The streetlights washed the road in a warm yellow glow, soft enough to make the cracked pavement look almost peaceful. Shadows stretched and warped along the sidewalks, pooling in the gaps between fences like dark water. Somewhere far away, a dog barked once—a sharp, lonely sound—before the night swallowed it whole. The moon hung low and silver, a watchful, silent spectator to the things that moved in the dark, and to the two boys walking away from it.
Ace walked beside Cedric, hands shoved so deep into his jacket pockets the seams threatened to split. His steps were steady, relaxed—the controlled pace of a hunter leaving a battlefield, not a kid coming home. But his mind wasn't here on the quiet street. It was two years back, and five hundred miles east, in a forest where a phone also stopped ringing.
He pulled out his phone. The screen was cracked from a fall last month. In the glow, his reflection looked pale, older.
Ring.
The sound was too loud in the sleeping neighborhood.
Ring.
He pictured it buzzing on a sterile hospital windowsill, lighting up a quiet room.
Ring.
Or abandoned on a kitchen counter, next to a half-drunk cup of tea.
Ring.
The call went to voicemail. "You've reached Sophie. Leave a message." Her voice was sunshine and concern. It made the silence afterward feel colder.
Ace frowned at the screen, his thumb hovering over the call button again, pressing down on the crack. As if willpower alone could bridge the gap, summon her voice, confirm that the world where moms picked up the phone was still the real one.
"…This isn't like her," he said, the words cutting the thick quiet.
Cedric glanced at him, a sidelong look that missed nothing.
"Your mom?"
"Yeah." Ace's brows knitted together. He didn't just hear the lack of an answer; he felt its weight. "She always picks up. Even when she's mad, she picks up just to tell me she's mad. Or she texts. A smiley face. A thumbs up. Something."
"Maybe her phone died? Or it's on silent in her bag?" Cedric offered, the logic hollow even to him.
"Maybe," Ace replied, the word flat. He let the phone drop back to his side, a dead weight. It felt heavier than his relic blade.
Cedric tilted his head, thinking aloud, piecing together the normal-world puzzle.
"Didn't you say she went to your grandparents' place this morning?"
Ace nodded, a sharp jerk of his chin.
"Yeah. My grandma fainted. They took her to St. Agnes."
"Oh shit," Cedric breathed, the hunter's cool slipping for a second. "Her heart condition, right?"
"Yeah." Ace exhaled slowly, the air leaving him like a deflating tire. "For years. It's a time bomb everyone pretends isn't ticking."
They walked a few more steps. The hum of the distant streetlight was the only sound, a low, electric thrum that seemed to vibrate in Ace's molars.
Cedric broke the silence again, his brain making connections.
"Wait—doesn't your grandma live with her sons?"
Ace let out a short, humorless laugh.
"Unfortunately."
"How many were there again? Three?"
"Three," Ace confirmed, his voice tightening. "All married. All grown. All professionally, creatively useless."
Cedric raised an eyebrow.
"Then why's your mom the one dealing with everything? She's the daughter. She lives here."
Ace stopped walking for a full, suspended second. The truth was a stone in his throat.
"Because they won't. It's that simple. They called her. Not each other to figure it out. Her. As if she's the family secretary for emergencies."
"That's… actually fucked up."
"I know," Ace said, the irritation now a live wire in his voice. "She was out the door before I could finish my cereal. They didn't even hesitate. Just dumped it on her like it was her divine responsibility."
Cedric shook his head, a slow, disgusted motion.
"That's messed up, man."
"I told her that," Ace shot back, the memory fresh and sharp. "Straight up told her it was fucked up. That they were using her."
"And?"
Ace rolled his eyes, mimicking his mother's gentle, infuriating tone.
"'They must be busy, honey. You don't know their lives.'"
Cedric snorted.
"Busy doing what? Breathing?"
"Exactly," Ace spat. "Too busy to sit with their own mother who could be dying. But not too busy to call my mom and make it her problem."
Cedric clicked his tongue against his teeth.
"Nah, that's wild. I already don't like them, and I've never met them."
Ace smirked, a real one this time.
"Good. You're not missing out."
They passed under another streetlight, and Ace's shadow stretched long and thin across the road, a distorted version of himself. He glanced down at it, then back at the dark screen of his phone. The urge to call again was a physical itch between his shoulder blades. Hunter's paranoia, he told himself. It's just the crash. The adrenaline leaving. Making ghosts out of quiet.
"You worried?" Cedric asked, his voice dropping, shedding all sarcasm.
Ace hesitated. The honest answer was a vault he rarely opened.
"…A little. It's not the hospital. It's… the quiet."
Cedric didn't tease him. Didn't joke. He just nodded, once.
"Fair."
Ace exhaled, forcing his shoulders to loosen.
"She's probably just swamped. Doctors, forms, calming down my uncles who are probably panicking about what to order for lunch."
"Yeah," Cedric said, but his eyes were scanning the dark windows of Ace's house as they approached. "Still. I get it."
They reached the iron gate to Ace's property. The house behind it was a monolith of shadow, every window a black, sightless eye. No soft glow from the kitchen, no blue flicker from the living room TV. Just a deep, swallowing silence. Ace stared at it, his hunter's mind cataloging: Front door closed. Garage shut. No unfamiliar cars. All normal. All wrong.
He turned toward the gate, his body moving on autopilot, but Cedric's hand shot out and grabbed his sleeve, not hard, but firm.
"Whoa, hold up," Cedric said, a grin spreading across his face, slicing through the tension. "You're eating with us, remember? Dumbass."
Ace blinked, pulled from his recon.
"Bro—"
"No arguments," Cedric cut in, his tone leaving no room for debate. "You're not going home to an empty house to stare at the walls and listen to your phone not ring. That's pathetic. And I don't eat with pathetic people."
Ace hesitated, the pull of the dark house a weird, magnetic dread. Then he laughed, a soft, surrendering sound.
"You don't give people choices, do you?"
"Nope," Cedric said proudly, steering him away from the gate. "It's a talent. A public service, really."
Ace glanced once more at the dark shape of his home, then slid the phone into his pocket. The silence it represented was now a physical thing he was choosing to walk away from.
"Alright," he said. "Fine."
But as he fell into step beside Cedric, the unanswered rings didn't fade. They echoed in the vault of his mind, a quiet, persistent alarm bell no one else could hear.
---
Cedric's house didn't just have lights on; it radiated. The porch light was a beacon of amber warmth, painting the wooden steps in gold. The windows were vibrant rectangles of buttery yellow, light bleeding through the curtains in welcoming, uneven lines. From within came the faint, comforting clatter of plates and the deep, resonant hum of a human voice.
Compared to the silent, waiting void of his own place, this house felt occupied. Lived-in. Safe in a way a hunter's home could never truly be, but in a way that pretended beautifully.
Ace didn't realize how hard the shell of his shoulders had clamped down until he stepped over the threshold and felt them unlock, just a fraction.
The first thing that hit him wasn't the light; it was the smell.
Steak—seared hard, rich, and smoky, swimming in a sauce of melted butter, garlic, and rosemary. It was an aroma that spoke of victory, of survival, of a meal earned. It wrapped around him like a blanket, sinking into the cold, damp places the woods had left in his clothes, his skin, his bones. His stomach gave a low, primal growl he couldn't suppress.
Beside him, Cedric inhaled deeply, his eyes closing for a second.
"Holy shit," he muttered, reverence in his voice.
Ace smirked, the knot in his gut loosening another notch.
"You smell that too, right? I thought I was hallucinating from blood loss."
"Dude, if this is a hallucination," Cedric said, heading for the kitchen, "I never want to wake up."
From the kitchen, Becca's voice floated out, steady and warm as the light.
"Hey boys. You're back."
Ace straightened instinctively, a student reporting to his commander.
"Yeah! We're here."
The sound of a pan sizzling filled the space between words—a fierce, joyful sound. Becca was at the stove in her wheelchair, positioned with battlefield efficiency close to the counter. Her sleeves were rolled up past her elbows, revealing forearms corded with old muscle and newer scars. She worked the pan with a chef's practiced flick, the food inside dancing.
She glanced over her shoulder, her eyes—sharp, hunter's eyes—scanning them in a single sweep before a smile touched her lips.
"You finish the job?"
Cedric answered as he kicked off his shoes, his voice casual but threaded with pride.
"Yeah. Made sure it won't wake up again. Not in this lifetime."
"Good," Becca said. There was relief in that one syllable, subtle but as real as the heat from the stove. "That thing had been lurking, picking off the reckless. The woods will breathe easier."
Ace nodded, then hesitated, the formality of a guest suddenly feeling strange.
"Uh—thanks for having me over. Seriously."
Becca's smile widened, crinkling the corners of her eyes.
"You don't have to thank me for feeding you, honey. It's in the Hunter's Code. Article… hell, I forget. But it's there."
Her tone was light, but it shifted seamlessly, becoming professional, alert.
"Any injuries?"
Cedric, halfway toward his room to change, paused. The casual air evaporated. He looked at Ace, a silent question passing between them. Tell her.
Ace gave a minute shake of his head. It's fine.
Cedric ignored it.
"…Yeah."
Becca's hands stilled. The pan stopped sizzling.
"Ace got hit by its horns. A charge, side-on."
The kitchen went preternaturally quiet. The hum of the refrigerator seemed to grow louder. Becca turned her wheelchair around fully, her gaze a physical weight as it scanned Ace from head to toe, assessing, diagnosing, remembering.
"How bad?" The question was a blade, clean and direct.
Ace raised his hands in a placating gesture, forcing a grin that felt tight on his face.
"It looks worse than it feels. Bruised ribs, maybe. Nothing's broken. I'm good. Promise."
Becca studied him for a long, silent second—the kind of silence that saw past words, past bravado, right down to the pain and the fear he'd locked away. She could see the faint wince he suppressed with every breath, the careful way he held his left side.
"…You'll live?" she finally asked, her voice dry.
"Unfortunately," Ace joked, the tension breaking like a snapped thread.
She huffed a soft, almost-laugh and turned her head.
"Chole."
Chole, who had been a quiet presence at the counter meticulously slicing carrots into perfect rounds, looked up. She froze for half a beat, her knife poised in mid-air, before responding. Her eyes were a little too wide.
"…Yeah?"
"Can you bandage Ace? Healing lotion too. You know where it is, right?"
A silent conversation passed between mother and daughter. Chole's gaze flickered to Ace's side, then back to her mother. She nodded, her movements suddenly precise.
"Yeah. I know where it is."
She opened a heavy wooden drawer that groaned softly on its runners. Her hands moved with a gentle certainty, pulling out rolls of clean white bandages, a dark blue glass bottle of milky healing lotion, and packets of gauze. She assembled them on a tray, the ritual calming her.
"Sit," she said to Ace, gesturing not to a chair, but to the floor in front of the worn, comfortable couch in the adjoining living room.
Ace complied without argument, lowering himself with a controlled slowness that betrayed the true depth of the ache. As he settled, he felt the injury pulse—a deep, angry throb that synced with his heartbeat. A reminder. A receipt.
Chole knelt in front of him, close enough that Ace could smell the clean scent of her soap—lemongrass and sage—and something fainter, uniquely her. She didn't look at his face at first; her focus was entirely on the tear in his shirt, the dark, ugly stain beneath.
"This might sting," she said quietly, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Figures," Ace replied, bracing himself.
Her fingers were cool and surprisingly steady as she helped him lift the edge of his shirt. The air hitting the bruised, broken skin was its own kind of pain. She poured the lotion onto a gauze pad. The scent was sharp and medicinal, cut with camphor and something earthy. As she applied it, the initial cold bite flared into a penetrating heat that seeped deep into the muscle, unraveling the tightest knots of pain. Ace clenched his jaw, a muscle ticking in his cheek, but didn't make a sound.
Chole noticed anyway. Her eyes flicked up to his for a split second.
"You don't have to act tough in here," she murmured, her attention returning to her work as she began winding the bandage with practiced, firm pressure.
Ace blinked, disarmed.
"…Wasn't trying to."
Cedric returned, having changed into soft sweatpants and an old band t-shirt. He leaned against the doorway, arms crossed, watching the scene. He didn't offer commentary, didn't joke. His presence was just that—a presence. A watchful, protective pillar.
The house felt small in that moment. Warm. Still. The only sounds were the rustle of bandages, the distant clink of Becca finishing at the stove, and the shared, quiet breath of survival.
Becca began setting the table, plates and cutlery whispering against the wood.
"Dinner's ready," she announced, her voice wrapping around them. "You boys earned it. More than earned it."
Ace leaned back slightly as Chole secured the bandage with a neat clip. The sharp pain had been smothered, replaced by a dull, glowing warmth and a comforting tightness that held him together. It was more than medical care; it was an acknowledgment. A tending.
For the first time since the woods, the gnawing, silent alarm of his phone faded to a distant buzz. And for now, in this warm, lit, occupied house, that was enough. It was okay.
---
The table was a sanctuary.
Plates steamed with steak, seared crisp on the outside, bleeding rust-red within. Roasted potatoes gleamed with oil and herbs. The air itself was rich and edible, thick with pepper, burnt butter, and life. The pendant lights above the table cast a warm, yolk-yellow glow, so intimate it felt like the house itself was leaning in, holding them in a protective bubble.
Ace sat down first, moving with the caution of someone carrying fragile, internal glass. He lowered himself into the chair, a faint hiss escaping through his teeth as his ribs protested the bend.
Cedric, sliding into the seat opposite, didn't miss it.
"Don't even try to pretend you're fine," he muttered, tearing into a roll. "You're sitting like my grandpa after his hip surgery."
Ace snorted.
"Shut up. You try getting used as a battering ram by a two-hundred-pound cryptid."
"Pass," Cedric said cheerfully. "I prefer my organs where they are, thanks."
Chole placed a heaping plate in front of Ace, then another before Cedric.
"Eat," she commanded, her tone leaving no room for debate. "Both of you. You smell like grave dirt and spent cordite."
Cedric grinned, that familiar, irreverent light back in his eyes.
"That, dear sister, is the cologne of victory. Eau de 'Not Dead.'"
She rolled her eyes but couldn't hide a small smile as she sat down.
Becca rolled herself to the head of the table, locking her wheelchair with a solid, final click. She didn't pick up her fork immediately. Instead, she looked at them—Ace, then Cedric, then back again—her gaze steady and proud.
"You two did good today," she said. Not loud. Not overflowing with emotion. Just a solid, factual truth, laid on the table like another dish.
Ace paused, his knife hovering over the steak.
"You say that like you were expecting us to screw it up royally."
Becca's smirk was all the answer he needed.
"Oh, I absolutely was."
Cedric laughed around a mouthful of potato.
"Wow. Vote of confidence. Really feeling the love."
"I'm serious," Becca continued, her smile fading into solemnity. "Your first few real hunts, solo? That's the crucible. That's where green hunters get sloppy. Or arrogant. Or…"
She let the unspoken word hang in the aromatic air for a moment before skewering a piece of meat with her fork.
"…dead. You didn't. You stayed sharp. You worked together. You finished it."
The table went quiet, the weight of the praise—and the danger it referenced—settling over them. It was more potent than any trophy.
Then Cedric, master of deflation, broke the spell.
"Okay, but can we please talk about how stupid goatmen look when they run? I swear to god, it tripped over its own hooves like a baby deer on ice."
Ace felt a real, genuine smile crack his face.
"You missed the best part. When it laughed. Right before it charged. It wasn't a scary laugh. It was this… wet, gurgling chuckle. Creepiest shit I've ever heard."
Chole grimaced, pointing her fork at them.
"Please. I am begging you. Do not talk about gurgling monster laughs while I am trying to enjoy this perfectly cooked meat."
Becca chuckled, a low, raspy sound of deep amusement.
"You think that's bad? Kid, I once tracked a mimic through the Selton sewers that cried like a human baby. A newborn."
Ace froze, his steak forgotten.
"No."
"Yes," Becca said, dead serious. "Perfect, heart-wrenching wails. Sounded so real it fooled an entire civilian search party. They were trying to find the 'poor abandoned baby' for two days."
Cedric leaned forward, captivated.
"What happened?"
Becca shrugged, taking a sip of water.
"We found its nest. We didn't hesitate. That's rule one."
Her eyes, old and knowing, slid to Ace.
"The same rule your father lived by. Hesitation is a death sentence, and it's usually someone else's."
Ace looked up, his breath catching. The casual noise of the table seemed to recede.
Becca took a slow breath, as if stepping into a memory.
"I worked a job with Neal once. Just the once."
Cedric's fork paused mid-air. Chole's movements stilled. The atmosphere shifted, grew heavier, charged with history.
"He was young," Becca continued, her gaze fixed on a point past Ace's shoulder, in the past. "Too young to be that good. Too angry to be that reckless."
A faint, grudging smile touched her lips.
"Man was a force of nature on the field. Not flashy. Not loud. Just… fast. Precise. He didn't miss. And he had a stare that could make a Wendigo think twice."
"What was he like?" Ace asked, the question leaving him in a quiet rush. Not what did he do, but what was he like. The man, not the legend.
Becca's eyes refocused on him.
"Terrifying," she said honestly. "And the most reliable partner I ever had. He was a locked door, Ace. All the intensity, all that skill, directed at one thing: the hunt. And he was impossible to stop once he'd decided something was a threat."
Ace swallowed, the food in his mouth turning to ash. He saw his father's face, not from photos, but from memory—the intense focus, the silent fury, the way he would look at a locked door as if his will alone could splinter the wood.
" He saved my life that night," Becca added, her voice softening almost imperceptibly. "It was a group hunt. We were hunting a vampire nest. Things with too many teeth. I took a bad hit to the leg. Couldn't walk. Neal… he carried me. Three miles. Through a part of the forest that was burning. Refused to put me down, refused to leave a single piece of our gear behind. Said extraction was our job, and we were damn well going to complete it."
She shook her head, the memory vivid in her eyes.
"Stubborn bastard."
Cedric glanced at Ace, seeing the storm of emotions on his friend's face—pride, pain, longing, resentment—then looked back at Becca.
"Sounds like him," he said simply, a bridge of understanding.
Ace exhaled, a long, slow breath he hadn't realized he was holding. The weight in his chest wasn't just from bruised ribs anymore. It was the weight of a ghost, both a burden and a blueprint.
The rest of dinner passed in a softer, slower rhythm. Jokes resumed, but they were quieter. Teasing about stolen food. Becca dispensing gritty, hard-worn advice between bites—"Never chase something that wants to be chased." "Trust your partner's gut as much as your own." "If it's laughing, it's either playing with you or about to eat you. Neither is good."
When the plates were clean and the comfortable silence of a shared meal had descended, Ace pushed his chair back carefully.
"I should head home," he said, the words feeling like an admission of defeat against the warmth of the Hawthorn house.
Becca nodded, her sharp eyes missing nothing.
"Get rest. Real rest. Your body needs to knit. You earned the quiet."
The quiet. The very thing he was dreading.
The walk back to his dark house was a journey through a tunnel. The warm yellow glow of Cedric's porch light at his back felt like the closing door to a sanctuary. The night air was colder now, sharper. Every faint sound—a rustle in a hedge, the creak of a distant gate—was just a sound, but his nerves, sanded raw from the hunt and soothed over dinner, were twitching again.
He unlocked his front door. The click of the deadbolt was obscenely loud in the vacuum. He stepped into the absolute black and didn't bother fumbling for a light switch. The darkness was familiar. It was his.
He dropped his jacket, let it fall where it may. Kicked off his shoes. The journey from the front door to his bedroom was made on autopilot, his body moving through the spaces of his home by memory alone.
He collapsed onto his bed, still in his bloodied, bandaged clothes, the scent of healing lotion and steak and gun smoke clinging to him. The exhaustion was a tidal wave, pulling him under.
His mind, however, flickered one last time—to the gurgling laugh of the Goatman, to the solid warmth of Becca's praise, to the phantom sound of his father's voice in a burning forest, to the persistent, deafening silence of his unanswered phone.
Then, as his head hit the pillow and the world dissolved into static, the last coherent thought was a strange, hybrid feeling: the profound loneliness of the hunter returning to an empty den, and the bone-deep gratitude for the pack that had fed him and sent him home, scarred but whole.
Sleep didn't come gently. It took him.