Page 13 of Hunted

‘What would you call yourself,’ she asks, ‘if you weren’t afraid?’

The question sits in my chest like something fragile and dangerous. I think of cold. Of clarity. Of distance.

‘Eira,’ I say slowly.

She hums. ‘Snow.’

I shake my head. ‘I want… need to be untouchable,’ I reply.

She hums again. ‘Yes. Then you must become something that does not melt easily. Now, show me what you’re hiding in that coat.’

My heart thuds with a thousand screaming warnings as I hand over Mother’s emerald necklace.

Selphine reaches for it, her eyes gleaming, and immediately the screams grow muted.

‘Tomorrow, we will get started.’

The first scent-masking ritual burns my insides for what feels like days.

It’s crude and vile compared to what she will eventually craft for me, although the evolution isn’t much better over the years. Oils pressed into skin sliced open with tiny paper cuts. Herbs steeped and swallowed. A charm sewn into the lining of my bra.

‘This won’t erase him entirely, but it will mute the trace. For now.’

It’s enough.

I stay in New Orleans because it’s a crossroads. Because Selphine tells me powerful creatures pass through here and learn to look past one another unless challenged.

And because if I’m going to survive, I need to learn their rules.

I sell one of my mother’s bracelets to fund my first month and a better set of knives. I cry afterwards for the second time, quietly and alone.

Then I make a vow to stop.

I begin training with anyone who’ll teach me self-defence against man and monster. I learn to throw a knife, break a wrist and bury my flinches until they become background noise. I learn fear can be harnessed if you face it, name it and cut it down into pieces small enough to swallow.

Selphine tracks my progress without praise.

‘You think you’re becoming harder,’ she says one night as I wrap my bruised knuckles. ‘You’re not. You’re becoming sharper.’

‘Isn’t that better?’ I ask.

‘No,’ she snaps. ‘But it’s necessary.’

By the end of the year, I stop flinching at every shadow. Only the ones that deserve it.

Lyra Hannigan fades slowly, erased beneath something leaner and more deliberate.

On my twentieth birthday, I join the Revenant Agency.

There are no candles this time either. No off-key songs or promises of a coddled future.

Just a stark grey room and a stern man who points to the line on the piece of paper.

‘Sign there.’

When I sign my first contract, my hand doesn’t shake. There are no tears as I watch the ink dry on the name I’ve taken for myself.

Eira Cross.