Nobody ever said it outright, but Zora had always known she was disposable.

She could feel it in the way her mother sharpened knives at the kitchen counter like it was meditation, in the way the neighbors didn’t ask questions when she came home limping or with blood crusted on her collar. New York made everything normal eventually, even the supernatural. The rats, the stink of pee on the train platforms, the vampires in the tunnels—nobody looked twice.

Zora was seventeen, and she had already killed five Nightbornes. Six, if you counted the one who hadn’t been confirmed. The body fell into the East River and never resurfaced. She still dreamt about it sometimes. Not in fear. Just… curiosity. Where did they go when they were gone?

Her mother never asked how she felt about the work. That wasn’t part of the arrangement. The family legacy was not a conversation. It was a tattoo on the inside of her thigh, inked at thirteen: a line of teeth in a perfect crescent, a symbol of the hunt. Her body belonged to the mission before it ever belonged to her.

She wasn’t built for softness. That was the first thing her mother taught her. Love, in their world, was a liability. She could have sharp reflexes or she could have mercy, but not both.

The first time she saw Damien was in Union Square, across from the chess players and the crust punks and the college kids pretending not to be lost. He was leaning against a newsstand like he was posing for something, but Zora knew better. Vampires didn’t pose. They waited.

She felt it before she saw him. The tightening in her chest, the metallic taste in her mouth, like licking a battery. Her body knew before her brain did.

But then she saw his eyes, amber, glowing faintly like old light behind a curtain, and she didn’t move.

He looked young, which was wrong. Nightbornes never looked young unless they wanted to be seen. He wanted her to see him. That should’ve made her reach for her blade. Instead, she stared.

And he stared back like he already knew her name.

They met again three nights later. It was raining, and the city smelled like gasoline and wet bread. Zora followed the trail without thinking, like something ancient inside her was pulling her by the ribcage.

She found him in an alley behind a shuttered bodega, crouched beside a man who was either dead or dreaming.

“I didn’t kill him,” Damien said, before she could speak.

“I didn’t ask,” she replied.

He rose slowly, hands visible, no sudden movements. He wore black, but it wasn’t dramatic. It was functional. Like he’d been wearing the same clothes for decades and only replaced them when the seams gave up.

“Your blood is loud,” he said.

She hated that. Hated the way her skin responded to his voice, like a field bending in the wind.

“Don’t talk to me.”

“But you followed me.”

He smiled without showing his teeth. A mercy.

They saw each other often after that. Sometimes it was by accident. Other times, she wasn’t sure. Zora knew better than to call it fate. She didn’t believe in that. But she started walking through parts of the city she’d never liked before. Just in case.

He didn’t ask for her trust. He didn’t flirt. He didn’t try to make her laugh. He just stood near her sometimes and said things that cracked something in her chest.

“I remember when this part of the city smelled like coal and horse shit,” he said once. “Now it just smells like rent.”

She laughed. She didn’t mean to.

He told her he didn’t believe in the war. He didn’t believe in the legacy of blood, the eternal feud.

“But you still drink from them,” she said.

“Do you still kill us?”

She didn’t answer. But he already knew.

They talked about history, sometimes. Damien had seen more of it than she could imagine. He didn’t tell stories the way her mother did, with glory and gore. He spoke like someone carrying bags too heavy to ever set down.

“We traded something to stay here,” he said once. “The Nightbornes. That’s what the stories say. Nobody remembers what it was. But whatever we gave up, it still watches us.”

“What watches you?”

“The city. The underneath of it.”

The night she kissed him, they were sitting on a rooftop in Brooklyn. The skyline looked like a mouth full of broken teeth. She didn’t plan it. She just looked at him and felt tired of being made of sharp things.

He didn’t stop her. But he didn’t kiss her back. Not right away.

When he did, it was soft. Wrong. Terribly human.

After, he looked at her like she’d ruined something.

“You’ll have to kill me, you know,” he said.

“I know.”

“Will you?”

She thought of her father, who vanished hunting a Nightborne. Of her mother, who woke every morning as if nothing could ever reach her. She thought of the training, the drills, the drills, the drills. The blade hidden in her boot. The red on her hands she never scrubbed out completely.

“I don’t know.”

That was the first real thing she’d ever said.

The next morning, she woke up to a letter on her windowsill. Old parchment, hand-written. Her mother’s handwriting.

“He is not what you think. But neither are you.”

It was signed with a crescent of teeth.

That day, she stayed in bed past noon. She let the sun touch her face, watched the shadows shift across the wall. Her body felt heavier than usual. Not tired. Not sad. Just full. Like something had cracked open, and now she had to carry all the pieces.

By evening, she knew what she had to do.

She met him on the Williamsburg Bridge. The wind howled like it was mourning something. He was already there, leaning over the edge.

“It has to end,” she said.

Damien nodded. “I know.”

“Not just us. The legacy. The war.”

He turned to her. His eyes were so tired. Not scared. Just done.

“And what if it doesn’t want to end?” he asked.

She reached into her coat. Pulled out the blade.

“Then we make it.”

He didn’t flinch. He stepped forward.

She held the blade between them. “I have to do this.”

“I know.”

But she didn’t.

Instead, she dropped the blade into the river. Watched it vanish like a bad dream.

And for a second, she felt light.

Not safe. Not forgiven. But free.

She looked at Damien. He looked back.

They didn’t touch. They didn’t speak.

They just stood on the bridge, two monsters who chose, for once, not to be monstrous.

And beneath the city, something watched. Something stirred.

But it did not stop them.