Ethan led me through a side corridor, past a set of double doors, then out into the cold air behind the school, where the noise dulled and the world felt wider, less suffocating.

The back lot was gravel, mud, and dead grass. Thin trees edged the property before the forest thickened beyond. The clouds overhead hung low and gray.

Ethan walked toward the tree line without hesitation.

My feet slowed. My father's warning echoed again. No woods. No Ethan.

"Ethan," I called, and my voice came out smaller than I wanted. "Where are we going?"

He glanced back over his shoulder. "Somewhere we can talk in peace."

"That's the woods," I said, stupidly obvious. "I can't go there."

Ethan's eyes searched my face. He didn't scoff, but he didn't soften either.

"We're not going deep," he said. "You have nothing to worry about."

I swallowed, staring at the tree line.

He started walking again.

I moved, but instead of staying beside him, I sped up, passing him by a couple of steps.

I didn't know what I expected, maybe that it would annoy him, maybe nothing, but I certainly hadn't expected what happened next.

The air behind me stilled and pressed, like it does one second before lightning strikes. Involuntarily, my step faltered. Ethan was suddenly beside me again, not quite touching, yet close enough that I could feel his warmth through my jacket sleeve.

"Don't," he said, low. Sharp. Final.

"Don't what?" I snapped, still moving.

"Don't rush ahead of me." My skin prickled. It wasn't a command. It was a warning.

His jaw flexed once. "Stay beside me."

"You're unbelievable," I muttered.

His eyes held mine, mouth downturned in something that resembled frustration. "You don't understand what you're doing," he said, voice faltering. I'd never heard his voice falter before.

"What?"

His jaw clenched. "Taunting." His breath deepened. "Don't do that. Never turn your back on us and run. Never. Do you understand?"

I just stood there. "No. No, I don't understand, because you're speaking in freaking riddles again."

He let out a slow, controlled, weary breath, like I was some tiresome toddler and not nearly an adult. "Just don't do it, okay?"

I didn't respond.

He nodded toward a small clearing, just a patch of dead leaves and flattened grass. "There."

We stepped into the clearing together. Then once again he looked at me, and this time his focus landed fully, like dozens of hands all over my skin.

He took one step closer. Then another.

His pupils were wide, swallowing his iris until all I saw was black, surrounded by thin rims of amber. His nostrils flared once, then stilled. The sensation of being watched, not just watched but seen, turned physical, electric along my arms and throat.

I stepped back.

For half a second, a low sound rolled through him, something quieter and deeper than a growl, like a hum vibrating in the cold air and raising the fine hairs on my arms.

It lasted only a heartbeat.

Then his jaw clenched and the sound stopped, like he had cut it off mid-breath. For a moment he looked startled. His eyes widened with sudden awareness, like he had pulled himself back from the precipice of something.

I forced my throat to work. "You said you'd explain," I said quickly. "You promised."

Ethan blinked once, slow. For the first time, he looked faintly disturbed by his own reaction. He took a single step back, yet the movement looked reluctant, like he was forcing himself to do it.

"What happened?" he asked again, sounding like he was trying to keep his voice steady and failing.

"I ask questions first," I said, barely keeping my voice from faltering. "What is a claim? What is bloodkin?"

He went very, very still. The breeze ruffled his hair, and it looked like it was ruffling a wig on a statue. Not an eyelash moved.

"Where did you hear those words?" The tone of his voice was eerily calm.

I stuck out my chin. "I'll tell you after you give me the answer."

His posture tensed by a fraction. He watched me for several moments, and finally, just as I thought he would evade again, he said, "Claim is a Cold Creek thing," and there was bitterness in the words. "It's something that happened. Not because I wanted it, but because I had to." He paused. "Because it was, at that point in time, necessary."

"You mean that day in the courtyard."

"Yes."

I still didn't understand. "But all you did was walk up to me and say hi," I said, incredulous. "I don't see how it counts as anything."

A muscle in his jaw twitched. "It counts," he said, like he was dropping a weight. "In Cold Creek, it counts."

"I don't understand." I frowned.

The intensity in his gaze flared, then he closed his eyes, took a labored breath, and opened them on the exhale, intensity subdued.

"Look, you shouldn't concern yourself with it. What I did was on me only," he said carefully. "You have nothing to do with it."

The statement made no sense with the way my life had warped around his presence.

"Then why did those girls corner me yesterday?" I asked, voice shaking now with exhaustion. "Why did they say I made you do it?"

His calm hardened into ice. A twig snapped under his foot.

"Which girls?"

Ever since yesterday and that dreadful bathroom incident, I felt like I was walking around with a noose around my neck. I needed to tell someone. Anyone.

So I told him.

I told him about Irene, Tess, Lara. About the way they boxed me in, the way Lara said Ethan was hers, the word claim spat like acid, bloodkin thrown like an insult. About "last chance" whispered like pity.

As I spoke, Ethan changed in shades. The last traces of ease drained from him. Neutrality hardened. Calm turned heavy, settling into place like stone.

When I finished, the forest was empty of sound.

For a long moment, he didn't speak.

"The blonde," he said finally. "Lara."

"Yes." My hands wouldn't stop sweating, and I wiped my palms against my jeans. "Who is she to you?"

"A situation," he replied.

"That's not an answer," I said. "She said you two had some sort of arranged marriage setup. Like it's the Middle Ages or something."

His jaw flexed. "I know it might sound weird to you, but it's also a Cold Creek thing." He paused. "There was an agreement. Between families."

"And?" I pressed.

"And it isn't set in stone," he said, controlled, clipped, then stopped, like he had reached a limit.

I stared at him. "Why?"

His gaze locked onto mine, sharp. He had said too much, and he knew it.

"It isn't final," he said, choosing words carefully, "unless a bond forms."

My eyebrows drew together. "A bond?"

His nostrils flared once. He looked like he hated the word.

Then, too quickly, too artificially, he added, "It's a… colloquialism. Like if we fall in love."

The phrase sounded wrong in his mouth, badly translated, like he was forcing the word into a language it didn't fit, and did so with obvious distaste.

"So you don't love her," I said, and the question slipped out before I could stop it. Immediately, I wanted to bite my tongue. This was way over the line.

Ethan's gaze sharpened, upper lip curling. For a moment he looked almost offended. "Love has nothing to do with it. It's more complicated than that."

"Then what is it about?" I asked, quieter now, because the answer felt like it might be something I couldn't unhear.

Ethan didn't answer. He looked past me toward the school, as if checking distance, as if tracking movement I couldn't see.

Then his eyes returned to mine, and there was a hard, protective edge to him that felt dangerous in the same breath.

"Stop keeping your eyes down," he said.

I blinked. "What?"

"It makes you look…" He searched for words. "Not good. So don't do it anymore."

"But Lara said—"

"Lara doesn't give a shit whether you live or die!" he snapped, then caught himself immediately, breathing hard, looking like he couldn't believe he let himself slip like that.

I took a step back. "And you do?" I couldn't hide the tremor in my voice.

He hesitated just a moment too long before his eyes narrowed, jaw set. "I care that this town doesn't dissolve into chaos."

"You're not making any sense."

"I'm not supposed to."

"God, you're infuriating. This whole situation is infuriating!" I grasped my head between my palms, feeling a headache form.

He remained silent, fists clenched at his sides.

"Then at least tell me this," I pressed after a pause. "Her friend called me bloodkin. What does that mean?"

He held my gaze like it cost him something. "Bloodkin is you," he said simply.

The words hit hard. "No. That's not an answer. Is it some kind of local insult or something?"

His mouth twitched, almost a smile, but it looked strained, unhappy. "You want me to give you something I'm not allowed to give."

"Not allowed," I echoed, anger flaring again. "You're a teenager, Ethan, not a freaking spy."

His eyes flashed. "You mistake age for authority."

I stared at him.

Then he exhaled, controlled. "You want answers? Ask your family," he said. "Ask the Blackwells. They hold the reins of your knowledge, not me, not Nell. Them."

"My family refuses to tell me anything."

"That's the agreement," he said, like the words tasted sour.

"What agreement?"

"With my father."

The way he said it sounded like law.

"You talk like his word is unbreakable."

"When it's my father," Ethan replied, "it is."

I turned away. "You didn't have to drag me out here for that. You could've told me in the hallway."

"I told you everything I could. If you're going to be angry," he said, "at least be angry at the right people."

He stepped aside at last, letting me pass, but his gaze stayed on me like a tether.

"Go," he said. "Back to the school. And if anyone corners you again, you raise your voice. Yell. Call Nell's name. Or mine. We'll hear you. Apart from us and your family, you don't let anyone, and I mean anyone, be with you alone. Understand?"

My throat was so dry I almost coughed. "Okay."

"And, Kelsey," he called, looking away. "Don't run."

His voice was soft, almost regretful, but something in that sentence still turned my blood cold, like running meant something different to him.

The thought was ridiculous, and yet…

I walked back toward the school, steps slow and steady, toward noise and people and rules I could pretend were normal.

As the building came back into view, one thought settled in my bones with quiet certainty. Ethan was right. The only people who could give me answers were my family. And since they refused to do so, that meant only one thing.

I'd have to find out for myself.

And as I stepped back toward the school, a feeling touched the back of my skull, the kind you get when you know you're being watched.

I didn't turn around.

I just kept walking.

Slowly.

Like he told me.