Chapter 117: His Past
The silence between them stretched long enough that Sera almost thought he had changed his mind.
But she didn’t push. She simply understood if he changed his mind...
Finally, he spoke, his voice quieter than she had ever heard it.
"I was in high school. Senior year. My parents died in a car accident that winter."
Sera stayed still, listening...
"After that it was just me and my little sister. Serena." A faint smile spreading across his face.
"How old was she?"
"Fourteen when they died. I was seventeen at the time. I got a part-time job, figured out rent and figured out how to make dinner that wasn’t cereal every night." He made a sound that was like a laugh. "I was bad at it, really bad actually. But we made it work."
He fell quiet for a moment, and Sera watched as his gaze softened.
"There were good days," he continued. "More than people would expect, honestly. We’d stay up too late watching dumb shows, she’d steal my hoodies, and I’d pretend to be mad about it. There were days we missed them so bad neither of us could get out of bed. But we had each other. That’s what kept us moving."
"Yeah." His voice cracked on the word. "She loved me. And I loved her more than anything. She was—she was it for me, you know? Whole world in one person. That kind of thing."
Sera didn’t say anything. She just watches Mark slowly recount some that he wanted to leave buried...
"There was a day," Mark said, and his voice dropped even further like he was forcing each word out.
"I came home from school," He swallowed hard. "And there was a man in our apartment. Had a gun, and it was pointed right at her. He kept talking about how much our parents owed him and how he planned on getting it any means necessary."
Sera’s breath caught, but she didn’t interrupt.
"She saw me at the doorway." His hands were shaking now, as he said this "She looked right at me, and she said my name. She—she was begging me. Begging me to help her. And I just—"
He stopped.
"Mark," Sera said gently.
"I ran." His expression hardened. "I saw the gun and I froze. Then I just—turned around and ran. Out the door, into the street. It all happened in an instant and my legs just moved."
"You were a kid," Sera said.
"I was seventeen," he cut her off, voice rising with anger. "Seventeen isn’t a kid. I was old enough to know what was happening and I ran anyway. I left her there."
"Mark—"
"I heard the gunshot from the street." His voice broke entirely on that line, and for a moment he couldn’t continue at all. He just sat there with his jaw tight and his eyes slightly watering. "I heard it and I knew. I just...knew, before anyone told me anything, I already knew she was gone."
Sera felt something twist painfully in her own chest, watching him unravel piece by piece in front of her, this loud, easy, joking version of Mark stripped down to something small and broken.
"I used to think about revenge," he said after a long moment of silence, "Everyone expects that, right? That’s how it’s supposed to go. Something like that happens, you’re supposed to want to burn the whole world down looking for the person who did it."
"But you didn’t?"
He shook his head slowly. "I never even looked for him. Not once. Because the truth is—" His voice cracked again, "The truth is I wasn’t angry at him. Not really. I was angry at myself. Revenge felt like it was about him. What I did... what I didn’t do...that was about me. There wasn’t anything to avenge. There was just something to never let happen again."
"So I made a vow." He finally looked at her, eyes r. "I promised myself I’d never freeze like that again. Never run when someone needed me. That’s it. That’s the whole reason I fight the way I do. Get in front, take the hit, that’s it. That’s what I’ve been doing all this time."
Sera took that in silence, pieces of him rearranging themselves in her mind—the reckless charges, the willingness to eat every hit meant for someone else, the refusal to ever hang back.
Everything was finally falling into place. Perhaps that’s why he got a tank ability... the system was probably responding to him...
"Do they know?" She asked finally, "Lucas and Eleanor I mean."
Mark nodded. "Yeah. They know. It came up a long time ago, and we talked about it. Back then... everything got complicated. We don’t talk about it much, though. I think they’re worried it’ll break something if they bring it up. Or maybe I’m the one who’s scared." He let out a shaky breath. "Either way. It just sort of sits there. Everyone knows it happened. Nobody talks about it."
"What was she like?" Sera asked again, "Serena. I’m sure she was an amazing person..."
Something in Mark’s face crumbled at the question, like it was the one thing he hadn’t braced himself for.
"She was—She was so much braver than me. Even at the time. She was screaming my name because she thought I could actually help her. She believed in me right up until—"
He couldn’t finish it, his voice quivered as a tear almost rolled down his cheek.
Sera moved at once, closing the distance between them and pulling him into her arms without a word. He tensed for a brief second, almost like he wanted to pull away, wanted to make a joke and deflect it with him needing a moment.
But he he didn’t. He just sagged into her, shoulders sagging as the tension eased.
"You were a scared kid who lost everything in one afternoon," she murmured, her voice low and steady. "That doesn’t make you a coward, Mark. It means you’re human. You’ve spent every day since then trying to make up for something that was never entirely your fault to begin with."
"It felt it though" he said.
"I know." She held him tighter. "But feeling like something is true doesn’t make it true."
He didn’t answer, he just breathed slowly, fighting to hold himself together in her arms.
"I’m tired, Sera," he finally admitted, voice barely audible. "I’m so tired. Being the funny one, the guy who’s always got a joke. It’s not fake, exactly but it’s not... it’s not all of it either. It’s easier than the alternative. Easier than people looking at me and seeing what I actually am."
"And what’s that?"
"Someone who ran away when the person cared for needed him." he said simply.
Mark didn’t lie. It had been like that for a long time...
Every single day since then, some part of him was still standing in that doorway, deciding whether to move.
He had just gotten good at hiding that part.
Sera pulled back just enough to look at him, hands still resting on his shoulders, her expression something far softer than anything Mark had seen since meeting her.
"You’re not just someone who ran," she said. "You’re someone who’s spent years making sure it never happens again. That’s not nothing, Mark. That’s not weakness. If anything..." her voice wavered slightly, "...it’s the bravest thing I’ve ever heard."
He held her gaze for a long moment, and something passed through them. Some kind of understanding neither of them quite had the words for yet.
"Thank you," he said quietly. "For listening, and for not... laughing..."
Sera’s expression softened again. "I could never. Why would i?" She squeezed his shoulder once before letting go, settling back against the fallen tree beside him, close enough that their shoulders still touched.
"You’ve been carrying that alone this whole time. That’s exhausting on its own, before you even put in consideration everything else we’ve had to deal with out here."
He managed a faint, tired smile. "You’re not wrong. I am pretty awesome."
She huffed a laugh at that, but deep down, she wasn’t quite sure if whether what he did was right.
Even at this moment, in this vulnerable situation, he still found the urge to joke...
That may have sounded good but she just worried it won’t make him discard what actually mattered.
They sat together in the quiet for a while after that, the forest going quiet round them.
"Get some rest," Sera said eventually, her voice softening again. "You look like you’re about to fall over."
"Ahh, I guess you’re right..." he murmured, already letting his eyes flutter shut, some of the tension finally easing from his body now that the weight of it had been set down, even just for a moment.
Sera watched him for a while longer, something protective and warm spreading in her chest as his breathing slowly evened out.
"We’ll figure out somewhere proper to stay tomorrow," she said softly. "Somewhere safe. You’ve earned that much, at least."