Page 14 of Thane's Demon
Morning arrived far too gently for the kind of night I had lived through. The sunlight creeped past the cracked edge of my curtains in soft pale streaks that made my room feel deceptively calm. For a long moment, I simply lay there, staring at the faint glow painting lines across the ceiling, trying to understand why my heart still beat too fast and why the air felt so heavy in my lungs. As if the remnants of last night’s fear clung to me like mist I could not wipe away.
My throat felt tight, my hands ached from clenching them in my sleep, and yet the thing that lingered strongest was not the attack. Not the danger, not the violence I had witnessed…
But him.
The stranger who had appeared out of the darkness like some impossible creature who did not belong to the world I knew. The one who moved with a power that defied every logical explanation I had ever been taught. He had killed a man for me, yes, brutally and decisively. But when he looked at me afterward, when his eyes met mine with that strange glowing intensity, something inside my chest had shifted. Doing this sosharply that even now, lying in my bed with sunlight warming my blankets, I could still feel the echo of it.
I pressed my fingers to my heart, feeling the uneven rhythm beneath my palm. I whispered a shaky breath into the quiet room, trying to calm myself. Fear should have rooted itself inside me. Shock should have hollowed me out. Instead, the overwhelming emotion coursing through me was something softer, stranger, something that curled around my ribs like a whisper I could not quite hear.
I sat up slowly, running a hand through my tangled hair, trying to straighten my thoughts at the same time I straightened the sheets. My room was the only place that felt somewhat like home, not because it belonged to me, but because I had learned to keep pieces of myself hidden inside it. Pieces tucked away between the pages of my diary and woven into the small poems taped beneath my desk, where no one else could see them. I reached for the diary now, the leather cover worn smooth by years of secrets, and opened it to a blank page.
The pen hovered over the paper.
Nothing came.
I tried to write about the attack, about how the man’s hand had hurt my wrist, about the way fear had crawled up my spine and settled like ice behind my lungs. About how helpless I had felt in those first moments when I could not even breathe the way I wanted to. But the moment my mind touched the memory, it did not land on the fear. It landed on the glow in the stranger’s eyes. On the way the air had changed the instant he appeared. On the strange, fierce calm that washed through me when I realized he was on my side.
I closed the diary.
Some things were too complicated to fit on a single page.
I stood and walked to the window, pulling the curtains aside to let more of the morning light spill in. The city outsidewas already awake, buzzing with the familiar hum of engines and footsteps and vendors shouting over each other. This place always felt too loud, too big, too impossible to conquer. Yet part of me loved that. It gave me something to lose myself in, something to lean on when the emptiness inside grew too heavy.
The ache of missing my mother rose again, sharp and sudden, catching me off guard. I pressed a hand to my lips for a moment as if to hold the grief inside, as if to stop it from spilling out in front of people who did not know how to handle it, people who looked through me rather than at me. I stepped away from the window and went to get dressed, choosing soft colors like I always did, colors that reminded me of her smile, of her warmth, of her belief that kindness could make even the darkest places feel a little less heavy.
I pulled my unruly curls into a loose bun at the back of my head. Even though the strands never obeyed, fluffing into soft, flyaway waves that framed my face no matter how tightly I tried to tame them. My hair had always been that way, wild, stubborn, too airy to coil into the perfect spirals I used to envy in other girls.
I still remembered the way my father’s eyes had flicked to it the first day I arrived in Shanghai. His expression tightened with thinly veiled disdain as he told me to keep it ‘restrained,’ as if my hair itself offended the orderliness of his world. So now I tied it back every morning because it was easier. Because it kept the peace. And besides, I could let it down again once I reached campus, where no one cared enough to judge.
I smoothed the pastel sweater I’d chosen. One with knitted yellow stars on a soft blush pink that made me think of spring mornings with my mom. I then slipped into a pleated black and pink skirt that brushed just above my knees. It was bright and cheerful. Colors that belonged more to who I had once been thanwho I was trying to become now. But wearing them felt like a small rebellion against the coldness of this house.
By the time I made my way downstairs, the mask was already in place. A soft smile, a light tone, a brightness I had learned to carry so others did not have to feel the weight of me. My stepmother looked up from her cup of tea, her eyes sweeping over me with that familiar judging chill. I felt myself straighten instinctively, pulling in a breath so I could pretend everything was normal.
She sat poised in one of the high-backed dining chairs as though it were a throne. Her slender frame was wrapped in a tailored silk blouse, the color of white jade, and trousers pressed so sharply they looked carved rather than sewn.
Her dark hair was twisted into a sleek chignon without a single strand out of place. The faint glimmer of a diamond bracelet caught the morning light with an almost smug sparkle. Everything about her, from the precision of her makeup to the controlled softness of her voice, carried the quiet arrogance of someone born into old money. Someone who genuinely believed refinement made her superior to the rest of the world. Even the way she lifted her teacup was like a performance for an invisible audience. One that reminded me that in this house, image mattered far more than people ever would.
“You are up early,” she said, her voice clipped and mildly suspicious. Her Asian accent was one she couldn’t hide, no matter how posh she tried to sound. It was as if she had studied her English from British soap operas set in the 1800s.
“Couldn’t sleep,” I answered with a smile that felt too thin.
My stepsiblings exchanged looks, a smirk passing between them as if I were some minor inconvenience in their morning routine. My father barely glanced up from his newspaper. When he finally did, it was only to remind me not to be late cominghome, his words more of an order than anything close to concern.
He sat at the head of the long-lacquered table, the seat that seemed to come with a crown he never earned yet wore with effortless entitlement. He wasn’t Asian like my stepmother. His features were unmistakably American. Sharp-jawed with a clean-cut handsomeness that had once, apparently, been charming enough for my mother. His sandy-brown hair was threaded with early silver, making him look distinguished rather than aged. He wore the same tailored suits every morning, the expensive fabric stiff with corporate precision.
He had relocated to Shanghai years ago, when I was just a baby. His ambitions were often recited to us like something out of the bible, how he had climbed the ranks of Halden & Pierce International Logistics. One of those massive global firms that dealt in everything from freight operations to international trade compliance.
He was now some high executive overseeing the Asia-Pacific division, a job that came with prestige, wealth, and the kind of social circles he seemed born to lose himself in. It explained why he stayed here, why he built a new family, and why he left the shadows of his old life behind without looking back. Starting over in a country where no one knew the man he used to be suited him perfectly.
His children fit into this polished world the same way he did, too well. Both were a few years younger than me and dressed in matching designer uniforms, smug and self-important. Their hair slicked down neatly, their expressions pinched with the kind of disdain only privilege could teach.
They stared at me as though I were an unwelcome guest in a home I had no right to enter. Their lips curled just enough to remind me that they saw me as an outsider, an intruder, a flaw in their perfect photograph of a family. Xiaoling, the eldest ofthe two, sat with her glossy black hair pinned back in a sleek barrette.
Her expression sharpened into a permanent look of superiority, making her seem older than she was. Beside her, Wei barely glanced up from the tablet he was tapping on, though the slight arch of his brow told me he shared his sister’s opinion. They never bothered to hide their disdain, instead, they wore it openly, unafraid to show their true feelings toward me.
I murmured agreement and slipped out the door the moment I could, stepping into the morning air with a quiet sense of relief. Outside was easier, even when the world felt overwhelming. Because at least out here there was space to breathe, to think, to exist without being examined or dismissed.
However, this morning an uneasy warmth brushed across my skin. A soft awareness that made me pause and turn my head slightly. No one was there. The street behind me was empty except for a few early morning commuters and a woman walking her dog. Still, the feeling persisted, subtle but undeniable, like the air itself had shifted around me.
