<h4>Chapter 48: Raging Beast</h4>


    <strong>re POV:</strong>


    Of <i>course</i> it was Sara.


    Because why not? The universe hadn’t done enough today—no, it had to throw in a side character I couldn’t avoid.


    "use, you in there?"


    I groaned into my hands.


    <fnf00f> For original chapters go to findnovel</fnf00f>


    What the hell did she want now?


    I had nned to stay in my <i>normal</i> self for the rest of the day—wrap myself in nkets, cry about life, maybe google "vampire possession symptoms" on incognito mode. You know, healing stuff.


    But no. That n was now dead and buried six feet under.


    So yeah—back into disguise.


    I shuffled to the wardrobe and yanked out my boyish clothes: the oversized hoodie that hid my chest, the binder that was the devil’s corset, and those shapeless jeans that screamed <i>"I’m just your average emo boy, nothing to see here."</i>


    My body protested with every movement—<i>sore in ces it had no business being sore.</i>


    Pulling on the binder made me hiss. "Fucking ze."


    I looked in the mirror once I was done. There it was—re the boy. Just a slightly exhausted, maybe-a-little-bit-traumatized version. Great.


    I cracked the door open, face deadpan. "Sara. What."


    As soon as I opened the door—<i>bam</i>—there she was.


    Sara.


    And this time, she looked like an absolute disaster. Not her usual annoying, nosey, fake-perky disaster. No—this was next-level, full-blown apocalypse energy.


    Mascara streaked down her cheeks like war paint. Lipstick smeared halfway across her chin. Hickeys—<i>plural</i>—peppered all over her neck and arms like a constetion map of bad decisions. And she didn’t even try to cover them up like she normally did with her ridiculous collection of scarves.


    Good lord.


    This girl was <i>mid-meltdown.</i>


    I stared at her for a second. She stared back. Then she burst into fresh tears.


    "use," she sobbed, voice cracking like a bad horror movie scream. "It’s bad. It’s so bad. I think—I think I hooked up with someone I wasn’t supposed to."


    <i>Girl, same,</i> I almost said.


    But I bit my tongue.


    Instead, I stepped aside with a dramatic sigh, gesturing into my room. "Come in, Walking Disaster. But make it fast. I already used up my emotional capacity for the week."


    She shuffled in like a kicked puppy, wiping her nose on her sleeve and leaving smudged lipstick trails. I couldn’t help but wince at the mess.


    "Tea?" I asked tly. "Or do you want to scream into a pillow first?"


    "They’ve ruined me..."


    Her voice cracked like splintered ss, barely more than a whisper.


    "I don’t even know what <i>normal</i> feels like anymore..."


    There was something raw in her eyes—red, wide, ssy. Something broken. Something that looked like it had been wed out from the inside.


    "Please, use."


    She reached for me, sudden and trembling.


    I caught her wrists mid-air, the weight of her desperation nearly knocking the breath out of me. Her face was too close, her pupils dted—haunted.


    "Please," she begged again. "I just want to see if it’s the same with a human..."


    My stomach turned.


    "...please, I need to feel <i>anything</i> that isn’t vampire or wolf on me."


    Her words dripped in a kind of horror I didn’t have a name for. It didn’t feel like desire. It felt like she was trying to w herself out of her own skin. Trying to forget.


    Her body trembled against mine, and for a moment—I didn’t know what scared me more.


    The broken girl in front of me.


    Or the realization that I <i>knew</i> exactly what she meant.


    The air between us thickened. The room suddenly felt smaller. Too dark. Too quiet.


    It wasn’t just trauma.


    It was a haunting.


    Something—<i>someone</i>—had been feeding on her, wearing her down to the bone. And not just with fangs.


    I eased her back, gently, and held her gaze.


    "Sara," I said slowly, carefully, like speaking too loud might shatter her. "What did they do to you?"


    Her mouth opened, but no sound came out.


    Then she started to cry again. Not loud. Not wailing. Just soft—like a soul trying to leak out quietly.


    Something was <i>very</i> wrong.


    And suddenly, I wasn’t sure which of us was more cursed.


    I would’ve helped her—should’ve, maybe.


    But let’s be real here... I’m a girl.


    Though she doesn’t know.


    She doesn’t know that the body she’s clinging to isn’t some solid, stoic boy’s. That under these boyishyers is a girl barely holding her own shit together, let alone ready to be someone’s savior.


    And yet here she is, falling apart in my arms. Clutching at me like I’m safe. Like I’m <i>different.</i>


    And I am.


    Just... not in the way she thinks.


    A twistedugh nearly bubbled out of me—hysterical, maybe even unhinged. I bit it back.


    She doesn’t know the truth. About me. About ze. About the things I’ve seen, the things I’ve done. The things I <i>let</i> happen.


    She doesn’t know that I’m barely one step ahead of my own breakdown, that I spent the entire walk back from <i>his</i>ir shaking in my skin, his scent still wing at me, his voice still echoing in my bones.


    She doesn’t know that I was fucked by something possibly possessed, definitely undead, and most likely addicted to my blood.


    She just knows I’m here.


    And right now, that’s enough for her.


    But it’s not enough for me.


    Because I can’t save her.


    Not when I’m still crawling out of my own grave.


    Sara was still crying, the trembling in her body now seeping into mine as she clung to me like I was the only steady thing in her copsing world. Her arms wrapped tight around my middle, her head buried in my chest, and I didn’t move. Couldn’t.


    I held her.


    Not because I had the strength for it—but because I knew what it felt like to shatter alone.


    Her tears soaked through my hoodie, and her breath came in those cracked, huped gasps like someone trying not to drown. I smoothed a hand over her hair without thinking.


    Then everything froze.


    The silence was pierced by something deep. Wrong.


    A low, vibrating <i>growl</i> rumbled like it had crawled straight up from the earth’s bowels and infected the air. It wasn’t human. Not even close. And my blood turned to ice.


    Before I could blink, the door <i>exploded</i>—literally <i>ripped off its hinges</i> like paper caught in a storm. It mmed against the opposite wall with a screech that felt like it scraped through my skull.


    Smoke. Cold. Rage.


    Reed.


    He stood in the frame—no, loomed—with red eyes glowing like coals burning through fog, locked on me. Or more specifically, locked on me and Sara, tangled together on my couch like a sphemy against nature.


    His chest heaved like he’d run miles, but I knew better. He wasn’t out of breath.


    He was holding it in.


    Barely.


    I saw it in his face. Not just anger—but betrayal. Something unspoken and <i>violent</i> shed through those hell-lit eyes. His jaw ticked, fangs bared, nostrils red—and when he stepped forward, I felt the press of his aura like gravity shifting around me.


    Thick. Oppressive. <i>Possessive.</i>


    "Get. Away. From Him," he growled, voice low, barely more than a whisper—but gods, it was the kind of whisper you heard in nightmares before the monster took you.


    Sara pulled back, startled, eyes wide and tear-streaked—but it was me he was looking at. Like I had broken something sacred.


    Like I hadmitted sacrilege.


    And I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe.


    Because maybe I had.


    Sara had seen things. Been through things. Things that made her skin pale and herugh forced—things she never spoke of, but carried like a second skin. And yet, through it all, she’d tried to keep her head above the water, navigating the creepiness of this damned ce like it couldn’t touch her.


    But tonight?


    Tonight it <i>had</i> touched her.


    And it broke her.


    She’de to me cracked open—smeared lipstick, hickeys like bruises from a nightmare, shaking like something had wed through her soul. And I’d held her because I didn’t know what else to do. She neededfort. Something human. Something soft.


    Something I wasn’t sure I even <i>was</i> anymore.


    But now...


    Now Reed stood there, red-eyed and vibrating with barely restrained violence. The door stilly mangled in the hall like it had been mauled by a bear. His gaze locked on us, on the way Sara clung to me, and I knew—<i>he saw something else entirely</i>.


    Something unforgivable.


    Something primal.


    And the look on his face?


    That wasn’t jealousy.


    That was <i>territorial madness</i>.


    I don’t know what was going on in that wolf brain of his, but whatever it was—it was <i>wrong</i>. Broken. Dangerous.


    I felt it before I even processed it—the need to shield her, to protect her from <i>him</i>. Even if my hands were shaking.


    So I moved.


    One step.


    Then another.


    And ced myself between her and Reed.


    It was stupid. It was <i>insane</i>.


    I wasn’t even wearing a damn binder.


    But none of that mattered when he looked like he was deciding whether to rip Sara apart... or me.


    I raised my chin, heart pounding like war drums. "Stay back," I said, voice steadier than I felt. "She’s not your enemy."


    Reed didn’t move.


    Didn’t blink.


    But gods, the <i>rage</i> in his eyes—it pulsed with every heartbeat like something alive.


    And the worst part?


    The longer I stood there... the angrier he got.


    Like my <i>defiance</i> was the real sin.


    Like I wasn’t protecting her.


    Like I was choosing her.


    <i>Over him.</i>