---- Zariyans hands instinctively grip Vinces arms around her waist and he smiles sadly.
What happened then? she whispered.
Vince chuckled bitterly.
I clung to that book like a fool, even as the world kept reminding me it didnt care.
I kept stealing, kept surviving, but...
that book made me dream.
I started imagining a life where I wasnt just some stray.
A life where maybe, just maybe, someone could look at me the way those people looked at each other in the pictures.
He paused, his chest rising and falling against her back as he inhaled deeply.
But dreams dont keep you alive.
They just make the hunger worse.
Did you ever...? Zariyans voice broke Twas close, Vince admitted.
There was a night...
cold as death itself.
I was huddled in an alley, clutching that stupid book, and T decided it was time.
Time to stop fighting, to let go.
T was not going to search for food or a ce to be called home, I gave up on finding love.
I was going to ----y down and just let the night take me.
And thats when he found me.
Gerald? she guessed, her voice barely above a whisper.
Vince nodded slowly, his tone darkening.
[ didn''t know who he was back then.
Just some man in a long coat, standing over me like some ghost in the fog.
He looked down at me, didnt say a word, and then held out his hand.
I thought it was a trick, or maybe I was hallucinating.
But he wasn''t like the others.
Zariyan turned slightly, her wide eyes meeting his.
What did he want? He wanted me, Vince said simply.
Said he saw potential in me.
That he could make me strong.
That I didnt have to be a stray anymore.
That he will help me find a family...
find love.And I...
I was desperate.
Desperate to be anything but what I was.
----y down and just let the night take me.
And thats when he found me.
Gerald? she guessed, her voice barely above a whisper.
Vince nodded slowly, his tone darkening.
[ didn''t know who he was back then.
Just some man in a long coat, standing over me like some ghost in the fog.
He looked down at me, didnt say a word, and then held out his hand.
I thought it was a trick, or maybe I was hallucinating.
But he wasn''t like the others.
Zariyan turned slightly, her wide eyes meeting his.
What did he want? He wanted me, Vince said simply.
Said he saw potential in me.
That he could make me strong.
That I didnt have to be a stray anymore.
That he will help me find a family...
find love.And I...
I was desperate.
Desperate to be anything but what I was.
---- Did he...
save you? Vinces lips twisted into a grim smile: Save me? No.
He didnt save me, little one.
He changed me.
Took the boy I was and ripped him apart, piece by piece, until there was nothing left.
What stands here now isnt someone who was saved.
It''s someone who survived.
Zariyan felt the weight of his words settle over her and before she knows tears were brimming her eyes.
Vince looks at her to go still.
She was crying.
For him.
It was.....
Next to impossible.
No experiment, or monster that Gerald has created.
Had ever shown much emotions, let alone cry.
And here was her, his little one.
Shedding her precious tears for him.
He catches her falling tears by kissing them right