The school buzzed with excitement the moment the new student arrived.
Whispers traveled fast — new boy, transfer student, handsome. Girls stole curious glances as he walked down the hallway with a calm, unreadable expression. He was good-looking, undeniably so… but still, nowhere near the effortless, dangerous beauty of the vampire trio.
Davon. Devin. Lucian.
The new boy introduced himself simply as Silas. Quiet. Polite. Too calm for someone new.
Elise barely noticed him at first.
She was too busy laughing at something Patricia said, her hand brushing lightly against Davon's as they walked into class together. Davon felt the shift in the air immediately — a familiar sensation that made his body tense.
Someone was watching.
His eyes swept the room and landed on the new boy seated at the back. Silas's gaze flickered away a second too late.
Davon frowned.
---
Behind the polite smile, behind the quiet posture, Silas was hiding everything.
That night, far from the noise of the dorms and the warmth of friends, Silas stood alone in a dark rented room. The walls were not bare.
They were covered with photographs.
Elise laughing. Elise walking. Elise sitting under a tree. Elise sleeping in her dorm room — taken from a distance.
Some pictures were shaky. Some were clear. All of them were recent.
Silas stepped closer to the wall and traced one picture slowly with his finger — Elise smiling beside Davon.
His jaw tightened.
"You were never meant to be his," he whispered softly. "You were always meant to be mine."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out something small and delicate — a ribbon Elise had once dropped weeks ago. He had kept it.
The obsession had never stopped.
It had only been waiting.
---
Back in the dorm, Elise suddenly shivered.
"I feel strange," she murmured.
Davon turned to her instantly. "What do you mean?"
"Like… someone is watching me," she said quietly, hugging her arms.
Davon's eyes darkened.
He pulled her gently closer. "You're safe," he promised — though unease coiled tightly in his chest. "I won't let anything happen to you."
But far away…
Silas smiled in the dark.