She hadn't always been a runaway.
There was a time when her life was... quiet. Not perfect, not even happy, but safe in its own way. A time when the world was predictable. School. Books. Dinner. Silence.
Then her mother died.
And everything unraveled.
Her father remarried within the year — to a woman who smiled too wide and touched too little.
She tried to be kind. At first.
But kindness from a stranger is fragile. And when her father died in a car crash three months later, that kindness turned to stone.
---
"You're not mine," her stepmother whispered one night, eyes cold as the rain slamming against the windows.
"I have no reason to keep you."
That was the night she stopped feeling like a person and started feeling like a burden.
That was also the night she found the letter.
---
It had been hidden under her pillow. No envelope. Just folded parchment in shaky handwriting.
"When the time comes… follow the scent.
You'll know where to go.
Trust your heart.
You were never meant to stay small."
There was no name. No explanation.
But something inside her stirred when she read it.
Like a memory she didn't have.
Like a truth she hadn't learned yet.
---
She stayed two more weeks.
Two weeks of silence. Cold meals. Locked doors.
And then—she ran.
She didn't know where she was going.
She just knew she had to leave before the world erased her completely.
---
Now, standing in the cold woods, staring into the eyes of a man who looked like a shadow brought to life, she wondered…
Was this where the letter meant?
Was he the reason?
Or was this just another mistake she couldn't afford?
But even now, even with fear wrapped around her ribs like vines, she felt something strange:
Safe.
Not because Kairo was gentle.
But because the chaos inside her suddenly felt... matched.
She didn't even know his name.
But something told her—
He would either destroy her…
Or save her from everything she was trying to forget.