Claimed by the Alpha and the Vampire Prince: Masquerading as a Man Chapter 128: The Crazy Twin

Clark POV:

"Haha, brave move. But I was thinking the sa thing. Here’s mine. :)"

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. Okay, that went... surprisingly well.

Then my phone buzzed.

Unknown number:

"Hey, it’s Sara :) Hope it’s cool I texted you. This site’s comnt section is a ss lol."

Just like that, we were talking off the site.

I saved her number, still unsure what this was. A potential friend? Another brainy nerd chasing the sa dream? A person I’d probably never et? I didn’t know.

We kept it chill, mostly college talk, the kind of excitent you get when you realize soone else is dreaming about the sa unknown future as you. She sent a link to a video that did a walkthrough of the moville campus—footage I hadn’t seen before. It looked even more magical in motion. Tall stone towers, huge arched windows, trees blooming in colors I didn’t even think were real.

Sowhere between her ssages and watching the video, my stress from earlier started to slip away.

But what I did know was that for the first ti since Clare started giving the silent treatnt, I felt excited again.

About the future. About moville. About possibilities.

And yeah... maybe even about this girl nad Sara.

Not that I was planning to tell Clare. She’d either tease endlessly or claim I was being catfished.

No, for now, this would be my little secret. Just , a dream university, and a girl who—at least for tonight—seed to get it.

And honestly?

That was enough.

********

We kept talking through the weekend. What started as a random comnt online had sohow turned into a full-on daily conversation. Sara was funny, easy to talk to, and most importantly—she got it. The nerves, the excitent, the questions that kept up at night about whether I was making the right decision or aiming too high. She didn’t try to act like she had it all figured out, but she was confident in what she wanted, and that made it easier to admit what I wanted too.

Sara wasn’t just smart—she was funny in that dry, sarcastic way I never expected from a stranger online. She hated math but loved astronomy, couldn’t cook to save her life, and had this strange obsession with naming clouds. I an, who does that?

I found myself checking my phone more than usual. Waiting for her replies. Smiling when I saw her na pop up on my screen.

It was weird. I’d never even t her, and yet it felt like I knew her. Like we’d been friends for years.

Every ti my phone buzzed with a ssage from her, I found myself smiling. It was a weird kind of comfort, knowing soone out there—soone not in my school, not in my neighborhood, not tangled up in my current ss with Clare—was dreaming the sa dream. Wanting to leave the sa weight behind. Looking at moville University the sa way I was. Like it was a shot at sothing bigger.

By Sunday evening, we both admitted the obvious—we wanted to keep talking. Stay in touch. Not just over the phone, but in person soday.

The idea ca up casually, sowhere between a conversation about our favorite snacks and a debate over whether dorm life was overrated.

"I wish we could actually et up one day," she said.

And I had typed it before I could second guess myself:

"Then let’s make it happen. moville. You and . Let’s both apply, get in, and et there."

There was a pause. A long one. I thought maybe I went too far, sounded too eager.

Then she replied.

"Deal. That gives sothing to look forward to."

Sothing to look forward to.

I didn’t say it out loud, but her words stuck in my head like a song I couldn’t stop humming. Because truthfully, it did give sothing to look forward to too.

Especially with how things were at ho.

She lived on the other side of the city. Not too far, but not close enough to casually et at a coffee shop either. I guess that’s what made our shared dream feel even more important. We weren’t just chasing the sa school—we were chasing the chance to actually et each other. To connect in real life instead of just words on a screen.

So we made a promise.

Not one of those dramatic, overly cheesy kinds you see in movies. Just a quiet agreent.

We’d both try our hardest to get into moville University.

She said she’d finish her application by Monday, and she was working on her scholarship essay already. I told her I’d do mine tonight. That was only partially true—I’d already rewritten the essay three tis, still not sure if it was good enough, but now I had a reason to stop overthinking it.

I told her I believed in her. And I ant it.

She told she believed in too. And weirdly... I felt it.

We even joked about how crazy it was to be getting attached to soone you hadn’t even t yet. But she said, "It’s not weird. Sotis the right people find you in the wrong places. Or at the wrong ti. But it still counts."

That kind of stuck with .

Clare still wasn’t speaking to .

She’d passed in the hallway earlier—twice—and acted like I didn’t even exist. Like we weren’t twins. Like we hadn’t spent our whole lives glued together, side by side, in chaos and survival. It stung more than I wanted to admit. She’d been avoiding the whole weekend—ghosting at als, slamming her door every ti I got too close. I’d almost told Sara about it, but I didn’t. Not yet. I guess it still felt too personal. Too complicated. Or maybe I just didn’t want to dump that kind of emotional weight on sothing that had beco a little slice of hope.

Mom and Dad had tried talking to her, too, but you can’t reason with Clare when she’s stubborn. She shut her bedroom door like it was a prison cell and locked herself in with her pride.

And ?

I kept pretending like it didn’t hurt. Like I wasn’t hoping she’d forgive . Like I wasn’t tempted to bang on her door and demand she speak to .

But instead—I poured my focus into moville. Into this goal. Into soone who actually wanted to talk to .

Sara.

She didn’t know about the ss back ho. She didn’t know about Clare or the guilt I felt or how badly I needed sothing to work out for once. She just knew as Clark—the guy who cracked dumb jokes about professors and stressed over scholarship essays.

It was nice. A break.

So, yeah. We made a pact. To get into moville. To et in real life. To chase this dream together.

I didn’t know what that ant. Or what would happen if we both didn’t make it.

But right now, I didn’t care.

Because for the first ti in a long ti—I wasn’t just thinking about getting away from here.

I was thinking about where I wanted to go.

********

By sunday evening, I knew I couldn’t let Clare start the new week while she was still mad at . We’d gone too many days without talking, and honestly, it felt like a part of was missing. As annoying and unpredictable as she was, Clare was my person. My twin. My best friend. And I hated this silence between us more than anything. This silence between us? It was starting to feel like a black hole sucking everything down. I needed to make things right, even if I had to bribe her with junk food and guilt.

So, I decided to take action—Operation Win-Back-Clare comnced.

Step one: Peace offering.

I headed out to the supermarket to get her favorite comfort food combo—vanilla caral ice cream and those overpriced, extra buttery biscuits she liked hoarding like a squirrel in winter. And the other overpriced chocolate-dipped biscuits she pretended not to love but always stashed under her bed. I knew just the brand. If I was going to earn my forgiveness, I had to go big.

But of course, because my life doesn’t know how to stay normal for more than two seconds, fate decided to throw a wrench into my noble mission.

As I turned into the snack aisle, there he was.

Jason.

The sa Jason I saw sneaking out of a janitor’s closet with Clare just last week.

Only this ti, he wasn’t with my sister.

Nope.

This ti, he was locked in a full-on make-out session—with a girl. Right there in front of the cleaning products. Bold move, really. I’d give him points for that—if I wasn’t currently seeing red.

While I had no problem with who people chose to love, I did have a problem with liars—especially ones who ssed with my sister’s head.

Now, I’m not a fighter. I’m really not. I solve problems with my brain, not my fists. But sothing in snapped. Maybe it was the fact that Clare was still mad at . Maybe it was the guilt of breaking her trust. Maybe it was just plain brotherly rage. Either way, I saw red, reached for the nearest thing I could grab—which turned out to be a small, unopened bottle of water—and launched it.

The bottle hit Jason square in the back of his head. His make-out session ca to a dramatic halt.

He turned around, blinking in confusion. "Clark?"

"Stay the hell away from my sister, you lying jackass."

I knew I shouldn’t have said anything else.

But, well... I did.

And let’s just say, Jason didn’t appreciate my water bottle diplomacy. I didn’t leave the store in victory.

Next thing I know, I’m on the ground with a black eye and a bruised lip, being told by a very angry supermarket manager to "take it outside, or take it up with security."

But hey, I did manage to buy the ice cream and biscuits. Mission sort of accomplished.

By the ti I got ho, it was 9 PM. I went straight to Clare’s room and knocked softly, ice cream slowly lting in one hand, biscuits tucked under my arm, and my face feeling like I’d been in a boxing match.

She opened the door, clearly planning to yell at again—but then she saw my face.

All the anger vanished instantly, replaced by shock and a flash of that dangerous protective fire she always kept just under the surface. Her eyes locked on my face.

Not the snacks. Not the hopeful smile I was trying to pull off.

Just the bruises.

Her mouth fell open. "What the hell happened to you?!"

And just like that, her anger at was completely erased and redirected toward a much more deserving target: Jason.

The second I said his na, the air changed.

"I... ran into Jason," I said, keeping my voice casual even though my lip throbbed. "Saw him kissing soone else. So I threw a bottle at him."

She blinked.

"You did what?"

"I hit him. Sort of. With a bottle. He hit back."

"He what?!" she demanded after I told her who hit .

I didn’t even finish the sentence before pulled into her room. She didn’t even notice the ice cream and biscuits in my hands. Just grabbed my arm, pulled into her room, and pushed down on the bed like she was my mom and I was a wounded kindergartener, and told to sit on the bed and not move. Her voice had that calm-before-the-storm tone that made even nervous.

Then she squatted, reached under her bed, and pulled out a freaking baseball bat.

"Wait—Clare—what are you—"

"Sit. Stay. Ice your face," she said coolly, already halfway out the door.

"I’ll be back."

"Clare, don’t do anything stupid—"

"Too late."

Five seconds later, I heard the thunderous roar of her motorcycle engine outside, followed by the squeal of tires tearing down the road.

I just sighed, flopped back on her bed, and opened the biscuit packet.

Guess Jason’s about to experience all the pent-up frustration Clare’s been bottling since I told Mom and Dad about her college plans—or lack thereof.

If she doesn’t kill him, he’ll wish she had.

Honestly? He had it coming.