Chapter Text
The bus jolted to a stop, and Nova’s forehead thunked against the glass window. She groaned, rubbing the spot, then blinked awake at the sight that always managed to take her breath away: the sprawling pines of Camp Rayburn, their tips fading into the summer sky. The air out here was crisper than back home, even this early in the evening, the kind of clean that felt like a promise.
The driver threw the doors open, and a flood of campers spilled out with the usual chaos—shouts, laughter, someone immediately tripping over their duffel bag. Nova clutched her backpack straps and followed the crowd, trying to shake the sleep from her bones.
“Another year, another attempt at not embarrassing myself,” Ray muttered beside her, yawning. He was already adjusting his sunglasses—pointless, since the sun was dipping lower every minute—but Ray always did things for the aesthetic.
“You say that every summer,” Nova said, smiling despite herself.
Ray pushed his shades down just enough to wink. “Yeah, and one of these years, it’ll be true.”
Behind them, Vera hopped lightly off the bus steps, somehow landing without scuffing her pristine white sneakers. “God, I missed the smell here. Trees, dirt, lake water. So much better than car exhaust and fried food.” She glanced over her shoulder with a grin sharp enough to show fang. “Even for us vampires.”
Vargas was the last of their little group, shouldering two bags and grumbling dramatically. “This is the year they’re gonna break my back making me carry all your stuff. I can feel it.”
Nova laughed, and just like that, the weight in her chest lightened. Camp Rayburn had that effect—it always had. For a few months every year, daywalkers and vampires alike dropped the politics, the subtle glances, the old history that could still crackle like static. Here, they were just teenagers with mosquito bites and curfews they mostly ignored.
They trudged up the gravel path toward the main lodge where counselors were yelling cabin assignments. Nova let the noise wash over her—Ray flirting with anyone within ten feet, Vera smirking at his failures, Vargas swatting gnats away from his hair. The smell of woodsmoke drifted faintly from the firepit down by the lake. A memory tugged at her: last year’s opening bonfire, sparks rising like stars. She’d sat on a log with her friends, her knees pulled to her chest, warmth on her face and a strange ache in her ribs.
It was the kind of ache she couldn’t name, not yet.
The cabins hadn’t changed.
Wooden walls weathered by a thousand summers, screen doors that slammed no matter how gently you shut them, the faint, stubborn smell of pine needles and mildew. Each cabin had four bunks, two dressers that never closed right, and exactly one window that never opened when you needed a breeze.
Still, stepping inside felt like stepping into a memory Nova could slip on like a hoodie.
“Home sweet prison,” Vargas announced, dropping his bag with a dramatic thud that rattled the floorboards.
“Please,” Vera said, tossing her duffel neatly onto a top bunk. “You’ll forget you ever complained the second you find your flashlight.” She smoothed her hair, the tips gleaming silver in the dim cabin light. “I give you two nights before you’re sneaking out past curfew.”
Vargas grinned, fangs flashing. “Three nights minimum. I’ve matured.”
“Sure you have,” Ray said, already sprawled across a bottom bunk with his arms folded behind his head like he owned the place. His sunglasses—still on, despite the dying light outside—slid precariously down his nose. “This year’s the one. No broken rules for me.”
Nova raised an eyebrow as she pulled her bag onto the last free bed. “You said that last year. And the year before that.”
Ray grinned, tilting his head back against the wall. “And I was almost right.”
The banter made Nova’s chest ache in a way she couldn’t quite name. Familiarity, maybe. Safety. She watched her friends fall into the same rhythms they always did—Ray pretending to be cooler than everyone, Vera balancing sharp wit with quiet observation, Vargas clowning loud enough to draw the counselor’s inevitable attention.
And her. The fourth corner of their little square.
She knelt by her duffel, tugging out a stack of folded shirts, the shorts her mom insisted on labeling with her name in Sharpie. She slid them into the dresser drawers that stuck halfway, the wood swollen from humidity. Each creak of the boards, each flicker of the weak light bulb overhead—it was all the same as last summer.
Except her.
Nova folded a sweater with mechanical precision, trying not to think of what she was leaving behind at home. The tightness in her chest, the bruises no one could see. Camp Rayburn had always been a reset button, but this year it felt more like a lifeline.
“Okay,” Vargas declared, flopping dramatically across his mattress and sending a cloud of dust puffing into the air. “Predictions for the summer: I’m going to win Color Wars, Ray’s going to flirt with literally everyone, Vera’s going to roll her eyes at both of us, and Nova—”
Nova looked up, caught mid-fold. “What about me?”
He smirked. “You’re going to find yourself a summer romance. Mark my words.”
Ray sat up on his elbows, grinning like a wolf. “Oh, she blushed. She totally blushed.”
“I did not.” Nova shoved a pillow at him, laughing despite herself.
Vera, quieter than the boys, arched one perfect brow. “Wouldn’t be the worst idea. A little summer distraction might do you good.”
Nova shook her head, forcing a smile as she tucked her last shirt into the drawer. “Not happening.”
But even as the words left her lips, something restless stirred in her chest.
Hours later, after unpacking and the obligatory counselor lecture about rules (“No sneaking out after lights-out, no leaving camp boundaries, and for the love of everything holy, stop trying to set marshmallows on fire for entertainment”), the first bonfire of the summer was roaring to life.
Nova sat shoulder to shoulder with her friends, the crackle of flames filling the spaces between laughter and guitar chords. Someone led a camp song badly. Someone else threw a stick into the fire that sparked too brightly. For a while, it was easy to forget anything existed outside this ring of light.
Easy, until she stood up halfway through to grab her sweater from the log behind them…and realized it wasn’t there.
Nova frowned. She was sure she’d brought it. She remembered draping it over the back of the log before she sat down.
“Lose something?” Vargas asked, mouth full of half-burned marshmallow.
“My sweater,” she said, scanning the ground.
Ray, ever unhelpful, waggled his brows. “Maybe the sweater elves stole it.”
“I’ll check by the firepit,” Nova muttered, brushing ash off her shorts as she stood. “Be right back.”
“Don’t get eaten,” Vera called sweetly, though her eyes lingered a second too long, like she wanted to say more.
Nova waved them off and slipped into the shadows beyond the firelight.
The air was cooler this far from the blaze, the forest alive with crickets and the occasional snap of a twig. She walked the curve of the firepit, eyes scanning the dark ground for familiar fabric. The camp felt different at night—emptier, sharper, like it was holding its breath.
Her sweater lay folded neatly on a log near the edge, almost as if it had been waiting for her.
Relief unfurled in her chest. She reached for it—
—and froze.
Someone was sitting just beyond the reach of the firelight, half-hidden in shadow.
Nova’s heart kicked up. She took an instinctive step back, then forced herself still. The figure moved, slow and deliberate, leaning into the faint glow.
A boy.
Older than most campers, maybe sixteen or seventeen. His hair was dark, his skin pale in the light, his posture relaxed in a way that was almost arrogant. When he smiled, the fire caught on the edges of sharp canines.
Vampire.
“You dropped something,” he said again, his voice low, smooth, like it belonged to the night itself.
Nova hesitated. “Thanks.”
He tilted his head, studying her in a way that made her want to squirm but also stay perfectly still. “You shouldn’t wander out here alone.”
“Why not?” she asked, trying to sound braver than she felt. “It’s just camp. The scariest thing I’ve seen is Vargas trying to win tug-of-war.”
That drew a laugh from him, quiet and real. “And yet you still risked the dark for a sweater?”
“I get cold easily.” Nova crossed her arms, suddenly defensive under his gaze. “Not all of us are built for night prowling.”
His smile deepened. “You’d be surprised what you’re built for.”
Her stomach flipped. “That’s…cryptic.”
“Maybe.” He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, the movement unhurried, deliberate. “Or maybe it’s a compliment.”
Nova blinked. “You don’t even know me.”
“I know enough,” he said, as if it were fact.
Something in his tone pulled at her, made her take one step closer despite herself. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“That you’re stubborn,” he said, eyes glinting. “That you don’t like being told what to do. That you’d rather chase the thing you want than sit and hope it comes to you.”
Nova narrowed her eyes. “Lucky guess.”
“Not luck.” His mouth twitched, like he was trying not to grin too wide. “Observation.”
Heat rose in her cheeks before she could stop it. She hated that he was right—hated it, but liked that he noticed. “So you just sit out here in the dark, observing girls who forget their sweaters?”
“Just one girl,” he said simply.
Nova’s heart kicked. The boldness in his tone startled her—flirting, yes, but so direct. No games, no layered meanings. She wasn’t used to that.
“You’re awfully sure of yourself,” she said, aiming for teasing, though her voice came out softer.
“I have reason to be.”
“Oh really?” Nova arched a brow. “What makes you so special?”
He leaned back now, lounging as if the shadows bent around him. “I could list things,” he said. “But it’s more fun if you find out yourself.”
She tried not to smile, failed. “You’re ridiculous.”
“And yet you’re still standing here,” he countered smoothly.
Her laugh slipped out before she could stop it. “Okay, fine. You’ve got a decent line. What’s your name, mystery boy?”
A pause. Just a beat too long. “Victor.”
She frowned. “Victor?”
“You sound disappointed.”
“No,” she said quickly, then faltered. “I mean…it just doesn’t sound very mysterious.”
He grinned at that, the first full grin she’d seen, sharp and dazzling in a way that made her pulse trip. “Good. I’d hate to be predictable.”
Nova shook her head, trying to regain footing. “Well, Victor, I should probably get back before my friends send out a search party.”
“Or,” he said, rising smoothly to his feet, “you could stay a little longer.”
Nova’s throat went dry. He was taller than she expected, and closer now, but not too close. Just enough that she could feel the pull of him, like gravity had shifted.
She swallowed. “And what would we do?”
His gaze lingered on her, unhurried. “Talk. Walk. Whatever you want.”
“Sounds like a bad idea.”
He stepped just close enough that the edge of his shadow touched hers. “The best ones usually are.”
Nova let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Banter—she loved banter. And he gave it back to her effortlessly, like a dance they both knew the steps to.
“Tomorrow night,” he said, voice quieter now. “Same place.”
She should’ve said no. She should’ve laughed it off. She should’ve walked away.
Instead, she found herself nodding, sweater clutched to her chest.
Victor’s smile returned, slow and knowing. “Until then.”
And then—she couldn’t have explained how—it was as if he melted back into the dark.
Nova blinked, heart racing, the world suddenly too loud without him.
When she rejoined her friends, her cheeks burned. She blamed the flames.
Ray looked up immediately. “Well? Did the sweater elves get you?”
“Something like that,” Nova said, forcing her voice steady.
Vera’s gaze lingered, sharp and knowing. Vargas snorted marshmallow powder through his nose.
Nova sat back down, staring into the fire. She told herself it was just camp weirdness, just the thrill of meeting someone new.
But later, when the embers dimmed and her friends drifted back toward the cabins, she caught herself whispering the name under her breath like a secret.
Victor.