Chapter Seven #2
This time, Hilker seemed more focused on the task at hand than providing any cheeky answers.
With no better instructions, Isaiah settled himself on his mattress, trying to ignore the rising beep-beep of his anxious heart on the newly attached monitor.
When he shifted, he felt Hilker’s walkie-talkie beneath his thigh. He handed it over.
Hilker looked at it, pursed his lips, and put it in his back pocket. He hadn’t called Varsity or Landon’s mother about the serum results yet. Isaiah lifted a brow.
Hilker seemed to read his mind. “They can know once it works,” he said. “You don’t need to spend this time with them watching your every move.”
“No, of course not.” Isaiah bared his teeth in something he wasn’t sure counted as a smile. This moment didn’t feel appropriate for smiling. “That right is reserved for you now, isn’t it?”
“At least we understand each other.” Hilker’s grin should have been unnerving, but in their current situation, Isaiah felt almost comforted by the familiarity of it.
He sighed. “Then do your worst.”
Hilker’s worst, for the moment, seemed little more than any of his typical experiments.
He drew the serum, shimmering lightly gold in the vial, and helped Isaiah pull his medical gown to the side enough to access what minimal fatty tissue remained on his skinny stomach.
As he held the needle in place though, Landon’s fist descended on the wall behind Isaiah.
“Let me come over,” they begged. “Please.” For once, there was no bite in their voice when they spoke to Hilker, no curses or anger, only a deep, desperate pleading that made Isaiah’s heart ache. “I’ll be good. I just— I need to be with him.”
Isaiah’s emotions tore him in two, half of him wanting nothing more than to have Landon curled against his side for the last and only time before the end, while the other half of him knew that would make things harder for them both.
And he would have to see Landon to do it.
Isaiah still didn’t know if he could handle that—not when the first time he saw them would also likely become his last. Perhaps, in part, because it would become his last.
In the quiet, Hilker stared at Isaiah, his mouth a thin line, and then he lifted his voice. “I would if I could, but I don’t know the code to your door.”
Isaiah was pretty sure it was a lie, but he couldn’t prove it, and he was kind of glad he didn’t have to. This wasn’t better, but it was easier.
Landon made a sound that was probably meant to be a curse, but it came out more blubbery than anything Isaiah had ever heard from them before.
This was hurting them—Isaiah was hurting them with it, even if he was letting Hilker’s denial be the vehicle for that pain.
It was selfish. But wasn’t he allowed to be a little selfish, right now?
He had suffered so much already and would pay the ultimate price for Landon’s freedom.
If he could not bring himself to give them everything they needed, then—fuck—that couldn’t be solely his responsibility?
Isaiah pressed his hand to the wall, like he could reach Landon through it.
He closed his eyes and sent them every last piece of his heart.
Because he did love Landon, but also, partially, because there was no one else for him to give it to, anyway.
“We’ll talk the whole time, okay?” he called. “I’ll be here. I promise.”
Did they know that if this worked, he wasn’t coming home with them, or were they just scared he’d die from the serum?
Isaiah couldn’t tell. He couldn’t tell and he still couldn’t fucking ask.
But Landon’s voice strengthened just a little as they replied, “The whole time, you talk to me. You’re not fucking leaving me for a second. ”
“Not a fucking second.” He tried to laugh. “And besides, you’ll hear my heartbeat until it’s over.”
Oh god, that had been the wrong way to phrase it. Landon only sniffled, though. “Don’t you let that fucking stupid heartbeat waver, whipping boy.”
“As you wish, my bloody princess.” Isaiah smiled.
Hilker pressed the needle into his skin.
Isaiah swore he could feel the serum entering him, burning through his veins as it traveled, like a tiny fire trying to take him over from the inside.
His head felt light, his body vacant. He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing, focusing on the sound of Landon’s voice as he waited for the pain to descend.
“You never told me how you ended up here,” they said, like they were fishing for a distraction.
Isaiah snorted. “I was being a shithead.”
“You? Really?” Landon made it sound like a joke, but beneath it, Isaiah could hear their disbelief.
“Okay, no, that’s a lie,” he corrected, wincing, though strangely, not yet from any physical pain.
“I was depressed, and making shitty choices for it. I’d joined a hookup app to get—I don’t know, endorphins?
—but mostly because I was lonely. There was this silver fox with cruel vibes and one of those classic English prince names—Charles or James or something—and I guess, in the back of my mind, I was hoping something bad would happen?
Not for the horror that came, just something that hurt enough in the moment to wake me up. ”