'There is no coincidence, Gala. You know that.'
Atarakala's messages back at home echo inside Manggala's mind.
He looks back to where Mahisha and Adiwilaga escaped, then at the motorbike. The woman managed to fix with a little power of her vampirism that now has been placed in its correct spot again, and last, at the girl still lying unconsciously in front of him by his feet. Lots of mess in just one day after centuries of a calm sea.
'Among the four of us, you are the only one safe among them. You fit in just right, so clean the mess and follow any kind of trace you can find there. Anything you find odds, you report back to me. I'll be waiting.'
Manggala agrees.
Atarakala is right. After years of living on the darkest side of the moon, nothing is a coincidence. Everything is meant to happen, and thus, there has to be what and why to it. Everything has been smooth for centuries, and now suddenly, Adiwilaga was caught off guard, getting hit by a car? It sounds too fishy.
Adiwilaga is one of the best wolves out there, or what it's left, and with the unnatural bond the man had on his blood, he is the most powerful of his kind at this moment. His instinct is beyond the world, so something must have happened. Something either affected the wolf, or there was someone powerful enough to stir a mess like this.
Manggala looks at the commotion still happening around the car that crashed. No one seems to come here to check what the girl on his feet does, so he takes that as a good thing—no one besides this girl seems to realize what happened with Adiwilaga. That means less evidence to get rid of.
A finger movement on the girl's hand got him to bend down quickly.
"Hey, you alright?" he asked.
The girl squinted her eyes, seemingly confused about why she was lying down on the grass. She looks up at him as he voiced his question and she blinks a few times in wonder.
"Where am I?" she asked.
"The museum's parking lot. I saw you earlier, walking here and then suddenly fainting, the heat must be getting to you." He answers calmly—putting a serious face on his good sculpture face while offering his hand to help the other stand.
The girl blinks for a few moments, looking around before back again at Manggala and letting the other help her get up slowly back to her feet. She nods to him as a thank you while fixing her clothes, and Manggala would have left it at that—she remembers what she saw or not wasn't really trouble now that Manggala has made sure that she was the only one. Nobody going to believe her anyway—but then she suddenly grabbed his hand just at the right moment he was about to walk away.
His instinct kicked in, and the flame sensation quickly spread thoroughly on his skin from inside that it must have been burning hers.
"Ouch!" she exclaimed, pulling her hands right away and waving them while blowing air into them. "What the hell is that?"
Manggala curses inside his mind.
"Oh, I'm sorry, is everything alright?" he asked then, quickly changing his mask into concern and confusion.
"Your skin is burning! What are you? A stove?" the girl yells, clearly no longer confused nor in the middle between conscious and unconsciousness—she is irritated and entirely on her mind by now.
Manggala scoffs at that and offers his hand again—this time, he makes sure it is under control—then says, "Here, touch it. I don't even know what are you saying. My hands are fine."
The girl squinted her eyes at his face and his hand in turn suspiciously before reaching out to touch it again, and a blush spread on her cheek as she withdrew her hand back.
"Right, oh, well, sorry about that," she coughs awkwardly, "Must be the heat."
"Clearly. You just fainted because of it." Manggala says in a matter-of-fact, confident as ever, with now both of his hands on his jeans pocket where they are 'safe.' "You should find a shade before it gets to you again."
"Right," the girl mumbles to herself.
"Alright, take care!" he said, turning around to walk away only to be stopped once again by her—this time by catching up to him and standing on his side.
"Um, what is your name?"
'This girl didn't seem to remember what happened, yet she didn't leave me alone just like that, huh?' Manggala mumbles to himself.
"Why do you want to know?"
"Well, um, you just saved me, so I want to know your name, I guess?" she sounds unsure.
"I didn't."
"Pardon?"
Manggala blinks, his face remains stoic, and turns to face the girl, "I did not save you. I stand there waiting for you to wake up."
The girl blinks at him with a mouth wide open before chuckling awkwardly, "Right. But still, do you mind?"
He sighed—judging the girl with his eyes from head to toe, wishing it enough to make the other uncomfortable but instead, the girl just looked at him up and down, judging him too in return. The girl is shorter than him, probably by 5 cm at the very least, yet the guts she had clearly are too big to be contained by that amount of height.
It's not his first time having a human trying to get close to him—his kinds have this charm of making human feels a little bit lightheaded when they talk to them. It's all because of the heat his body produces on a daily basis to weaken anything that stands too close to his space since his kinds love their own little bubble of space, therefore, take anything that comes close as a threat. And she just stood there, close to him, with no space whatsoever.
"I do."
"But—"
"Nina! Nina! What are you doing there?!"
The girl turned around at the shout of a man and then waved her hand to someone behind her.
Manggala automatically followed her gaze, and his breath got stuck in his throat. The sight of a man running towards them got him a goosebump all over the place.
'What the hell.'