UNCLAIMED MATE

Chapter 2— Becoming Outcast

••Diane••

For a few seconds, none of us moved.

It was like the whole world had frozen, like everything around me was waiting for someone to say it wasn’t real… that it didn’t just happen, but it did.

I could still see the blood on the tiled floor.

My hands started trembling, slowly at first, then uncontrollably, like my body was reacting before I could even think.

“I didn’t…” My voice came out in a whisper. “I didn’t mean to…”

No one answered me.

Tasha’s friends stood there, staring, their faces drained of color. One of them let out a small, broken scream, the sound sharp enough to snap something inside my chest.

“She’s dead,” one of the girls said.

The words landed heavily, suffocating, final. Dead because of me.

“Diane.”

Selene’s voice cut through everything else, pulling my attention back to her. When I turned to look at her, I saw it in her eyes, the fear, the shock, but also something else.

Focus.

She grabbed my wrist suddenly, her fingers tight around it.

“We have to go,” she said.

I blinked at her, my mind struggling to catch up. “Go…? Go where?”

“Anywhere but here.”

The girls looked at us, then ran out of the restroom.

Her grip tightened. “If we stay, they’ll call someone. The police, the authorities… it won’t matter what really happened. You pushed her. They’ll only see that.”

“I didn’t mean to—”

“I know,” she cut in quickly, her voice softer now, but urgent. “I know, Diane. But this place won’t listen.”

A loud cry broke out behind the door. Hurried footsteps were approaching.

“We have to run.” Selene grabbed my hand.

That was the moment everything became real. Selene didn’t give me time to think. She pulled me along, and this time, I followed. My legs felt weak at first, like they didn’t belong to me, but the moment we started moving, something else kicked in.

Fear.

We ran through the hallway, past classrooms, past people who hadn’t yet realized what had happened, past the life I had known up until this moment.

Everything blurred.

The doors. The voices. The noise behind us was getting louder.

“Don’t stop,” Selene said as we pushed through the back exit, the cold air hitting my face immediately.

I gasped, my chest tightening as I struggled to keep up, my heart pounding so hard it felt like it might burst.

“Selene… where are we going?” I managed to ask between breaths.

“The woods.”

I froze for half a second. “The woods.”

“It’s the only place we can disappear,” she said quickly, not slowing down. “No one goes in there. Not really.”

I didn’t have time to question her, because right now… it was our only option. We didn’t stop running.

We ran as far as our legs could carry us, not even knowing how far we'd gone. By the time we reached the edge of the wood, my lungs were burning.

Selene stopped, she was breathing heavily too. She rested her back at the tree we were standing underneath with our eyes closed. We must have been running for hours now.

I looked at her. Her hair was slightly messy, her cheek still faintly red from where she had been hit. She grabbed my hand again to continue running.

“Please stop Selene, you need to rest,” I said.

“No, we can't. They are coming after us, to get you,” she replied. “I can't let that happen.”

She wasn’t thinking about herself. She was thinking about me. Just like always.

So I nodded, and we kept going.

The deeper we moved into the woods, the quieter everything became. The sounds of the outside world faded away until it was just us, our footsteps, and the occasional rustle of leaves.

Darkness started creeping in slowly, the trees growing thicker, taller, blocking out what little light remained.

I wrapped my arms around myself instinctively. “Selene…” I said softly.

She glanced back at me. “What is it?”

“I don’t like this.”

She didn’t respond immediately. Instead, she slowed down slightly until we were walking side by side.

“I know,” she said after a moment. “But it’s safer than going back.”

Safer. I wasn’t sure about that. Not when something about this place felt wrong. We walked for what felt like forever, before we chose a place to rest.

“I’m sorry,” I said suddenly.

“For what?” she asked, turning to face me.

“For everything,” I said, my voice shaking slightly. “If I didn’t—if I hadn’t—”

“Stop.”

Her tone was firm.

“This is not your fault.”

“But I..."

“You were protecting me,” she said, stepping closer. “No one has ever done that for me before.”

Her words hit differently, because all this time I thought it was the other way around.

A small, sad smile touched her lips as she reached out, placing her hand gently on my cheek.

“We’re in this together now,” she said softly. “Okay?”

I nodded slowly. Together. That word should have made me feel better, and for a second it did.

We sat there with our hands in hands, and shoulders resting on each other. Then Selena's stomach grumbled.

“We are going to have a problem with your stomach,” I said, and we laughed.

She held her stomach, “it's going to have to wait till tomorrow morning when we can look for something.”

The forest went silent, and we were enjoying our sister's moment when I began to hear this rustling sound. My ears began twitching, I didn't know what it was.

“Did you hear that?” I whispered.

Selene’s hand dropped from my face immediately. “Hear what?”

A chill ran down my spine.

“I can't hear anything,” she said.

The sound I was hearing, suddenly stopped too. And then…

A low growl echoed through the darkness.

My heart stopped.

Selene’s hand found mine instantly, her grip tight. “Don’t move,” she whispered. She picked a stick lying down not far from us.

The sound came again, closer this time. Something is out there, probably watching us.

And whatever it was…

It wasn’t human.