Mark insisted on driving me back to campus.
I sat in the passenger seat of his beat-up Honda, staring at my hands. The adrenaline was wearing off, leaving me shaky and confused. My right hand still had flecks of ash under the fingernails from when I'd... done whatever I'd done to that vampire.
Punched through its chest like it was made of paper.
That wasn't normal. That wasn't human.
"Your hands are bleeding," Mark said quietly, glancing over at me as we stopped at a red light.
I looked down. He was right. The vampire's claws had left deep scratches across my knuckles when I'd grabbed its throat. They should have hurt, but I hadn't even felt them until now.
"It's nothing."
"It's not nothing." His voice was gentle, the same tone he used when he was worried about me failing a test or catching a cold. "We should clean them up when we get back to your dorm."
We. Like we were still a couple. Like everything Viktor had said hadn't happened.
"Mark." I kept my eyes on the passing streetlights. "What Viktor said back there. About you being assigned to watch me..."
Mark's hands tightened on the steering wheel. "It's complicated."
"Is it true?"
A long pause. "Yes."
The simple word hit me like a punch to the stomach. Even though I'd already known, hearing him confirm it made it real in a way that hurt.
"How long?" I asked.
"Since the beginning. Since orientation week."
Three months. Our entire relationship had been built on a lie.
"The coffee shop," I said slowly. "When you helped me pick up my books. That wasn't an accident."
"No."
"The study sessions. The late-night conversations. The way you always seemed to show up exactly when I needed someone to talk to."
"Ella—"
"All of it was fake."
Mark pulled into the parking structure next to my dorm and turned off the engine. In the sudden quiet, I could hear him breathing. Fast, shallow breaths like he was the one who'd just fought three vampires.
"Not all of it," he said finally.
I turned to look at him. Really look at him. The brown hair that always stuck up in the back. The scar on his left wrist that I'd traced with my finger so many times. The way he chewed his bottom lip when he was thinking.
"Which parts were real?"
"The parts where I fell in love with you." His voice cracked a little on the word love. "That was never supposed to happen. I was supposed to observe you, report back on any signs of... awakening. Keep my distance emotionally."
"But you didn't."
"No. I didn't." He reached over and touched my hand, careful to avoid the scratches. "The first time you laughed at one of my stupid jokes, I knew I was in trouble. And when you fell asleep during that movie marathon and curled up against my shoulder..." He smiled sadly. "I was supposed to leave that night. Call in a report and request a transfer."
"Why didn't you?"
"Because you felt like home."
The words hung in the air between us. Part of me wanted to believe him. The part that remembered the way he looked at me when he thought I wasn't watching. The part that remembered how safe I felt when he held me.
But another part of me – a newer, colder part – wondered if this was just another manipulation. Another layer of the lie.
"What exactly were you supposed to be watching for?" I asked.
Mark was quiet for a moment. "Signs that you were... developing abilities. Supernatural abilities."
My stomach dropped. "What kind of abilities?"
"Enhanced strength. Speed. Heightened senses." He paused. "Bloodlust."
Bloodlust.
I thought about the way I'd felt when the vampire had grabbed me. The rage that had consumed me, made me want to tear it apart with my bare hands. The way its fear had smelled sweet and metallic in the air.
"And if I had been developing these... abilities?" I kept my voice steady. "What then?"
Mark looked down at his hands. "I was supposed to report it."
"And then what? Someone would come and take me away? Study me like a lab rat?"
"It's not like that—"
"Then what is it like, Mark?" The anger was building again, that same volcanic heat I'd felt at the observatory. "What happens to people like me in your world?"
"People like you are dangerous," he said quietly. "They lose their humanity. They become predators. They kill innocent people."
"So you kill them first."
"When we have to, yes."
The honesty in his voice was almost worse than if he'd lied. At least lies left room for hope.
"Come on," he said, opening his car door. "Let's get your hands cleaned up."
We walked through the lobby of my dorm in silence. The student worker at the front desk looked up from her textbook and waved. Normal college night, as far as she knew. Just a girl coming home from a date with her boyfriend.
If only she knew her boyfriend was a vampire hunter and the girl might not be entirely human.
Mark followed me up to my room. Sarah was out – probably at the library, working on some coding project that would keep her up until three AM. I was grateful for the privacy.
"Bathroom's through there," I said, pointing toward the tiny shared space between our beds.
Mark rummaged through Sarah's collection of medical supplies – she was paranoid about injuries, always prepared for everything from paper cuts to zombie apocalypses. He emerged with antiseptic, gauze, and medical tape.
"Sit," he said, patting my narrow desk chair.
I sat. He knelt in front of me, taking my injured hand in both of his. His touch was warm, gentle, practiced. He'd done this before.
"How many people have you killed?" I asked.
His hands stilled for a moment. "You mean vampires?"
"I mean people. Human beings who developed abilities like the ones you were watching for in me."
Mark opened the antiseptic bottle and poured some on a cotton swab. "Does it matter?"
"It matters to me."
He started cleaning the cuts on my knuckles. The antiseptic should have stung, but it didn't. Another thing to add to the growing list of ways my body wasn't behaving normally.
"Seven," he said finally.
"Seven people who used to be human. Seven people who had families, friends, lives. Seven people who probably started out just like you – confused, scared, not understanding what was happening to them."
I watched his face as he worked. There was pain there, carefully hidden but not quite concealed. "You didn't want to do it."
"No. But they were too far gone. They'd already killed people. Innocent people."
"How do you know when someone's too far gone?"
Mark finished with my right hand and moved to my left, examining the smaller scratches there. "When they stop seeing humans as people. When they start seeing them as food."
Food.
I thought about walking past the campus blood drive earlier that week. The smell had been... appealing. I'd told myself I was just hungry for lunch.
"Mark," I said carefully. "What if someone was developing these abilities, but they hadn't hurt anyone? What if they were fighting it?"
"Fighting what?"
"The... the hunger. The need to hurt people."
He looked up at me then, and I saw something flicker in his brown eyes. Suspicion? Hope? Fear?
"Is this a hypothetical question, Ella?"
My heart hammered against my ribs. This was it. The moment where I either trusted him completely or kept lying to the person I loved.
The person who might have to kill me if he knew what I really was.
"What if it wasn't?" I whispered.
Mark's hands stilled completely. He was staring at me like he was seeing me for the first time.
"Ella." His voice was very careful, very controlled. "Are you telling me you've been experiencing... symptoms?"
"I don't know what I'm telling you."
He set down the gauze and antiseptic. Slowly, deliberately, he reached into his jacket and pulled out his silver knife. Not threatening, just... present. Ready.
"Tell me about the symptoms."
The knife gleamed in the fluorescent light of my dorm room. I stared at the blade and felt something twist in my stomach. Not fear, exactly. More like recognition.
Silver. The one thing that could hurt creatures like the vampires Mark hunted.
Creatures like me.
"Enhanced strength," I said quietly. "Tonight, when I... when I killed that vampire. I shouldn't have been able to do that."
Mark nodded slowly. "What else?"
"Enhanced senses. I can hear Sarah's heartbeat through the wall when she's sleeping. I can smell what the cafeteria is serving from three buildings away."
"Anything else?"
I hesitated. This was the big one. The one that would probably make him use that knife.
"I've been having dreams," I said. "About blood. About hunting. And when I wake up..." I swallowed hard. "When I wake up, I'm hungry. But not for food."
Mark was very still. The knife was steady in his hand, but he wasn't pointing it at me. Not yet.
"How long?" he asked.
"A few weeks. Maybe longer. It started small – just weird cravings, enhanced hearing. But it's getting stronger."
"Have you fed?"
"Fed?"
"Have you drunk human blood?"
"No!" The word came out louder than I intended. "God, no. Never."
Something in his expression eased slightly. "That's good. That's very good."
"Is it?" I laughed, but it sounded broken. "Because from where I'm sitting, it looks like I'm turning into exactly the kind of monster you were sent to watch for."
Mark set the knife down on my desk. Carefully, like he was making a deliberate choice.
"You're not a monster," he said.
"How can you say that? You just told me you've killed seven people for having the exact same symptoms I'm having."
"Those seven people had all killed humans. Fed on them. Crossed a line you haven't crossed." He reached up and touched my face, his thumb tracing along my cheekbone. "You're fighting it. That has to count for something."
I wanted to lean into his touch. I wanted to believe that the warmth in his eyes was real, not just part of his training.
"What happens now?" I asked.
"I don't know," he said honestly. "This has never happened before. Someone with your symptoms who was still... still human enough to resist."
"Am I human enough?"
Mark studied my face for a long moment. "Ask me in the morning."
It wasn't the reassurance I'd been hoping for, but it was honest. And honesty was something I was starting to value more than comfort.
"I should probably report this," he said. "To my handler. There are protocols—"
"Don't." The word came out sharp, desperate. "Please. Not yet."
"Ella—"
"Give me twenty-four hours. Let me figure out what's happening to me before you bring in the cavalry."
Mark was quiet for a long moment, staring at the silver knife on my desk. "If you lose control. If you hurt someone—"
"You'll stop me," I finished. "I get it."
"I don't think you do." His voice was soft but deadly serious. "If you cross that line, I won't have a choice. It won't matter how I feel about you."
"I know."
But even as I said it, I wondered if it was true. If push came to shove, would Mark really be able to kill me? Would I be able to let him?
"I should go," he said, standing up. "Give you some space to think."
"Mark." I caught his hand as he moved toward the door. "Earlier tonight, before the vampires showed up. You said you wanted to tell me something. What was it?"
He looked down at our joined hands. "I was going to tell you the truth. About what I am, what I do. I was going to ask you to run away with me."
"Run away?"
"Leave LA. Leave the hunting. Start over somewhere new, where neither of our pasts could find us." He smiled sadly. "Stupid plan, right?"
"Maybe not so stupid," I said quietly.
Because right now, running away sounded like the smartest thing anyone had suggested all night.
Mark squeezed my hand once, then let go. "Get some sleep. And Ella?"
"Yeah?"
"Lock your door. Silver knife under your pillow. Just in case."
Just in case I lost control in the middle of the night. Just in case I became the monster we were both afraid I was turning into.
"Sweet dreams," I said sarcastically.
But after he left, I did exactly what he'd suggested. Locked the door. Put a silver butter knife from the kitchenette under my pillow, even though touching it made my skin crawl.
Then I lay awake in the dark, listening to the sounds of the dorm around me. Sarah's heartbeat from the room next door. The couple arguing on the floor above us. The night security guard making his rounds in the lobby.
All of it louder and clearer than it should have been.
All of it reminding me that I was changing into something that might not be able to resist the urge to hunt every heartbeat I could hear.
Outside my window, the city hummed with life. Eight million people, all walking around with blood pumping through their veins.
And for the first time since this whole nightmare started, I caught myself wondering what they might taste like.
End of Chapter 4