We make it through an entire chapter without anything supernatural happening, so it's startling when a creature rushes out with super speed to save Nick. This will become commonplace by the end of the book, but Kyrian's debut is a dramatic one. And while the book doesn't explicitly say Kyrian's supernatural, he's faster than Usain Bolt, so you know something is up.

Nick isn't used to people treating his mother with respect. She is a stripper, so people generally treat her like nobody, or worse. But Kyrian sees her as a person, either because he's not the type of guy to dehumanize strippers or because he knows she is the mother of Nick, who could one day becomes a powerful being.

Alan is a bad guy because he takes joy in the violence he commits. When Nick was fighting at school, he didn't seem to enjoy it. That's one thing that makes Nick different from the zombies and the bullies.