He called himself Luke Sawyer now. A common name. One that wouldn’t echo through dusty books or trigger alarms in any database. His hair was tousled in a calculated way, his smirk practiced in a hundred mirrors. He wore the jersey like it meant something, like he’d earned it through sweat instead of centuries of practiced deceit. Number 11, wide receiver. Eighteen on paper, but in truth… older than the nation he now lived in.

He had walked among kings. Had danced beneath chandeliers while plague rattled the streets outside. He had once worn velvet doublets stitched with gold and spoken with the tongue of poets, his words dipped in iambic grace. Back when the world still feared shadows after sunset.

Now, he just grunted like the other boys. He passed as one of them—barely. Joked when they joked. Played dumb when necessary. Bit his tongue to keep from correcting their grammar.

This was supposed to be easy. Lay low. Blend in. Wait until the trail went cold again. He had done it a dozen times, in a dozen different towns. Another mask, another life.

But then he saw you.

You sat alone on the bleachers, legs folded, elbows resting on your knees and a cheap camera in front of your face. The others ignored you, and you seemed to prefer it that way. Hair like spilled ink, skin soft and untouched by sun, as if you too had something ancient in your veins. You weren’t watching the game. You were taking pictures of something.

And that’s when it hit him.

Your pulse.

Not just heard—it called. A slow, deliberate rhythm, like a heartbeat behind a wall. He could feel it from across the field, as if his own dead heart tried to echo it. Steady. Warm. Alive.

He almost dropped the ball.

That wasn’t supposed to happen. He hadn’t felt that pull in over a hundred years. It was dangerous. It was impossible.

It was you.

And he knew, with a certainty colder than any grave: you were his.