Chapter Two: Broken Things Still Shine

Maya never believed in miracles.
Not because she was bitter—though life had given her plenty of reasons to be—but because she’d learned young that hoping for the impossible only ever led to heartbreak.

She wasn’t supposed to be born, for starters. Her mother never showed a single symptom. No sickness, no weight gain, no inkling of life stirring inside her. And yet, one chilly February afternoon, right at noon, Maya entered the world screaming—loud and very, very real.

Her family never quite figured out how to explain it.

She grew up feeling like a glitch in the system. The unplanned fourth child in a family already drowning in noise and chaos. When her parents lost the house, everything unraveled. Her older brothers were sent off to stay with distant relatives. Her sister moved in with a friend. And Maya, barely twelve, found herself in a crumbling apartment building surrounded by broken windows and the sour smell of cheap vodka.

She shared a single room with her mother and father—two people she loved deeply, but who were too lost in their own sadness to notice how fast their daughter was growing up.

She did their laundry. She ran errands. She cleaned up after the neighbors who couldn’t be bothered to make it to the bathroom. She made dinner, helped her mom to bed, dragged her dad off the stairs more than once.

And she never cried about it. Not once.

At least, not where anyone could see.

By the time she turned sixteen, she was fluent in survival. She knew how to hide money in her boots, how to fake a smile for social workers, how to talk down a drunk man without showing fear. But with all that came other things, too—tightness in her chest that never quite left, insomnia that made nights feel endless, a kind of loneliness that sat heavy on her ribs like a second skeleton.

Still, she was kind. Still gentle.
But she never let the world get away with being cruel.

Unlike most people she knew, Maya actually loved to be around her friends—at least, the ones she chose. Her circle was small by design. The people she let in were the ones she’d fight for. The kind she’d take a hit for without hesitation. Around them, she was the brightest light in the room. Teasing. Loyal. Hilarious. Honest, sometimes to a fault. And fiercely protective. It took her a while to let people in—but once she did, they had her heart for good.

She worked as a receptionist and waitress at a retirement home just outside the city. The pay wasn’t great, but she liked the job. The old folks were kind, sometimes cranky, and almost always full of stories. She got free coffee, a place to be useful, and she got to sit with people who appreciated her quiet warmth more than most ever had.

At home, she lived with her parents and her sister again—after the breakup that never quite healed. The apartment was cramped, the walls too thin, but it was home. She shared it with two cats: Nodi, her four-year-old baby who was afraid of everything from vacuum cleaners to wind chimes but would melt into her lap for cuddles; and Gucci, her sister’s 13-year-old grumpy fluffball who had chosen Maya as his personal heater and therapist, despite technically not being hers.

It was a good life. A normal life. Or close enough.

But tonight wasn’t peaceful.

Tonight, she was bleeding in the middle of a forest near the Austrian border, two knives on the ground and three werewolves circling her like she was the nightly special.

“Okay,” she muttered to herself, backing against a moss-covered boulder. “You’ve done this before. You’ve—ow, okay, maybe not this exact—”

The pain in her leg made her stumble. One of the wolves lunged. She rolled to the side, but it was getting harder to move. She was fast, but not that fast anymore. She was tired. Hungry. Bleeding too much.

And for the first time since she was twelve…

She prayed.

She didn’t even realize she was doing it at first. The words tumbled out of her in a whisper, half-formed, panicked.

“I—I know I don’t talk to You. Ever. I don’t even know if You’re listening. Or if You even care—but if there’s anyone out there, if You’re real… please. Help me. I don’t want to die like this. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for everything.”

A low growl behind her. Her eyes snapped open.

The lead werewolf leapt—

—and was stopped midair by a blinding flash of golden light.

The creature hit the ground, hard, unmoving.

Maya blinked, heart racing. Standing between her and the wolves was… a man?

Young. Blond. Wearing jeans and a hoodie like he’d just come from a farmer’s market.

He turned his head slightly, eyes glowing faintly.

“Hi,” he said, voice calm and impossibly kind. “You prayed.”

Maya stared, panting. “Wh—what?”

He offered a smile. Sweet. Almost shy.

“I’m here to help.”