

On the other side of the room, Tarō had shifted tactics. He leaned toward a girl perched by the speaker, hair lit neon in the glow.

"See this scar?" he pointed at his wrist there was nothing there. "Serpent blade. Missed me by this much."

The girl raised an eyebrow. "That looks like… skin."

"Exactly," Tarō said, dead serious. "You can't even see it. That's how fast I healed. Doctor said I was a medical marvel. I said, 'nah, just built different.'"

The girl burst out laughing. A couple of others egged him on, and soon Taro was basking in the noise, grin wide as if he'd won a championship.

Cole leaned closer to Aria, voice cutting under the chaos.

"Different. That's the word. You don't blend, Aria you bend the whole damn room."

She exhaled slow, smoke ghosting between them, and muttered, sharp as a blade wrapped in silk:

"Careful. You sound like you believe it."

********************

Upstairs, the party faded into muffled bass, the kind that rattled the floorboards like a restless pulse.

Aria tugged Cole inside, shutting the bedroom door with a click. No hesitation, no second thoughts the air between them had been loaded for too long.

Her fingers slipped into his hair, pulling him down into her space. Cole's palm pressed against her back, drawing her close until her chest brushed against his. The streak of green in her hair slid across his collarbone like neon silk, her breath hot against his throat. He let out a low growl when her nails dragged across his shoulder, the sound swallowed by the kiss that crashed between them.

The bed creaked under their weight. Smoke from downstairs clung to their clothes, their skin, as if the whole house wanted in on it. Her hand skimmed down his chest, his lips tracing the line of her jaw, heat spiraling fast—

A voice cut through the floorboards.

Loud. Commanding. Unignorable.

"Where's Cole?"

They froze.

Cole broke the kiss with a curse, jaw tight. Aria leaned back against the sheets, smirking through her frustration.

"Your fan club's loud."

"Not fans." He kissed her once, quick, almost rough. "Stay here."

He was gone, the door clicking shut behind him.

---

Downstairs, the haze thickened—weed smoke, laughter, half-shouted stories. But the energy shifted around the man standing in the center.

Tall, scar carved from temple to chin, the kind of wound you didn't walk away from unless you'd earned respect for life. His presence pulled the room taut.

"Eyes caught movement at the docks," he said flat, no wasted breath. "Serpents moving crates after midnight. Off-manifest. We want it."

Cole stepped forward. "So you want noise."

"Not noise." The scar split wider in something like a smile. "Distraction. Chaos. You pull the snakes into the street, we strip their pier clean. That's what the Crows are for eyes sharp, wings ready."

A murmur rippled through the room. Agreement. Excitement.

And then—silence.

From the back of the house came slow, deliberate steps. Elder Maris.

Her frame was small, almost swallowed by the long black shawl draped over her shoulders. Silver hair fell in uneven strands, a feather charm swinging from her wrist. One side of her face bore a scar that had healed crooked, but her eyes sharp, black, unblinking commanded the room.

She didn't raise her voice. She never had to

"Fighting for tonight is cheap," Maris said, her voice sharp as a blade dragged across glass. "Any fool can throw fists. But power real power doesn't chase the moment. It waits. It plans. The impatient are always poor, no matter what they hold."

Silence gripped the room like a fist. Even the smoke seemed to hang still.

One of the younger Crows, face still carrying the softness of someone barely grown, nodded slowly like he was hearing scripture. Another exhaled long, muttering, true that under his breath.

Cole's hand brushed gently across Maris's back, steadying her as she shifted her weight. She didn't need it, but she allowed it like letting him share in her strength for a moment.

Her gaze swept the crew, lingered a beat on Aria at the stairwell, and softened just enough for a crooked smile. Aria, cheeks flushed, hair still a little mussed, lifted her hand in a small, shy wave. The gesture drew a quiet chuckle from Maris, as if she saw more than Aria wanted to show.

Then Maris lowered herself into a chair, satisfied, her work done.

The scarred man inclined his head, respect plain.

"Thanks for your input, Elder."

The noise of the party swelled back laughter, bass, chatter but the echo of her words clung, heavier than smoke.

*****************

The noise of the party swelled back laughter, bass, chatter but the echo of her words clung, heavier than smoke.

Cole pushed off the wall, Scarface and two others falling in behind him. They moved toward the door, shoulders squared like soldiers, boots dragging the floorboards into silence.

Aria and Tarō slipped after them, caught in the slipstream. On the porch, Cole spun, hand snapping to her wrist. His voice was low but cut like glass:

"Stay out of this. You ain't Crow. This ain't some pizza run this is war dressed as errands. You don't want the weight."

Aria's lips curved, but it wasn't a smile. More like a blade.

"Crow or not, war finds everyone. The only choice is whether you bleed standing."

For a second he just looked at her, the porch light catching the ink alive on his shoulders. Then his jaw ticked, and he let her go. He turned, dropped into the waiting car. The Crow engine lit up the block, tires shrieking as if the street itself wanted to hold them back.

Tarō puffed out his cheeks, shook his head, then leaned close with a grin that was equal parts reckless and loyal.

"Hell naw. We're not missing this. I didn't rip five bong hits just to babysit incense and grandma stories."

Aria snorted despite herself. Her fingers were already tightening on her helmet strap.

And then Elder Maris. She was there in the doorway, quiet as smoke. Her hand, thin but steady, lifted the strap of Aria's crop top back onto her shoulder. A gesture soft as a mother's yet binding as iron.

"Honey… Crows love hard, But we don't give our hearts outside the flock."

The words landed heavier than the engine's growl fading down the block. Aria inhaled slow, spine lengthening, chin tilting a fraction upward.

"My heart stays mine."

Maris's mouth twitched—half smile, half scar. A queen's blessing, even when she didn't say it.

Tarō kicked his scooter awake, engine coughing like it had secrets to tell. Aria's joined his, lower, steadier, as they rolled off the curb two shadows trailing the Crow machine into a night that grinned with teeth.

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The docks groaned like tired giants, cranes frozen mid-gesture against the night sky. Sodium lights bled yellow across rusted hulls and tarp-covered cargo. Wind from the shoreline tugged at the banners of serpents scrawled on walls, scales shimmering faint in the gloom.

The Crow car screeched to a stop, smoke curling around its wheels. Doors swung open—slow, deliberate. Four figures stepped out, black coats flaring in the salt air. No one rushed. That wasn't the Crow way.

Cole rolled his shoulders, tank tight against his frame, tattoos along his back stirring like wings trying to wake. He stepped forward, dropped to one knee, and pressed his palm to the asphalt.

The street answered.

Shadows poured outward, slick as oil, pooling across the dock. They bled upward, climbing masts and hulls, until the dark itself twisted into feathers. A shape gathered, vast and terrible wings unfurling wider than the cranes, eyes molten gold splitting the night.

A crow the size of a shipping container screamed into existence, its cry rattling the metal bones of the harbor. Tarps shredded under the gust from its wings. Crates toppled. Chains rattled like they remembered battle. The entire dock bent under the weight of something that shouldn't exist.

Aria's breath hitched. Even from the shadows where she and Taro crouched, she felt it the gravity of it. This wasn't just a summon. It was an omen.

The beast dove, talons raking across canvas, tearing tarps clean off container stacks. Boxes spilled open like gutted fish goods, weapons, contraband tumbling in chaos. Workers shouted, scrambled. The Serpent guards on the pier froze, scales inked on their ribs glowing as if they might strike but none dared step forward.

Behind Cole, one of the Crows stretched out his arm. Ink on his skin rippled, peeling off like liquid shadow. It spilled onto the ground and rose, reshaping into a sleek black panther, muscles coiled, eyes burning silver in the dark. The beast padded a wide circle around the car, tail lashing, every step silent but lethal—guarding the perimeter.

Cole didn't look back. He didn't have to.

He raised his hand once more, and the giant crow ripped through another tarp, black feathers scattering like shrapnel across the night.

The docks were theirs.

At least for now.

************************

The bushes smelled like diesel and salt and fear. Aria pressed her back to the wet leaves, fingers digging into mud. Tarō's shoulder bumped hers; his breath caught, as if he could hold the danger back with silence.

A siren closer now, thin, metallic, like a scream caught in barbed wire. Then the dock erupted.

Two plumes of smoke bloomed at once small, wrong, like someone exhaled darkness. One curled at the feet of a Crow member near the car. The man, "Jackson", didn't have time to blink. The smoke wrapped him like a curtain; then something invisible paper-thin and colder than a blade slit his windpipe. His hands flew to his throat, bright red flooding his fingers, his mouth a new and private horror. He fell backwards as if the ground had suddenly become a trapdoor, eyes wide and stupid with surprise. Blood spattered the asphalt in slow, obscene beads. The sound he made was not a cry so much as a cracked bell.

Aria's stomach turned. She tasted iron.

The second plume curled behind Cole, brushing his jacket like a phantom hand. He twisted just as the smoke hardened into flesh steel flashing for his throat. Cole's body moved faster than thought: a pivot, a shoulder slam, his forearm jamming up beneath the man's elbow. Bone cracked like kindling. The Serpent's cry broke against the dock's metal hush. Cole drove him forward, skull meeting hood with a wet thud, and left him writhing, teeth red with blood.

"Jackson!" Cole lunged for his fallen friend, fingers digging into a throat he couldn't hold, but it was too late. Jackson's eyes were already gone, the light in them pooled on the dock like spilled mercury.

No time for mourning. The night kept moving.

From behind Cole, one of his boys peeled off, arm lifting slow. Ink on his forearm shivered, liquefied. Shadow spilled into shape and the shadow became a panther once again, hungry and dark, breath steaming like iron. It leapt from the ground like the world had given it permission. Eight Serpents charged—men with knives and confidence—then five of them winked out, the vanish trick humming in the air. For a heartbeat the dock was an empty stage.

The panther did not care for tricks. It pounced through the remaining three like a meteor through paper. Teeth sank in necks and ribs; flesh tore with a wet, theatrical sound. Limbs flailed. One man's head snapped back like a puppet's; his chest expelled a fountain of red that painted the tarp behind him. The panther moved with terrible courtesy, efficient as a machine, and left a mess of ruined jackets and life in its wake.

Another Crow member—bigger, older, slid his palm along the doorframe and something massive uncoiled: a gorilla, black as coal with a silver flash down its back. It charged like a battering ram, ripping crates off pallets, tossing them like toys. Forklifts toppled. Explosions small, metallic pops as compressed oxygen tanks and old gas cans betrayed the chaos bloomed in little fire-flowers. Sparks rained. Serpents scrambled and got themselves crushed under a falling reel of chain; one became a stamp of blood on the ground.

Above it all the crow-summon kept tearing at the ship hooking a tarp, dragging open a hold, shredding canvas. The noise of tearing metal and wood was a raw, hungry music.

On the far side of the pier a radio crackled in Cole's ear, clipped and satisfied: "We got what we wanted. Move, move! get off the deck."

And then the world misfired.

Three shots—tight, surgical—ripped through the air like a chorus of angry wasps. The first found Cole in the shoulder, spun him, made him howl. The second punched into his belly; he doubled, a breath folding in on itself. The third slammed into his hip, a terrible punctuation. He staggered, then dropped like a cut wire.

Someone threw him into the back of the Crow car with the tenderness of men who had seen too much tenderness already. Hands were everywhere—grabbing, lifting, shoving. The scarred driver gunned it, tires spitting gravel.

Above them the crow dove. It grabbed four Serpents in its black talons—men who thought they could sprint from feathers—and held them up to the sky like offerings. For a breath the dock went silent enough to hear bones. The crow opened its beak.

It devaored them.

Not dainty. Not clean. There was tearing. Ropes of flesh. The sound was animal—wet, precise. Bodies slipped into shadow. A few screams were swallowed whole and disappeared like they had never been.

Aria's hands went white on the twig-branches. Tarō made a sound that might have been a laugh at first, deranged, then cut off. They watched the crow drop back, the sacks around its feet heavier now.

Aria's breath broke. It made a small, jagged noise.

She looked at Tarō. He looked like a boy who had seen the ocean boil.

"What the fuck…" she said, and the words were almost lost inside the shocked quiet.

Tarō's voice was small. "Aria… I—I'm sorry."

She said it again, slower, the syllables raw. "What… the actual… fuck."

He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, clumsy, protective. They folded into each other in the black, both of them wet-faced and stunned. The dock burned behind them flames licking at ruined crates, the smell of cooked meat and oil and blood and the world that had been their map rearranged itself into an ugly new geography.

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