CHAPTER 146: RUN

Clark POV:

"Hey," I whispered, even though I knew he wouldn’t answer. "Whatever happened... I’m not gonna ask again. Just... you’re safe here, alright?"

No response.

I didn’t expect one.

But I thought—maybe, just maybe—I saw the covers shift slightly. A twitch. Like maybe he heard me.

I turned toward him, my whisper barely audible.

"Hey... you never told me your name."

No answer.

A minute passed. Then two.

And then, from beneath the blanket, a soft whisper, hoarse and quiet:

"...Lucas."

I nodded in the dark. "I’m Clark."

A pause. Then another whisper, barely more than a breath.

"We shouldn’t have come here."

A chill ran through me. I pulled my covers higher, heart thudding in my chest.

This place... this wasn’t just about bullies.

It was something else.

Something worse.

And I had no Clare here to fight for me.

Just me.

*********

I don’t know when I finally drifted off. Maybe sometime after midnight. My brain had been spiraling like it always did—overthinking, analyzing, replaying the weirdness of the day on a loop—until it finally just short-circuited. Blackout sleep.

I was deep in it when I heard shuffling.

Zipper teeth grinding shut. The quiet thump of something soft being stuffed into a suitcase.

I cracked my eyes open, groggy, my head feeling like it had been stuffed with cotton. I reached for my phone—5:03 a.m.

What the hell?

I blinked through the darkness and saw Lucas—dressed, his suitcase halfway zipped up. His face was pale in the faint blue glow from the hallway night light filtering under the door. His movements were quick, frantic.

"What are you doing, man?" I croaked, rubbing the crust of sleep from my eyes.

He jumped, startled by my voice like I’d broken a spell.

"I’m leaving," he said. His voice trembled, but not from tiredness—no, it was something rawer. "I’m going home. I can’t... I won’t stay here with those... things."

I sat up a bit, confused. In my still-half-asleep state, my brain hadn’t caught up. "What things? You mean—like—bullies? You’re letting them win?"

That’s what made sense, right? The trembling, the panic, the silence last night—it all screamed victim of upperclassman hazing. That had to be it. All schools had them. Maybe here it was worse. Elite schools bred elite assholes.

"You didn’t just pass entrance exams and get accepted into Memoville to run off before orientation, man," I said. "Come on."

But Lucas looked at me like I had grown horns.

"You..." he said, eyes wide. "You think I was bullied?"

He laughed, but it wasn’t a laugh that meant anything good. It was dry. Empty. Like his throat had forgotten how to function.

"I wish it was bullies," he whispered. "At least bullies don’t drink your blood or smile like they’re stretching skin over bone."

I froze.

"You won’t believe me anyway," he said, crouching and stuffing his hoodie into his bag. "Nobody ever does. That’s why they always get fresh meat. That’s what we are to them."

The silence that fell after that was suffocating. My heart kicked in my chest a little faster than I liked.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, not sure if I even wanted to know the answer.

Lucas just stared at me. Not blinking. Not moving.

"You saw it, didn’t you? The ones that walk like models, but don’t blink enough? The ones who talk like they’re quoting from a play and move too... perfectly?" He was talking fast now. "Didn’t you feel it? The cold? The eyes? The paleness? The way the damn wind moves when they pass by?"

I swallowed. I had felt something. Seen things. But that was just nerves. Jet lag. Maybe a little imagination and paranoia sprinkled in. Right?

"Lucas, come on—"

"No," he said, voice sharp now. "You come on. Leave. You think I’m crazy? Fine. But if I stay, I die. Or worse." He zipped his suitcase fully, stood up, and walked toward the door like his legs were made of glass about to crack under the pressure.

"You know what’s funny?" he said, his back to me. "I knew something was wrong the moment that woman at registration smelled my ID. Smelled it. Like it was meat."

My blood chilled.

"...She did that to me too," I admitted before I could stop myself.

Lucas turned slowly, eyes wide. His face crumbled. "Then why the hell are you still here?"

The door creaked open. A gust of cold morning air from the corridor pushed in like a whisper.

He looked over his shoulder once, like he was trying to memorize the room in case he didn’t make it out.

"Don’t trust anyone," he said. "Especially the ones who smile too much."

Then he was gone.

I sat there for what felt like hours, but the clock only ticked forward ten minutes.

It was still too early for anyone to be up, but I couldn’t sleep again.

His words rang like an echo chamber in my head: They drink blood. They stretch skin over bone. Don’t trust the smiling ones.

I didn’t want to believe him. But the girl at registration had said I "smelled delicious." She had sniffed my ID.

The guy outside the bench had glowing eyes. And that wind...

Monsters? No. There’s no such thing.

Right?

But even as I tried to rationalize it, something deep inside me stirred—something primal. Some ancient part of me that lived in the bones and blood, long before logic and tech.

And it whispered:

Run.

******

They drink blood.

What the actual fuck did that mean?

Like—was it some kind of cult thing? One of those secret societies that elite universities always tried to keep hush-hush? Blood rituals, maybe? A weird underground hazing tradition where people cut their hands and passed a goblet around while chanting in Latin?

That had to be it.

Right?

But then my brain hit rewind. That pale senior I met outside yesterday—the one with the ninja walk—he’d said something to me. Something I’d brushed off like a joke or edgy nonsense.

"Try not to bleed, little lamb. They can smell it."

At the time, I’d chalked it up to upperclassman weirdness. Thought maybe he was stoned. Or a jerk trying to mess with the new kid. Now...

Now it didn’t feel like a joke.

My palms were sweating. I rubbed them on my pants and stood up, pacing the small dorm room while the early morning sun started creeping through the frosted window.

Who can smell it?

The senior?

They? Who the hell was they?

My heart was beating faster than it should for a conversation that supposedly meant nothing. My mind kept looping. Every weird detail felt suddenly... sharpened.

The girl at the registration desk smelling my ID.

The second pale senior who appeared behind me without a sound.

The eyes. The wind.

The chill.

The almost-empty hallways that felt like someone was watching from every corner.

And Lucas. The panic. The crimson drops on his shirt. The words he left behind like a curse:

"Don’t trust anyone. Especially the ones who smile too much."

My logical side screamed at me to stop spiraling. It was just a prank. A tradition. Some messed-up freshman mind game. That had to be it. There was no such thing as monsters. That’s fiction. Horror movies and cheap novels. That’s it.

Right?

Right?

But my gut... that part of me I usually ignore unless it’s telling me I’m hungry or late to class... was screaming something else.

Run.

I sat back down on the edge of my bed and stared at the door Lucas had walked through, trying to convince myself this was just nerves. A new place. A new Chapter.

But deep, deep down?

I wasn’t so sure anymore.

And I had a sickening feeling that whatever Lucas was running from... I’d already shaken hands with it.