The night was warm and thick, spawning a darkness that blindfolded me so that Justin didn't have to. He led me by the hand, speechless, like he was keeping a secret, but I knew exactly where we were going - theoretically. Justin was not a man of many promises, but he kept the ones he made, always. And tonight was proof of that.

"Didn't you hear the warnings on the news?" I asked, treading over tree roots as carefully as one could tread without eyes.

"I did," he said pointedly.

So obviously the curfews and restrictions placed by the police were only applicable to mundanes.

"I know I stopped asking questions right when you were willing to answer them, but I didn't think you'd do this!" I told him, recalling our last conversation at school, before he drove his siblings home and Graeme and I started our walk to mine. It ended with something about the Hills and a warning, apparently, muffled under the sound of the car engine.

Justin glanced at me over his shoulder. There was this fair luminescence up ahead of us, tracing his features ever so slightly as he smiled, "Well, rejection isn't really my forte. You have questions, Leslie; I just need to remind you how badly you want to know the answers."

The blue luminescence intensified, lighting our path from somewhere deeper and pulling us into the woods - into the Hills. Soon, we reached an expanse of grass and underbrush, mint-green beneath the light's cool touch, and the source of the light itself became entirely visible: a waterfall.

I glimpsed at Justin and, even though I was sure he had been here before, he was as wrapped in awe as I was. A whole world had opened up to us, and for a brief and beautiful moment, it felt as if it was all ours.

"Come on," Justin urged me along with his bright excitement, until the riverbank was just one step away, and we removed our shoes.

I watched our reflections in the crystalline water, watched our smiles widen to grins, before Justin dropped his backpack and then his shirt on the grass. What happened next was something I should have seen coming, but didn't. First, I was slow, and then I was wet - no, drenched.

"You little turd!" I called with a laugh, splashing water onto his shins as he towered over me.

He then proceeded to jump cannonball style into the water and I was suddenly wetter than wet, which should not have been possible. My hair was hanging afore my eyes like willow branches; I only saw again when Justin swam closer and tucked my hairs behind my ears. As he cupped my face, looking at me the way he did, I couldn't help but think: this is us happy.

"What do you think?" he asked, his voice whispering with the waterfall. He had this expression in his eyes that was so sincere, thoughtful. It chilled me.

"I, uhm," I tripped over my thoughts as they grew into words. "I-it's all... very beautiful." I was scared to admit it; that he was right, that I could feel the furnace of my curious mind catching fire, burning with questions. I thought this was exactly what I had prepared for, but it seemed like the more Justin was willing to open up, the less I was prepared to hear. Or maybe I had been deluding myself from the start. I wasn't ready for any of this; maybe I never was.

That was when I felt his arms around me. He'd never felt so warm.

"Don't be scared."

"I-" I paused. The closed door was in front of me; I finally had the key, all I had to do was turn it. "I'm only scared that whatever you tell me will change us."

He ran a hand through the front of his hair, stopping midway to scratch his head, and sighed, "I can't tell you that it won't. We don't know what will happen, but, there's only one way to find out. It's like Graeme said: I have to be honest."

I broke eye contact in a hurry, "Oh, you got that."

Of course he had, it was obvious, it was exactly what Graeme had meant to imply in class that day. But how much, I wondered, did Graeme know? What did he expect Justin to be honest about?

"What did he mean by that anyway?" he queried - my thoughts were his thoughts. "Did you tell him -?"

"No," I said swiftly. "Did you?"

Justin shook his head, "Weird."

He had no idea; Graeme had been all kinds of weird that day. For the first time since he was attacked, he walked me to my house and then went straight home. He always waited for his dad, to avoid the risks of another encounter with the paranormal, but suddenly that didn't matter. Did he think Justin was a vampire, or was it something else entirely?

I replied, "You're telling me. What are you doing?"

My eyes followed him as he went underwater, swam behind me. A supernatural light shone through the darkness of the river, and I knew by its golden hue that it belonged to him. Suddenly, Justin held my legs and pushed up from the water, sitting me on his shoulders. I was trying not to scream - out of some horrible consideration that perhaps, perhaps, there really were bears in these woods - so I listened to Justin's laugh instead.

"You need to loosen up," he told me. "No more talk about Graeme or anyone, okay? Just you and me."

I looked down into his eyes and nodded, "Okay."

Equanimity.

Deeper into the night, we found ourselves lying on the grass beside the river after the water had gotten a bit too cold. It turned out that Justin's hulk of a backpack was stuffed with warm clothes for the both of us to change into, as well as provisions. I was in his arms, dressed in his clothes, and eating one of the best sandwiches ever made when I realised how much this felt more like a date than anything else. And so, I asked my first question.

"Okay, so I know you have super strength, reflexes and endurance - that's partly why you're so good at rugby. Do you heal?" When Justin nodded, I plucked a jagged stone from the ground. "May I see?"

"Y-yes," he said softly, allowing me to hold his hand and roll up his sleeve. I took the rock and began to make the slightest incision on the side of his forearm, causing him to bite his lip, to brace for the pain. And before a single drop of blood could fall onto the grass, the cut disappeared completely, as if I hadn't even touched him.

"Magical, isn't it?" he uttered once it became obvious that I was at a loss for words. Imagining such a phenomenon was one thing, witnessing it was something on a whole other level.

"You are," I said simply, and then the realisation kicked in that I had just cut my boyfriend with a stone, and I dropped it immediately. "I'm sorry!"

"It's okay," chuckled Justin, but I knew it had to hurt, so I was not at all reassured. "Ask me something else," he insisted.

I breathed, "What you did in the water just now, with your eyes... night vision?"

"Yup; my wolf eyes can see in the dark and over long distances. One of my favourite perks," he smiled.

I reciprocated to his smile with my own and decided on my next question. "Are you fast?"

Justin's smile broadened, and in his eyes was that excitement again - a golden exuberance. He leapt to his feet and put some metres between us, until I lost him to the dark and the trees. It was not long before I heard a low growl and was pulled towards him by his lantern eyes, but when I reached that spot, I lost him again.

At that moment, I heard him growl again, and when I looked up, I saw the silhouette of a wolf perched on a high branch in a nearby tree. Admittedly, I was impressed. I expected him to return to the ground in the same way he'd gotten up there, but his way down was much faster: he jumped. Suddenly, I was standing eye-to-eye with this colossal creature - fanged and clawed and dangerous - but somehow, this time, I was not scared. I was incapable of fearing him.

Slowly, I put my hand out towards Justin, towards the fur behind his ear, but our peace was inconsiderately interrupted. A rustling sound - footsteps maybe - emanated from the woods and Justin reverted back into his human form. I was dead quiet, until I happened to notice something notable.

"My love, your clothes," I murmured.

Reflexively, his hand pressed its palm against my mouth, and he listened some more. When it went quiet, Justin told me to stay where I was and ducked into the shadows, I presumed, to find his clothes. Unless, he planned on finding the source of that sound.

It could not be known for sure how long he was gone for, but it was long enough that I started to feel uneasy and alone in the hollow night. The waterfall continued to whisper, like it wanted to calm me down, and it almost worked, until something big landed upon my shoulder.

A hand? I thought, Justin?

"What do you think you're doing here?"

It was not Justin.