Eventually, Kody turned and left the fire-ravaged home behind. It was dark now, but he could see. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in a window below a streetlight, and of the catlike shine that the light put in his eyes. He picked up his pace, moving back into the darkness.

Suddenly, something caught his attention--a rustling from some bushes. There was a commotion from within them, and a small brown rabbit bolted out from under the hedge. It ran into the street, paused for a moment, then turned and dashed straight towards Kody.

"What the...?" Kody said as the creature stopped just behind him. Suddenly, there was another rustle, and out of the bushes stepped a large cat with tufted ears. "Bobcat?" Kody thought, eyeing the animal curiously. Suddenly, something occurred to him. He recognized this cat. And more than that: He was pretty sure it wasn't really a cat.

"You again," Kody stated. "What do you want?"

The feline stared at him, then lowered its head, growling menacingly. Feeling a brush against his leg, Kody looked behind him. The rabbit had pressed itself against him, shaking. It looked up at him with wide, pleading eyes, and suddenly Kody got the feeling that it wasn’t really a rabbit, either. He nodded in understanding, and turned back to the bobcat. “You can’t have him,” he said simply, and the cat’s glower deepened. “Look, whoever you are, forget it. Go home. Or at least go to the woods, pretend you’re a real bobcat, and catch a real rabbit.”

The cat abruptly stopping growling, raised its head, and took a step back, appearing confused.

“Yeah,” Kody said, “I know what you are. And I bet you can figure out what I am, too. You can’t have the rabbit. Get out of here.”

The cat stared at him for a moment, then bared its teeth and let out an irritated hiss before turning and leaping back into the bushes.

Kody waited a minute for it to leave, then turned to the rabbit. “Alright buddy, you’re good. You can go home now.”

The rabbit looked at him, glanced nervously at the bushes, and then turned back to Kody, gazing hopefully up at him.

He frowned. “What, can’t you just go somewhere and…change back, or whatever?”

The rabbit shook its head, which Kody had to admit looked strange, but at least confirmed that this was, indeed, a person he was talking to, not just a rabbit.

“Not tonight, huh?” Kody said, then sighed. “Alright. Where do you live?”

The rabbit began hopping down the sidewalk, then looked back, waiting for him to follow. Kody did so, and soon enough was walking side-by-side with the little cottontail rabbit down the street. He was very glad it was dark and no one was out to see this Cinderella-esque bit of absurdity.

As they moved down the street, Kody began speaking to his fuzzy companion. "So, are there a lot of you guys around here?"

The rabbit shook its head.

"Huh. There were actually plenty where I'm from. We had this whole family of rabbits living in this big house down the road. And there were a lot of foxes around. They had a bit of a rivalry going on. But I have to admit, this is the first time I've seen a bobcat."

The rabbit nodded, continuing on its way.

"So what beef did he have with you? Just some predator-prey thing?"

The rabbit made a movement that Kody took to be a shrug.

"No idea, huh?" Kody said. "Hm. Oh well."

After a few more minutes of walking, the rabbit took a turn onto the beginning of a hill that led up into a housing plan.

"You live up there?" Kody asked, and the rabbit nodded. "Alright. This is far enough, then?" Another nod. "Okay. I suppose I'll probably see you around. You owe me one." The bunny nodded vigorously. "Cool, later then," Kody said, beginning to walk away. When he looked back, the rabbit was gone.

He smiled to himself, shaking his head, as he walked back to his apartment. Therians, in general, were interesting. Wererabbits? They were just funny. He hoped he ran into that bunny in human form sometime. Suddenly, he stopped walking, remembering something. Rabbit and bobcat. Bunny and kitten. Was that...?

He frowned, then shook his head. No, that couldn't be right.

...Could it?

He couldn’t be entirely sure, but Kody had a strange feeling that he knew the two creatures he'd met that night better than he'd originally thought.

~~~~~~~~~~

Mitchell fell back onto his bed with an irritated sigh, making it creak loudly. He cursed the stupid old thing, which matched every other stupid old half-broken thing in his house. He made a mental note to get a job or something now that he was sixteen and someone might actually hire him. Maybe. Actually, he was pretty sure no one would. No one wanted a punk kid like him as an employee.

He glanced at his clock, where the hour number was flickering feebly. It was nearing 4 AM. Immediately, he decided he wasn't going to school to tomorrow.

Rolling over, he gritted his teeth as he thought of the night's failed hunt. That stupid blonde senior kid had gotten in his way--again. Stolen his prey. Where had he gotten off doing that? And what exactly was he, anyway? He'd said Mitch should be able to figure it out. He racked his brain, trying to come up with creatures the boy could be. He was pretty sure he wasn't a therian; he didn't smell like any animal Mitch knew. So what did that leave? He thought back a few hours, trying to remember the blonde boy's actions, his words, his scent. He had smelled like...that was it. He'd smelled like blood.

Vampire, Mitch thought. He's a vampire.

~~~~~~~~~~~

There were few things more irritating than waking up before one needed to, Kat thought as she laid in bed, staring at her ceiling. It was 4:26 AM, her bedside clock told her. She had no idea why she was awake; up until half an hour ago she'd been sleeping soundly. But, having to get up for school at 5:30 meant that the chances of her going back to sleep and waking up rested later were slim anyway, so it didn't really matter if she stayed up now. The only issue was her lack of anything to do. She thought maybe she should read a book or go over something for school, but didn't think she was quite awake enough for that. So, she resigned to sit there and think.

She had to admit, she had surprisingly little to think about. She spent all day thinking about school. It wasn't like she had a relationship to be concerned with. She didn't really have family problems. Finally, her thoughts settled on the somewhat intriguing topic of her odd new friends.

Up until recently, she'd really only had Aria, and while they were certainly best friends, both of their busy schedules kept them from seeing each other as much as they’d like.

Then, of course, Kody had wandered into her biology class. Even after spending almost two months hanging around the boy on a regular basis, she still didn't really understand him. Aside from being a general oddball, the kid definitely had secrets. In fact, she really knew very little about him outside of the fact that he hailed from West Virginia. She had no idea how or why he'd ended up in Ariesville, and he seemed to rather carefully avoid the topic of his family. As a matter of fact, she didn't even know where he lived now, outside of the fact that it was somewhere on her bus route. She got off first, though, so she never got to see his stop.

Kody aside, there was Marten, and now, Raina, who had both popped into her life rather suddenly.

Marten, of course, had been Kody's doing. She wasn't sure if he was honestly that good-natured, to step between the younger boy and Mitch, or if he’d just wanted more friends. Somehow the second option didn't seem right, so Kat figured that Kody had just wanted to play hero. Regardless, Marten seemed like a good kid, despite his infuriating intellect. There was something a little odd about him too, though. Kat couldn't put her finger on it; maybe it was just the whole genius deal, but something about the boy seemed just a little bit off. Like he wasn't entirely what he seemed. He wasn't the only one, either. In the short time she'd known Raina, she'd discovered that she had the very same feeling concerning her. Granted, that may have had something to do with the girl's somewhat out of place cowgirl schtick, but maybe not.

What was it with all of these new people? Was she just not used to them yet, or were they legitimately unusual somehow?

She didn't know. And when being perfectly honest with herself, she wasn't sure she wanted to.