For a moment Luke could only stare in shock. Kenny looked down at the wound, and up at him again in a panic.

"Luke, what...?" He groped desperately for the words.

A groan from Kasper yanked Luke out of his stupor and set his mind racing. He dropped down to his knees at the Karkadda's side, sweeping his hoodie off and jamming it forcibly against the gaping wound in the boy's side. Kasper let out a ripping howl of pain and crimson light rippled and flashed across his skin. The ridges of bone seemed to swell then fade away. In his current state he didn't seem to have much control.

"Luke!" Kenny barked.

"Just hang on," he hissed, before turning his attention to the wounded Karkadda. "Kasper, look at me."

With an effort, Kasper turned his head, trying to focus. His eyes flickered and sparked, like something inside his skull was short-circuiting.

"What happened?" Luke asked.

"The fire," Kasper rasped. "The poachers... I got away but the others-," He broke off coughing, and hacked out a gob of thick blood.

"God damn," Kenny cursed, flinching. "Luke, what are we gonna do?"

Luke pressed down harder against the wound, attempting to stem the bleeding as he tried to think. The impact of the Karkadda's words him him like a mudslide. Poachers. I got away. A lot of others hadn't. He could only guess at the full version of events, but his thoughts flashed immediately to Oaklynn. She was out there somewhere in the flames, and now Kasper was his only chance of finding her.

Kasper's eyes rolled and he convulsed for a moment, before shuddering and going limp in Kenny's grasp. His chest rose and fell with shallow breaths. From somewhere behind him he could hear a tiny voice shouting something.

It took him a moment to realise the voice Kyan, still on the other end of Gabi's phone. He looked back to see her scoop it up from the ground and raise it hesitantly back up to her ear. She flinched back as the full volume of Kyan's frantic words hit her. She opened her mouth, trying to find the words to explain what was happening.

"It's okay," Gabi managed eventually. "We're okay. Just... just give me a second, alright?"

Kasper let out a strangled howl of pain and twisted violently again. Luke slipped, losing his pressure on the wound, and in that instant his Karkadda heritage wrenched itself forth, the horn driving up out of his forehead with frightening speed. Only Kenny's reactions stopped him from getting skewered through the shoulder as he jerked back with a cry of surprise. He rolled away; Kasper thumped to the floor with a groan. As soon as it had come the horn receded and his skin shifted back to normal.

Risking a glance at the wound, Luke gulped down the bile that rose in his throat. It wasn't bleeding as much anymore – at least he didn't think so – but there was still a ragged gash that ran almost the entire length of Kasper's torso. Motes of light flickered and flashed around the wound, as though his body was trying to repair itself. Steeling himself, Luke edged forward and pressed the blood-soaked hoodie over the wound again.

"Kasper," he barked. "Stay with us."

"He needs a doctor!" Gabi dropped into a crouch beside him and hissed, "For God's sake, Luke, we need to call an ambulance before he drops dead in front of us!"

"We can't take him to a hospital like this," Luke countered, shaking his head. "Look! He's changing every other second."

"So what?!"

"So what? If the Karkadda were pissed that I knew about them, how do you think they'll react if we dump him into a hospital and announce it to the world? Once they realise he's... different, who knows what might happen to him!"

Scrambling to his knees, Kenny tried to regain his composure. Luke watched as his friend examined the scene afresh, eyes wide and chest heaving with panicked breath. As the seconds ticked by spurs of bone rippled along Kasper's arms and around his face before fading. More waves of light crackled across his skin, as though the whole mechanism that make him a Karkadda was malfunctioning. Kenny chewed his lip for a moment, gears visibly turning inside his head. Then he looked up at Gabi, his face contorted with a mixture of regret and determination.

"I think he's right, Gabi."

"What?!"

"We've all seen the same bad movies." He shrugged awkwardly. "Stick this guy into a hospital and how long do you think it'll be before they call the sheriff in because they don't know what they're dealing with? Then Nalen'll bump it up the chain, on and on." Kenny clicked his fingers. "Next thing you know, this guy's clapped in an underground bunker in Nevada never to be seen again."

Gabi gave him a sour look. "Since when did you start believing in conspiracy theories?"

"Since I just found out about glowing unicorns called Karkadda, that have lived in the woods the whole time I've lived in this freakin' town," he shot back. "Right now I'm feeling pretty open-minded, alright?"

She bristled at that, but the aghast expression on her face lessened somewhat. She sank forward onto her knees, looking more closely at Kasper. The Karkadda was barely conscious now, sweat beading on his cheeks and his breaths stuttering raggedly. Parts of his clothing had been blackened by smoke and dozens of smaller cuts, scrapes and burns covered him, as though he'd been thrown through a flaming thorn bush. Gabi pressed her lips together tight. Kyan's voice burbled from the phone, demanding some kind of explanation for what he was listening to.

"So what do we do?" she asked eventually.

"So much for best laid plans." Luke gave her an apologetic glance and nodded to the phone. "I think the others are about to take a crash course in Karkadda."

"Woah now, wait a second." Gabi raised her phone dubiously. "You want me to-,"

"Tell him to get Aliyah and bring her here, right now."

"What for?"

"She can help. She's a nurse."

"She's a nursing student," Kenny corrected. "You sure you want to drop this on her?"

"If you've got a better idea, I am all ears."

No-one offered an alternative. A coughing growl from Kasper filled the intervening silence; Luke could feel the dampness of blood beginning to seep through the hoodie and forced himself not to look down at it. Instead he looked pointedly at Gabi.

"Crap." She stood up and whipped the phone to her ear, turning away from them and starting to stroll randomly around the dorm as she spoke.

"Kyan – yes, yes, I know. No, just listen to me for a second – this is important. Aliyah's still at our dorm. I need you to go get her and bring her to Luke's place. And bring a first aid kit with you." A pause. Gabi closed her eyes for a moment, mouthing a swearword before she replied. "Look, Kyan, I'll explain when you get here, I promise, but right now we need your help, okay? Can you just get over here?" She exhaled; nodded in relief. "Thanks. We'll see you soon."

Hanging up, she dumped the phone on the kitchen counter and rammed the fingers of both hands back through her hair clenching hard. Gabi leaned forward, leaning her elbows on the counter and sucking in a deep, shuddering breath in an effort to calm herself down. Still trying to keep pressure on the wound, Luke looked back over his shoulder at her.

"You okay?"

She shrugged. "Ask me again tomorrow."

It didn't take long for Kyan and Aliyah to arrive, but by the time Luke heard the impatient rapping on the door Kasper looked worse than ever. He was shuddering violently and his skin felt cold to the touch. More than that, there seemed to be some kind of volatile electric charge rolling across his skin. He thought to sensation he felt when he touched Oaklynn – this was a similar energy but uncontrolled, charged with a kind of desperate energy. It stung rather than soothed.

Gabi opened the door and ushered their friends inside, before swiftly closing it behind them. Luke braced himself and turned to look at them, knowing that they had no good explanation for what he was about to drag them into.

"What the hell's going on?" Kyan asked immediately, his face a mask of confusion as he stepped into the room. "One minute we're all watching the news then it sounded like someone broke into this place-,"

He stopped talking abruptly when he saw Kasper sprawled out in the middle of the floor. He blinked. Looked from Luke, to Kenny, to Gabi and back again.

"Wha... what's he doing here?"

"And why did I have to bring this?" Aliyah piped up, stepping past him and holding up a bright red first-aid kit in one hand. She took one look at the scene and her eyes went wide when she saw the wound in Kasper's side. "Woah, woah, woah – what is going on?!"

"We need your help."

"What did you do?!"

"It's wasn't us, Ally," Kenny interjected quickly. "He bust in the door like this while Kyan was on the phone. It's got something to do with that wildfire."

"We need to help him." Luke motioned towards the wound with his head, his arms aching from having kept pressure for so long. "Please, I'll explain, I swear, but he's hurt badly."

Aliyah took an uncertain step forward. "But why don't you just phone an amb-,"

Her question died in her throat when Kasper's body convulsed again and his Karkadda visage came rippling to the fore, horn and all. She let out a shriek of surprise and lurched backwards. Behind her, Kyan let out a colourful curse, grabbing Aliyah and yanking her sharply away from the Karkadda, placing himself between them.

"What was that?!" he demanded.

"That is why we can't send him to a hospital," Luke replied as he and Kenny tried to hold the writhing Karkadda down. Gabi stepped forward and dropped down to her knees, taking a firm grip of Kasper's ankles to help hold him in place.

The Karkadda elements of his body began to fade away again, sliding beneath his skin and leaving his shaking human form behind. Luke heaved in a breath through gritted teeth and looked at them, peeling the sodden hoodie away to reveal the wound in Kasper's side.

"I'll explain," Luke repeated. "But he needs our help, right now. Ally, please."

For a moment she just stared. He couldn't exactly blame her for that, and he resisted the urge to try and rush her, letting her try to get to grips with this on her own terms. Kasper squirmed again, letting out a feverish, unintelligible noise. Fresh light sparked across his skin. Aliyah flinched, grabbing Kyan's arm, and he could see the other boy tensing, ready to fight when faced with the unknown.

After a few seconds later, however, she craned her neck forward. She still kept Kyan's solid form between her and the Karkadda for the moment, but her eyes narrowed in interest. The expression of shock on her face slowly edged towards one of curiosity.

"Those lights," she said softly. "What is that."

"It's just how his body works," Luke replied quickly. "But I'm not a biologist. I can't explain it."

"And his skin? Those... bones?"

"Luke," Kyan murmured, his whole body coiled with unease. "What is this? What is he?"

"God damn it!" Luke finally stood up to face them, releasing the pressure on the wound and extracting a fresh moan from Kasper. "Kyan, when we found that girl in the woods, you saw that glowing."

"Yeah." He nodded uncertainly. "Bioluminescence."

"Do you really still think that?" Kenny interjected as he tried to hold Kasper still. "C'mon, man. I know you get your head clanged around playing hockey but try and put two and two together, would you?"

"But-,"

"And the girl, you remember the wound?" Luke pointed to his forehead. "She was one of them – the lights, the horn. That glow of the plants is what she left behind when they killed her."

"She was the same as... him?"

"Yes!" Luke found his hands clenching into fists. "Kyan, every single question you've got about every weird thing that's been happening here? I can answer them, but Kasper's going to die if we don't do something." He turned his attention to Aliyah. "If you don't do something."

She swallowed hard; looked down at her first aid kit and back up at the gash in Kasper's side. Her jaw tightened and she shook her head nervously.

"Luke, I-I'm just a student," she stammered. "I want to help but... but come on? Look! He needs a surgeon not a band aid!"

"Please, try." He looked back at Kasper grimly. "If you don't, I think a lot of people are going to die."

"Jesus," Aliyah cursed. She screwed her eyes shut for a moment, and he could see her fingers squeezing the first-aid kit hard. "No pressure. Shit." Her eyes snapped open and she stepped decisively forward.

"Ally..." Kyan began but she ignored him, waving Kenny and Gabi aside.

"Give me some space," Aliyah said before shooting Luke a fiery glance. "I'll do what I can, but that explanation had better be a good one."