SELENA'S POV
---
"Zack...?"
He's on the ground, chest heaving, blood on his cheek. The stranger is gone - vanished like smoke.
But I can't look away from his eyes.
They're still glowing.
> "What... what are you?"
He doesn't answer. Just wipes the blood off and stares at me like he wants to say a thousand things but can't.
> "Zack," I whisper again. "Please."
He finally looks up.
> "I didn't want you to find out like this."
---
The air grows heavy.
He stands. His body trembling - not from pain, but from fear.
> "I've felt it for years," he says quietly. "Something... tying me to you. Something older than us both."
> "I don't understand," I say. "You're not a vampire. You're not... human either."
He nods slowly.
> "I think I'm both. Or neither."
"I was adopted. Just like you. They never told me anything - just that I was found in a forest, unconscious, with a strange mark across my chest."
> "A mark?" I echo.
He unbuttons his shirt slightly and turns.
I gasp.
Right below his left shoulder, burned faintly into his skin - is a glowing silver symbol, shaped like a sword crossed over a crown.
> "It only appears when I'm near you," he whispers.
"I think... I was made to protect you."
---
My knees give out. He catches me.
His hands are warm. His heartbeat is fast.
> "You saved me," I breathe.
"Even when you didn't know why."
---
We sit there together, in the dark.
The street is silent.
But inside me, everything screams.
I don't know who I am anymore.
But I know one thing for sure.
> Zack isn't just my best friend.
He's part of my fate.
---
> They were never ordinary.
Their bond was never accidental.
But fate doesn't wait - and neither do enemies.
- Mysterious_frnd