Chapter 1 — THE DOGS OF BLACKMOON CITY AREN'T RIGHT (2)

She hits a wall. A warm, solid, annoyingly hard wall. A heartbeat hammers through the fabric, louder than the truck horn, heavier than the engine.

Luna looks up.

The man is a head taller than her. Black hair. A face like someone drew it with a knife — sharp cheekbones, sharp jaw, sharp everything. All black clothes, all black everything. The temperature within three feet of him drops by a noticeable margin, and Luna's three suit-giants, who have been orbiting her all day like excited planets, go pale. Rigid. They part for him the way deer part for a wolf.

He looks at her. Two full seconds. No blinking. His throat moves once, like he swallowed something heavy. Then he lets go of her, steps back, and his voice comes out low and rough, like he doesn't use it much.

"...As long as you're okay."

Before she can process that, he reaches inside his jacket and pulls out a folded black jacket — his own — and holds it out.

"Put this on. It's windy."

"It's May."

"Windy." He says it the way you'd announce a law.

Luna takes the jacket. It's warm from his body heat, which is its own kind of weird. She opens her mouth to say thanks, and he's already walking away.

Fifty meters out, he stops at the curb. Doesn't move. Doesn't look back. Just stands there, black against the fading light, like a period at the end of a sentence.

Luna waits. Then, experimentally, she walks forward. He moves, matching her pace exactly, fifty meters behind her. She stops. He stops. She turns around. He is suddenly very interested in a streetlight.

Luna decides to run a field test. She walks faster. He matches her pace exactly, fifty meters behind. She ducks into the campus bookstore; he stops outside the window, hands clasped behind his back, standing guard over the door like a man guarding a vault. She buys a pack of gum, walks out, walks past him without looking, and makes a sudden hard left into the coffee line — he is still fifty meters behind her, unmoved, unbothered, and now holding a paper cup he definitely did not buy.

"Okay," Luna says to herself. "Surveillance, professional grade. Confirmed."

She gives up trying to lose him and walks straight at him instead.

Luna's commentary issues a formal diagnosis: Certified stalker. Professional grade. This is not my first rodeo and it's still impressive.

She walks back to him, plants herself, and smiles her polite smile. "Sir. Quick question. Are you one of those guys from the movies who saves a girl once and decides she owes him forever?"

He looks at her for so long Luna starts to wonder if he actually speaks English. Two students openly stop to watch.

"No," he says. "I owe you."

Luna's smile stalls.

"...Owe me what?"

He doesn't answer. Instead, he looks down at her wrist. Luna follows his gaze: on the inside of her left wrist, there's a pale, curved silver mark. Like a tiny crescent moon. She is certain it wasn't there this morning.

"What is that?"

"You should get back to your dorm." His voice is quiet. "Fourteen days."

"Fourteen days until what?"

He turns to leave. Luna steps after him, not sure why she's doing it. "At least tell me your name."

"Kane Voss."

"Kane Voss." She tries it on, like a coat that doesn't fit. "Okay, Kane Voss. Then you remember this: I don't owe anyone anything. Not even you."

He stops. He doesn't turn around. But his voice carries back, barely: "I know."

Then he walks into the shadow of the alley. The streetlight catches his shoulder for half a second — and Luna swears. Swears on everything. She sees gold flicker through his eyes, like a light turning on behind a window, and then it's gone.

11:00 PM. Luna is at her third-floor windowsill, chin on her hands, watching Kane Voss stand under the streetlight outside her dorm. He hasn't moved in two hours. He's like a statue that picked a very weird place to be a statue. His head is tilted up, gaze fixed dead on her window, like he's keeping an appointment.

She pulls the curtain and holds the black jacket he gave her. It smells like cedar and moonlight — she can't describe it better than that; clean and cold and a little bit lonely, like a house no one lives in.

Outside, something whines. One soft, cut-off sound. Then silence.

Luna doesn't sleep right away. She cracks the curtain one last time, just to confirm the stalker has finally gone home and this day can officially end.

What she sees makes the back of her neck go cold.

Under the streetlight, beside Kane Voss, there are now five or six stray dogs. Different breeds — a husky, a lab, a golden, something that might be a poodle if it had tried harder. They're sitting in a perfect row, heads up, all of them staring at her lit window with the same amber eyes, like a squad of trained sentinels.

Kane doesn't turn around. He lifts one hand and presses it down, slow, almost gentle.

The dogs drop flat. Silent. Like they were never there.

The husky — the biggest one — is the last to lie down. For one second it looks up at her window with something almost like concern, and then it flattens itself against the pavement like a pancake, ears flat, breathing shallow.

Luna realizes she's been holding her breath.

Luna lets the curtain fall and stands in the dark, heart going like a jackhammer, finally fitting today's pieces together: the three suit-giants fighting over her suitcase. The dean crying at registration. The nurse's stiff nod. The coffee pilgrim. The stalker under the light. The dogs.

They all looked at her the same way.

Like dogs look at something they're not allowed to touch.

And Kane Voss is the only one standing outside the pack.

She lies down and holds up her wrist, studying the crescent mark for a long, long time. It's faint, but it's there. Silver on pale skin, like someone left a thumbprint of moonlight on her.

Blackmoon University. Day one. Conclusion, filed and stamped: the people in this city are wrong. The dogs are wrong. And if she had to bet, Luna Hayes would put her money on the dogs being the least wrong thing about this city.

Note to self: buy pepper spray. Also maybe a bigger backpack.