The night was quiet, but it wasn't peace.It was punishment.
Ash walked alone through the dripping streets, his footsteps echoing against the wet pavement. Every drop of rain on his skin felt heavier than it should — like the world itself wanted him to stop, to go back, to choose.
But he didn't.He couldn't.
From the moment he saw her again in that college hallway, the conflict had already started to bleed through him. Shyla's eyes — alive, uncertain, achingly familiar — had torn through the walls he'd spent years building. Alishya's shadow flickered in her smile, her voice, her heartbeat.But she wasn't Alishya. Not at all.
And that truth haunted him more than the hunger ever could.
He reached the end of the street and stopped beneath a broken streetlight — the same one where he'd stood hours ago, looking up at her window. He could still feel her presence: the soft pulse of her energy like a whisper beneath his skin. The locket had warned her. It always did.
"Leo," he muttered, the name tasting bitter. "Still guarding her… even now."
He looked up at the sky, pale clouds shivering over the moon. His reflection glimmered faintly in a puddle near his feet — eyes darker than night, marked by power he no longer controlled. His hand tightened at his side, the veins along his wrist glowing faintly red. The hunger stirred — that familiar, gnawing ache in his chest.
One drop of her blood.That's all it would take.One act to bring Alishya back.
And yet…He had walked away.
"Coward," he whispered to himself, voice harsh. "You had her right there."
But another voice — softer, older — threaded through the storm in his mind.Alishya's memory, or something like it.
"You can't save the dead by killing the living."
He flinched. "You're not here," he muttered. "You're gone."
But even as he said it, he saw her face — no, Shyla's face — flash before him, the same defiance, the same light.
And suddenly, he wasn't sure anymore who he was trying to save.
He leaned against the streetlight, closing his eyes.The air shimmered faintly — not from power, but from exhaustion.
"I'm losing control," he admitted quietly. "And she's the only one who makes me want to stop."
His reflection rippled in the puddle below, the faint glow around his hand fading. The hunger dulled, though it didn't disappear.
He turned his face up to the window where she slept, unseen behind the glass."Stay away from me, Shyla," he said softly. "Before I forget why I shouldn't touch you."
For a moment, the night seemed to hold its breath.
Every instinct told him to go back, to make it right, to end the hunger once and for all.But he didn't move.
A low hum rippled through the air — not sound, but vibration. Familiar. Old.
He closed his eyes. "You shouldn't be here," he muttered.
The locket's voice came from nowhere and everywhere, softer than wind."You say that every time, Ash."
His jaw tightened. "And yet, you never listen."
"She's safer when I don't," Leo replied. There was faint warmth in the words — a glow beneath the sarcasm. "You forget, I was bound to protect her long before you decided to haunt her life again."
Ash's lips curved faintly. "Protect her from what? Me?"
"From what you'll become if you lose control."
That silenced him. He looked down, rainwater blurring his reflection at his feet."You think I don't already know that?" he said quietly. "You think I don't see her and remember what I lost?"
Leo's glow pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat across distance."Then stay away from her."
Ash laughed — soft, bitter, tired. "You think it's that simple?"
"It has to be."
A pause. Then Leo's tone softened, almost human."She trusts you, Ash. Don't make her regret it."
Ash lifted his gaze toward the faint light of her window. He didn't answer for a long time.
When he finally spoke, his voice was barely more than breath."You've always underestimated what she means to me."
"And you've always mistaken meaning for mercy."
Ash exhaled slowly, the edge of a smile ghosting his face."Still preaching, old friend."
"Still hoping you listen."
The rain thickened again, blurring the light between them. Leo's presence faded — the warmth dimming into quiet.
Ash stood alone for a while longer, watching the window, watching the night.
When he finally turned away, his last words were barely audible beneath the rain:"Keep her safe, Leo. From me… if it comes to that."
And the locket, miles away on Shyla's chest, pulsed once — as if in answer.