There was a part of him that knew this was really stupid.

He didn't know anything for sure about Oaklynn's involvement in the deaths in Thunder Bay, but logic dictated that agreeing to meet her in a secluded patch of woodland, alone, wasn't the smartest idea. Empirically he could reason that out, but there was something deep rooted in the back of his mind now that said she wouldn't hurt him.

Luke couldn't really explain it. Ever since he'd felt that weird, other-emotion in her room he felt within touching distance of the puzzle piece that would explain everything. He couldn't bail out now, not when those answers were so tantalisingly close.

So on he trudged, out through a woodland trail that ran round the back of the archery range, not far from where he and Gabi had seen the thing with the burning eyes and his first encounter with the glowing foliage. He hadn't forgotten seeing the tendrils on Oaklynn's boots that day – maybe he would get the answer to all his mysteries at once today.

Darkness began descending on Lasquette Bay as he walked, bark chips and twigs crumpling underfoot. As instructed, he followed the lights on the trail through the woods on the eastern edge of the campus, climbing the gentle incline that sloped up away from the lake. He had his phone, his door key, his wallet, and the clothes on his back. With the autumn temperatures beginning to descend on the lakeside town he now wore a fleece-lined hoodie over his t-shirt and kept his hands firmly jammed into its pockets.

The note crinkled between the fingers of his right hand. Luke remembered the directions hastily scribbled onto it, but brought it along just in case. His trainers rasped softly as he walked, turning left along the trail and up a steeper incline. Fifty yards further along the trail he found the break in wooden hand rail that Oaklynn had specified in her note. He faced it, looking up into the darkening forest.

He huffed out a sharp breath and stepped forward before he had a chance to second guess himself. His eyes adjusted to the half-light and sure enough, he managed to pick out the faint scar of a trail trodden into the undergrowth in front of him. So far so good. He walked on, following the ad-hoc path up into the trees a short distance until he reached a small, plateaued clearing.

Luke stepped cautiously forward into it, turning slowly and looking for any sign of Oaklynn. He resisted the urge to call out, something in the back of his mind telling him that it would be a bad idea. There was no sign of her here though.

He checked his phone. He'd made good time getting here and ended up a couple of minutes early. Shoving the phone back into his pocket he nodded to himself. She would be here. He walked slowly to the far edge of the clearing and found that it looked down on a steep slope that rolled away into a valley in the woods. No trails down there; no houses or roads.

He checked his phone again.

Two minutes after the agreed time Luke had almost managed to work himself up into a panic, when he finally heard soft footsteps crunching in the night behind him. He turned, heart pounding as he half expected Kenny's Burning-Eyed Man to emerge from the darkness. His fears proved to be unfounded, however, as Oaklynn stepped out into the clearing.

Her black boots crunched in the undergrowth as she walked into view, and when she saw him, her face brightened instantly. She pulled her hands from the pockets of her jacket, one flicking up to tuck an errant strand of hair back behind her ear. He smiled with relief.

"Hey, I was starting to think-,"

Before he could finish, she walked straight up to him and flung herself into a hung, one arm wrapping around his waist and the other hooking tightly around the back of his neck. She pulled herself close, her chin on his shoulder, her hair brushing against his cheek as she leaned into him. Taken off-guard, it took him a moment to respond in kind.

His arms closed around her, gently at first, but squeezing tighter and tighter as he felt the sense of utter calm sweeping over him. Luke closed his eyes, easing his head sideways, his cheek now pressed firmly against the side of her head. She turned, tucking her face against the side of his neck. He let the moment stretch on, breathing deep the scent of floral citrus that swirled around her – either from shampoo or perfume – he didn't care which.

He had no idea how long they stood there; he didn't care about that either.

Eventually Oaklynn eased herself back, her arms sliding reluctantly away from him. She cleared her throat, tucking her hands into her jacket pockets with a bashful smile.

"I... I missed you," she said.

"Same here."

Her smile broadened for a moment, before a regretful expression crept across her face. "Luke, I just want to say, I'm sorry. For how I treated you these last couple of weeks."

"It's okay."

"No, no it isn't. You didn't deserve that."

Luke smiled thinly. "Well, I'm not going to argue with you there."

She gave him a playful slap on the arm. "If it makes you feel any better, I hated every second of it. All that time I spent, prancing about, playing nice-nice with Kasper and his buddies? I wanted to be with you."

"That actually makes me feel a lot better." He tilted his head slightly to one side, a curious expression on his face. "So, if you didn't want to be with them, why were you?"

"That's really why we're here, isn't it?" She stepped away, walking over to the broad, mossy trunk of a nearby fallen tree. Sitting down, she patted the space next to her. "Sit down. We've got a lot to talk about."

Luke did as she asked, sinking down into a sitting position on the trunk, his hands clasped together and elbows resting on his knees. Somewhere a bird chirped and foliage rustled with the sudden beat of wings. He could just hear the faint hum of the college and the town in the distance, the beginnings of a nightlife getting underway. Right now, he didn't want to be anywhere else.

When he looked at Oaklynn she had her hands together on her lap, fingers fidgeting awkwardly. She saw him looking and winced.

"Sorry," she began. "I'm just trying to figure out how to do this."

"Let's just start simple," Luke replied. "This all started the day I told you about that girl. What changed?"

"Those murders, the way they were killed..." Oaklynn nodded reluctantly. "It was just like home."

"Thunder Bay?"

"Yeah."

"Is that why you left? Why you came here?"

She nodded. "I thought I'd left that behind. Please, understand, Luke. I didn't do anything. I didn't cause those murders. I didn't hurt anyone, I promise you that."

A sense of relief filled him at those words and he relaxed slightly. He'd never really believed she'd hurt anyone – at least he hadn't wanted to believe that – and hearing her say it with such unequivocal surety gave him some peace of mind. Still, she looked ready to confess to something.

"So, what happened there?" he asked simply.

"Someone came after us."

"Your family?" Unease and confusion began to mingle in Luke's mind as he tried to join the dots. "Why?"

"Because of what we are."

He blinked; looked her up and down. "And what's that?"

"Crap." Her face twisted with frustration. He could feel her desperation as she struggled for the words. "When I say 'family', Luke, I don't mean like brothers, sisters, moms and dads. It's different. I'm not related to Kasper – not like that. It's..." She looked around, as though searching for inspiration. "It's like a big herd of animals, right? They move together in a big group, living together, protecting each other, but they're not all literally part of a family. Does that make sense?"

"Sort of." Luke nodded slowly. He understood the words she was saying, but still didn't see how it applied. He shifted uneasily on the tree trunk, giving her a quizzical look. "So Kasper's what... part of this 'herd'?"

"That's the best way I can describe it."

"And what does this have to do with what happened in Thunder Bay; with what's happening here?"

"When you told me about that girl's body, I knew it had to be the same," she told him. "They had to be part of the ... herd here. I knew it wasn't safe anymore. That's why I had to go warn Kasper, and why I stayed away from you. Safety in numbers, I guess. And I didn't want you to get hurt."

Luke pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand, a sense of irritation building up inside of him. He still didn't feel that much closer to understanding what any of this added up to. Eventually he scrubbed his hands over his eyes and looked at her again.

"Well, I ended up kind of hurt anyway, don't you think?" he said with a shake of his head. "I don't get this. I don't get why you're talking about herds like you're all some kind of animal. I don't get what that has to do with people having their skulls smashed in. Is this some kind of eco-commune thing? Some environmental group?"

"No, Luke, it's nothing like that." The fingers of her left hand curled, digging into the dead bark of the fallen tree. "It's a lot more complicated."

"Then try and un-complicate it for me, just a bit." Luke edged a little closer to her. "Whatever else we are, you're my friend. Whatever it is, you can tell me. I can keep a secret."

She smiled weakly. "I think Sheriff Nalen might disagree."

He smiled back, but the joke didn't deflect him. "Oaklynn, why would someone be coming after you?"

For several seconds they sat there in silence, as if his question had frozen them in time. Eventually, though, she gave him a tiny, bobbing nod. Her fingers uncurled and she straightened up, heaving in a deep breath before exhaling long and slow.

"I don't think it's something I can just explain." Oaklynn shifted position on the log, facing him, her shoulders tensing up as though she was bracing herself. She looked him in the eye. "Luke, I'm going to have to show you something."

"Okay...?"

"Something I've never show any human, ever. It's probably going to freak you out at first. I just need you to stay calm; remember that it's just me. Can you do that?"

Any human?

"Doesn't sound like I have much of a choice." He rolled his neck from side to side and gave her a thumbs up. "Alright, show me what you have to show me."

"Okay."

He waited but she didn't move, her hands clasping tightly together on her lap as she started at the forest floor. Luke let a few more seconds pass before he looked around in confusion.

"I... did you do it?"

"I didn't do anything," she said quickly, her gaze snapping to his. "Luke, if I do this – if we do this – your life's not going to be the same. You're going to know things other people don't. Are you sure you want-,"

"Oaklynn, please," he interrupted, a sense of desperation creeping through him. "Just show me."

"Alright, alright." Oaklynn straightened her back, tossing her hair aside. "Just... don't say I didn't warn you."

Then she closed her eyes and took a frighteningly deep breath, dredging oxygen from the depths of her lungs. She exhaled again. Repeated the process twice more. Then she looked at him and he felt a jolt of surprise. Her stormy irises churned with what looked like fire, a brightness that seemed to grow and grow. The intensity transfixed him, fear and amazement vying for control as he watched.

"Your eyes," he murmured. "They're-,"

"I know." Oaklynn smiled. "Remember it's me."

Then she changed.

At first Luke didn't know what he was seeing. Then he thought it was a hallucination. Then he thought he was dreaming. Then he thought he was simply going insane.

The fire behind her eyes seemed to spread across her face, down through the pale skin of her neck into the rest of her body. A lurid glow spilled from her sleeves and he could see tendrils of light seeping through the veins on the back of her hand. Around her the leaves and branches began to shine, softly at first but growing brighter by the second. The same glow he seen at the archery range and out in the forest that fateful night.

He sat dumbstruck as the log on which they sat transformed, bark taking on a lustrous brown, tendrils of green snaking through the cracks. Luke barely noticed, unable to tear his eyes away from Oaklynn. The lines of her face changed, subtly at first but growing more pronounced with each passing second. Along her jaw a sharp ridge of shining bone seemed to grow, running up towards her ears. Similar arêtes of bone ran down the sides of her neck and he could see a faint but unmistakable shifting beneath her jacket.

Those lines of glowing bone were growing across her body, following the contours of her arms and legs, like some kind of exoskeleton that throbbed with vibrant, blue-white light. He could see it spilling from beneath the cuffs of her jacket and from the tops of her boots. When he looked back to her face, her skin blazed, euphoric energy emanating from her like hard radiation. After a second that dazzling light ebbed down to a gentle glow.

In a sudden motion she jerked and flexed her neck from side to side, as though shaking something loose. The lines of reinforced bone on her face converged sharply, curving up around her eyes to meet in the middle of her forehead. From that point a long, upward curving horn burst free, an enamel-white, pearl-smooth spur of bone that extended a full eight inches out of her skull, tapering to a viciously sharp point. It glowed, some kind of energy boiling and churning beneath the surface like a miniature galaxy.

And at that point, it become just a little too much for Luke to take in.

He let out a yelp and instinctively jerked away from her in surprise, his eyes so wide they felt like they might pop out of his skull. His mind went blank; he forgot how to breathe. All around him the forest shone.

Then his foot slipped in the loamy undergrowth, and he lost his balance.

Then he was falling backwards.

"Luke!"

He caught a brief glimpse the glowing apparition before he toppled off the tree trunk and went crashing head over heels down into the darkness of the valley.