Damien exhaled slowly, his grip loosening from where his nails had dug into his palm. The memory was over, but its weight remained, pressing against his ribs like a phantom hand.
Ryan never showed up after that day.
He didn't need to.
Damien knew what that meant.
The old man had seen the look in his eyes. The same look he had warned him about—the one that meant there was no coming back.
And maybe… maybe he was right to walk away.
But it didn't change the truth.
Elliot Vance was dead.
And Damien?
He had never once regretted it.
The sterile white walls of the hospital blurred again as his vision refocused, dragging him back to the present. The past was behind him, but its ghosts never truly left. They lingered in every shadow, whispered in the silence, and haunted the spaces between his thoughts.
He looked down at his hands. They were steady now. The blood that once stained them had long since faded, but the weight of it never did.
Click!
"She's asking for you," Elena's father's voice brought him back as he turned to face the man.
Elena's father stood there, exhaustion lining his face, his eyes hollow yet sharp with scrutiny. He wasn't looking at Damien with gratitude, nor with anger—just cold, measured assessment.
Damien didn't blame him.
He had been there before.
That look. That weight in a father's voice when they spoke about their daughter, their family—when they didn't know who to trust.
"She's awake?" Damien asked, his voice steady despite the storm still raging beneath his skin.
The man nodded. "Barely." A pause. "But she asked for you by name."
That caught him off guard.
Elena had no reason to ask for him. They weren't close. He had spoken to her maybe once or twice in passing before all this. She had no reason to remember him, let alone call for him in a moment like this.
And yet—
Damien exhaled, pushing himself up from the cold, uncomfortable hospital chair. His body ached, but that was nothing new. Pain was a familiar companion.
He followed Elena's father down the sterile white halls, the sound of their footsteps echoing in the empty space. The hospital was quiet at this hour, save for the occasional murmur of nurses at the station, the soft beeping of machines from occupied rooms.
Room 307.
The door was slightly ajar.
Her father stopped, turning slightly, as if debating something. Then, in a voice lower than before, he said, "I don't know what you are to her, but she's not strong like you. Be careful with what you say."
Damien didn't respond.
He didn't know how to.
The man walked away, leaving Damien standing there. For a moment, he considered leaving.
But then he heard it.
A weak, almost breathless voice from inside.
"Damien…?"
He stepped inside.
The sight hit him harder than he expected.
Elena looked small against the hospital bed, her frame swallowed by the too-large sheets. Her face was pale, her bottom lip split, bruises decorating her arms and the side of her face.
But her eyes—
They weren't as empty as he had expected.
They held something else. Something raw.
"Hey," he said, his voice quieter than usual.
A ghost of a smile flickered across her face. "Hey."
For a moment, silence stretched between them. Neither seemed to know what to say.
Then, softly—
"You found me."
Damien clenched his jaw. "Yeah."
Another silence.
Then she exhaled, her gaze flickering downward, fingers weakly clutching at the sheets. "I thought—I thought he was going to kill me."
Ace.
The name didn't need to be said. It lingered between them like a curse.
"He almost did," Damien admitted. No sugarcoating. No empty reassurances.
Her fingers tightened slightly.
"But he didn't."
Damien nodded.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
Then, almost too softly to hear—
"I think I remember you."
He tensed. "What?"
Elena swallowed, her expression thoughtful despite the exhaustion dragging at her features. "Before all this… before I even transferred here… I think I met you once."
His brows furrowed. He was sure he had never spoken to her before she transferred.
"When?"
She hesitated. "Three years ago. I was with my mother in the city. She told me to wait outside while she bought something. And there was—" she faltered, as if unsure whether to continue.
"There was a fight."
He didn't know what to say to that.
Three years ago.
He had been fifteen. Still fighting in the underground, still testing his limits. There had been plenty of fights, plenty of broken arms, and plenty of people who had learned the hard way not to step in his way.
And yet—
A memory surfaced.
A fight outside a convenience store. Some thug trying to extort money from a store clerk. Damien had stepped in, not because he cared, but because the guy had gotten too aggressive. A few punches, a snapped arm, and it was over before it even began.
When he had walked away, he had noticed a girl.
Sitting on the steps, watching him with quiet, curious eyes.
He had looked at her for just a moment before disappearing into the night.
That was her?
Damien exhaled through his nose, his fingers flexing slightly. "That was a long time ago."
Elena nodded. "Yeah." A small pause. "But I never forgot it."
Her voice was softer now, like she was speaking more to herself than to him.
"You looked so… alone."
Damien's jaw tightened, but he said nothing.
"I thought about that a lot," she admitted. "Back then, I wondered if people like that—people like you—ever had someone to stand beside them."
Her fingers brushed against the sheets, slow and absentminded.
"And now, here you are."
Her words settled between them, heavy in a way Damien wasn't sure he knew how to process.
She was looking at him differently now. Not like she was scared. Not like she was grateful. But like she understood.
He didn't know how he felt about that.
"I'm not a good person, Elena," he said, his voice quieter than usual. "You shouldn't—"
"I don't care."
The words cut through the room like a blade.
Damien looked at her, but Elena's gaze was steady.
"I don't care if you're not a good person." Her voice was barely above a whisper, but there was no hesitation. "Good people didn't save me. Good people didn't stop them when they hurt me. You did."
Damien exhaled slowly, his fingers pressing into his palms.
She wasn't wrong.
But that didn't mean she understood what that meant.
Elena swallowed, shifting slightly. "Can I ask you something?"
He nodded.
"Why did you come for me?"
The question shouldn't have been hard to answer.
Because it was the right thing to do? No. That wasn't it.
Because he couldn't just stand by?
No.
Because when he saw her like that, lying on the pavement, beaten and bloodied, it had dragged something out of him he thought he had buried?
Something that looked too much like Martha.
Damien's throat felt tight.
"…I don't know," he admitted.
Elena studied him for a long moment. Then, slowly, she smiled.
"That's okay."
The silence stretched again, but it wasn't uncomfortable this time.
Damien glanced at the door. "You should rest."
"I will."
He turned to leave.
Then—
"Damien?"
He stopped.
"…Will you be here tomorrow?"
He should have said no.
He should have told her not to rely on him. That he wasn't someone she should get close to. That he wasn't safe.
But for some reason, when he opened his mouth—
"Yeah," he said quietly. "I will."
And for the first time in a long, long time—
He wasn't sure if he was lying.
...
The night outside the hospital was cold, the kind that settled deep in your bones. Damien barely felt it.
He leaned against the railing outside, staring at the empty parking lot, hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets. The hospital's fluorescent glow buzzed behind him, but it didn't reach far enough to touch the shadows pooling at his feet.
Elena remembered him.
That shouldn't have mattered.
And yet, it did.
Three years ago, she had seen him. Not as some school troublemaker, not as a fighter, not as the orphaned street kid with a chip on his shoulder—but as something else. Something he had never really considered before.
Alone.
Damien exhaled sharply, shaking his head. He had spent years perfecting the art of not caring. Of keeping his distance, of knowing that when people got too close, they either left or got taken.
But then came Elena.
Her bruised face, the way she had looked at him—not with fear, not with gratitude, but with understanding.
And then she asked him to come back.
A part of him wanted to say no, to walk away before it got any more complicated.
But another part?
Another part had already been decided.
A car door slammed somewhere in the distance. Damien didn't react.
"Didn't take you for the sentimental type," a voice drawled from the shadows.
He didn't turn. Didn't have to.
Ryan Furukawa stepped into the dim light, his hands tucked into his coat pockets, dark eyes watching him with unreadable intent.
Damien's jaw tightened. "What are you doing here?"
Ryan tilted his head slightly, the way he always did when he was amused. "What, I can't check in on an old student?"
Damien scoffed. "You stopped checking in a long time ago."
Ryan's expression didn't change, but there was something… sharp in the way he looked at him. "Didn't think I needed to."
Silence stretched between them.
Ryan shifted, stepping closer, until only a few feet separated them. "She remembers you."
Damien's fingers twitched. "Yeah."
Ryan studied him for a moment, then sighed. "You know how this ends."
A beat.
"Yeah," Damien said. "I do."
Ryan exhaled, rubbing a hand down his face. "So, what's the plan? Gonna throw yourself into this? Get attached?" His voice was steady, but Damien knew him well enough to hear the unspoken warning beneath it.
Damien didn't answer.
Ryan's gaze darkened. "Damien."
"…She asked me to come back."
Ryan muttered a curse under his breath. "And you're going to?"
Another silence. Then—
"Yeah."
Ryan let out a sharp breath. "You're an idiot."
Damien almost smirked. "Tell me something I don't know."
Ryan shook his head, looking at him like he wanted to say something else. But in the end, he just sighed and turned away.
"Just… don't forget what you are," he muttered.
Damien watched as he walked off into the night, disappearing like a ghost into the city.
What he was.
Damien already knew.
A fighter. A survivor. A boy who had killed and didn't regret it.
But now…
Now, he wasn't so sure that was all he was.