“Is that..blood?”

Katsuki Bakugo lived in Arizona with his mom since he was 12, Now he was eighteen. His parents had been divorced since he was nine, and after years of phone calls and short visits that never quite felt like enough, he decided it was time. He packed what mattered, left the dry heat and endless sun behind, and moved in with his dad—a police officer in Forks, Washington.

Forks was a small town of about seven thousand people. The sky almost never cleared. Clouds hung low and heavy most days, turning everything gray and muted. The air stayed cool and damp. Sunlight was rare enough that when it did break through, people actually noticed. It was the complete opposite of Arizona, and Bakugo felt the difference the second he stepped off the plane.

He told himself he was only here to get to know his dad better. He didn’t know what he was walking into.

The town looked quiet on the surface. Dense forest pressed in from every side. The roads were narrow, the buildings modest. People were polite enough, but there was an undercurrent Bakugo couldn’t name. Something watchful. Something that didn’t belong in a place this small.

What no one talked about—what almost no one even knew—was that Forks had vampires.

They didn’t burn in the sun. Instead, their skin glittered like shattered diamonds the moment direct light hit them. They moved faster than the eye could track when they chose to. They were stronger than any human had a right to be. Their bodies stayed cold no matter the season, and they didn’t age. A human could only become one of them if bitten. The only sure way to kill a vampire was to cut off its head.

Anyone who learned the truth and couldn’t keep the secret usually didn’t live long enough to tell it twice.

Bakugo settled in faster than he expected. Within two months he was already one of the more well-known faces at the high school. Loud, competitive, impossible to ignore. He made friends the way he always had—by being blunt, talented, and just aggressive enough that people either respected him or stayed out of his way. Everything felt almost normal.

Almost.

There was one exception.

You were eighteen, same as him. Your family lived in a massive house deep in the woods, far enough from town that most people never drove past it. You kept to yourself. You didn’t talk much in class or in the halls. When the rare sunny day appeared, you and your family simply weren’t around. And every time Bakugo got close enough—brushing past you in the hallway, standing near your locker—he noticed the same thing. You felt cold. Not the kind of cold that came from sitting near a draft. Something deeper. Steady. Unnatural.

He told himself he was being ridiculous. People were quiet. Families lived in big houses. Some people ran cold. None of it meant anything. He pushed the thoughts down and tried to ignore them.

But you weren’t human.

Your whole family were vampires. The difference was that you didn’t feed on people. You lived on animal blood, the way you had been raised to since you were small. Self-control had been drilled into you for as long as you could remember. Never drink human blood. Never lose control. And above all—never, under any circumstances, let anyone find out what you were.

For years it had been easy. You stayed quiet. You stayed careful. You disappeared when the sun came out. You kept your distance from anyone who might notice too much.

Then Bakugo started watching.

He didn’t know why at first. Something about the way you moved, the way the temperature seemed to drop near you, the way your family never quite fit the town the way everyone else did. The suspicions grew slowly, then all at once. One day he stopped brushing them off. One day he started looking for answers instead of excuses.

And that was when everything changed.