PROLOGUE:
MOTION SICKNESS
(trigger warning: blood and death)

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JIA WAS HAVING THE worst time imaginable and the night had only just begun. The music was thumping away in an erratic rhythm, echoing in Jia's ears like a drunken child was attempting to play the drums. Kids from both La Push and Forks had shoved their way into the already crowded house, most of them looking way too young to be the graduating cohorts of the two local schools. Granted, Jia herself was an outsider. Technically, she'd already graduated... in California, and was really only there for her best friend. Her friend who just so happened to have ditched her for his cousin the second Jia arrived.

That bitch. Jia cursed him out in her head as yet another kid, who couldn't have been older than fifteen at the most, obliviously elbowed her on their way into the kitchen.
Scowling, Jia threw her head back and downed the last of the drink she'd grabbed on arrival. The liquid, quite clearly spiked, shot a buzzing sensation through her veins, numbing that pounding in her head into a tolerable ache.

She found Finley in the crowd again, this time on the opposite end of the room, and nodded towards the kitchen. When she returned, a new cup in hand, he was chatting with a girl Jia only vaguely recognised, and so Jia boredly took to the impromptu dance floor the Cullen family had created in their living room. Each sip of alcohol was like lead, her head spinning, body following the sensation until she almost upended her drink onto the fluffy white carpet.

Oh, well. More fool the Cullens for not putting down a sheet or something.

"Fin!" Jia shouted, and much to her surprise, Finley's eyes almost immediately darted towards her. Grinning, she began to sway from side-to-side in what she liked to call the Wine-Mum Shuffle. "I love this song!"

Finley chuckled and excused himself from his conversation. He had to fight his way to where Jia was twirling like a ballerina, his hands instinctively reaching out to snatch her cup away from her. Jia pouted at his bemused expression, still swaying like her feet had a mind of their own.

"I leave you alone for five minutes and you track down the booze. I should've known."

"Five minutes?" Jia glanced down at her wrist as if to check the time on an invisible watch. "Try, like, five hours maybe. I'm bored out of my mind here."

In actuality, Jia had only arrived in La Push about an hour before the party started. The first thing she did was dump her things at home, ditch her car and hitch a ride with Fin before her mum and step-dad even realised someone had been in the house. But that was how Jia preferred it. Coming and going like a ghost; California was her home, the world at her feet, and as much as she loved Fin and would follow him anywhere if he needed her, the suffocating confines of Washington had already started to overwhelm her.

Jia Littlesea liked to live. Back home, everyone called Finley Swan the calm to her storm, the yin to her yang, the unlikeliest of friends whose bond had somehow resisted even the tribulations of distance. A few months ago, Fin's mothers had moved to be closer to his uncle and cousin, who just so happened to live in the town that neighboured Jia's childhood home. Jia had moved to California for school when she was sixteen and hadn't look back since.

In that sense, it was... strange to return to her old roots, though Jia honestly wasn't too sure how long she'd stick around for. She was always moving, disappearing; like water slipping through fingertips, she was impossible to hold down.

Finley held her drink high above her head as he said, "The gang are heading into Seattle to continue the party. You wanna come?"

By gang, Jia presumed he meant the friends he'd made in her absence. There were three of them, as far as she was aware, two boys and a girl. Jia could barely remember their names, she just knew the girl was hot and seemed to think the same about Jia.

Jia didn't hesitate to nod, her eyes widening eagerly. "Sounds fun. You're driving."

"Of course I am," Finley sighed. "Not like this is my graduation we're celebrating..."

Jia raised an eyebrow at him, inebriated but not entirely drunk. She stretched her hand out, palm facing upward, "I mean, I can drive if you don't want to. Just gimme the keys."

"You know what? Now that I think about it, I really don't mind being DD..."

Jia grinned, as if to say 'that's what I thought.' Even when sober, she was notorious for her shit driving skills, having failed her test three times before miraculously scraping a pass. More than once, Fin had been victim to near death experiences because of Jia, and he dreaded to think what would happen if she was to get behind the wheel while intoxicated.

Jia latched onto his hand with hers, half-dragging him towards the door where she nearly tripped and face-planted on the stairs. Finley caught her just in time, yanking her giggling body up with his arms hooked beneath her armpits. This only made Jia laugh more; with a sigh, he led her down the stairs to a nearby bench, texting someone with one hand while he steadied Jia almost instinctively with the other.

"You know, we don't have to go if you're not up for it," he told her, suddenly not sure if travelling all the way to Seattle and back was the best idea.

Jia frowned and once again jutted out her lower lip. "But I want to."

Finley almost immediately caved, mumbling something about the others meeting them there before the two of them stumbled down the drive to where Fin had left his car. Once inside, Jia rolled down the windows and reached for the aux cord, conveniently ignoring Finley's grumbles about having to listen to Metallica for three hours.

"We made a pact," Jia shouted and wrestled the phone from his hands. Sounding like a petulant toddler, she growled, "Fin, I will throw myself out of the car in a second."

Not doubting how stubborn she could be, he sighed and resigned himself to a few more hours of suffering. When she wasn't looking, he dialled down the volume bit-by-bit, not that Jia seemed to notice or care with her head resting against the door. Outside, the trees soared past in blurs of green, their towering branches disappearing into the inky black shadows of the sky. Only the slightest sliver of moonlight bathed the streets that night, leaving them to drive in a near state of darkness only somewhat broken by the glare of their headlights.

For just a moment, the world seemed to go quiet.

Jia let her eyes slip shut.

A second later, the breaks squealed and a loud thump echoed off the hood.

"FUCK—"

"What was that?"

"No, no, no—"

"Fin, did you hit something?"

"I don't know!"

Fin pushed his door open and scrambled out onto the middle of the road. Whatever buzz that had lingered in Jia's veins from the party was now gone, replaced by a strange icy feeling of dread. The air was cold that night, but the shiver that went up her spine was not from the weather.

Someone was watching them. Jia wasn't sure how she knew it but in that moment, as Finley paused in front of the car and stared wide-eyed into the woods, Jia knew deep down that something horrible was about to happen.

"Jia, start the car," Finley called, sounding... scared and confused, like he wasn't sure what he'd seen, just that it meant nothing good for them. "Jia? Where are you? Fuck!"

Jia's brows furrowed. She glanced down at the seatbelt still strapped around her torso.

Where are you?

"Jia!" Finley flung the passenger door open, glancing in the back before cursing, trembling fingers tugging at his hair. He seemed to stare right through her as he reached for his phone, pressing down on her contact. Her phone lit up from the console with a picture of his face, a Beatles song buzzing through the speakers, the aux yet to be disconnected.

"Finley!" Jia found her voice, unclicking the seatbelt as he ran off towards the woods. Her voice seemed to echo everywhere. In the cold, silent night; in the tight space of the car as she pushed open the door, in her own head as the boy in question paused to look back at the door, an expression of terror settling across the features. "Fin? What's going on?"

The blur was so fast Jia almost didn't see it. The animal tackled Finley faster than she could blink, separating from the shadows like it was part of the darkness. Jia heard a scream, her own, tear through her lungs as she sprinted to where Finley had begun to struggle against the figure. She hadn't realised how far Fin had ran. She didn't get there quick enough.

Blood. Blood was everywhere. Streaming down Fin's neck, tangled in his hair, streaked across his shirt, in that expression of fear that had never went away. The animal looming above him wasn't an animal at all. It was a boy. A boy with eyes the colour of Fin's blood, who bared pristine white teeth that left a crescent-mooned shape on the soft skin of Fin's wrist. Finley, who Jia had sworn for a second was dead, started to scream.

And the monster, the boy who wasn't a boy, turned to look right at her.

He had that same blank stare, like Jia was a ghost he saw right through, but there was something about the way he smirked, as if he had other ways of knowing where she was. Slowly, he pushed himself off Fin, who'd fallen quiet and was now writhing around. Burning.

As the monster stepped towards her, something in Jia snapped. She wasn't proud of it, of how quickly she'd lost her confidence, but Jia didn't hesitate to run. Feet pounding against wet earth, every frantic inhale of breath sounded like a gunshot, an exact giveaway of her location. She'd almost reached the car when something slammed into her back, and in a crash of bone against asphalt, her chin collided with the ground.

Head spinning, heart slamming against her ribcage, Jia Littlesea wasn't above begging for her life.

"Please," she sobbed as red-eyes met hers. The monster had found her. He could see her now. "Please, don't hurt me!"

She didn't know what else to say. The boy didn't care for it, though. He'd been given a job to do. He bit down on her wrist and Jia swore in that moment that she'd found her way to Hell.

Everything burned. Like lying in the River Styx, her whole body seemed to throb as Jia screamed her throat raw. She couldn't breathe. There was no more air. No light but the headlights that swept across the scene.

The boy stood up. Vaguely, Jia felt a hand latch onto her wrist and tug. A pop was heard but Jia felt nothing — nothing but fire everywhere.

Slowly, shadows crept into the corners of her vision. The fire had faded, replaced by a wave of numbness that Jia wasn't foolish enough to fall for. A car door slammed and the accelerator suddenly squealed but Jia knew nothing after that. Only that Fin was gone, and she was surely caught somewhere in Hell, and that Metallica was still playing on the radio, like nothing had changed.

Jia just wanted to go home.