Chapter Ten
By the sixth or seventh hour, Isaiah stopped expecting to see Hilker again.
After he had recovered from his sobbing enough, he’d gone back to his cell to wait, and eventually the door had closed—Isaiah hadn’t even noticed who shut it.
His daily allotment of blood had arrived with his breakfast, like everything was normal, so at least he knew that Hilker hadn’t told anyone of his serum’s success yet, but that could just as soon have been because he was selling it to the highest bidder—or, more likely for Hilker, producing it in some secret lab and trading it for the price of a single bite.
Some other secret lab, anyway.
Why would Hilker return, now that he’d gotten what he wanted? He had no reason left to fulfill his side of the bargain. Isaiah had let himself be used up and spit out after, no different than ever but for Landon sitting on the other side of the wall, unaware of what they’d lost.
But then, suddenly, there Hilker was again, bags under his eyes and his mouth a tight line as he stared through the window of Isaiah’s door. Slowly, it swung open.
“You’re back,” Isaiah said.
“I owe you something.” Hilker flashed a weak half-smile, there and then gone just as quickly. He stepped away, motioning Isaiah down the hall.
Toward Landon.
In all the hours between their deal and now, Isaiah hadn’t really let himself think about this.
He’d contemplated not having it, and an ache had grown in his chest so pointed and gnarled that he couldn’t feel his own heart beneath it, but he hadn’t thought about actually seeing Landon.
And even as he walked there, he found he still couldn’t.
It hurt too much: pain and terror all wrapped up in such a ruthless desire that it felt like his body’s two needs—to run forward and run backward—would tear each other apart.
His feet were numb. He couldn’t speak, not as Hilker wordlessly punched a series of numbers into Landon’s cell door, or as it swung open. Somehow, though, he still stepped forward. Stepped through the door.
Landon sat, legs crossed, on their bed—a bed far nicer than Isaiah’s mattress, in a cell done up to resemble a real bedroom in every way it could, without windows or basic privacy.
They stared, clutching their book to their chest in confusion, and as Isaiah drifted forward, they blinked.
Short, brown lashes beneath recklessly chopped black hair.
Their nose was puggish and cute—almost the only cute thing on their otherwise taut and regal face, their skin so pale they resembled the vampires in European myths.
Tiny fangs poked out when their lips parted.
Isaiah raised a shaky hand. “Um, hi?” His stomach felt like a thousand butterflies had decided to throw up in it.
Landon kept watching him, sliding slowly off the bed. They set down their book without breaking eye contact. Suddenly, they threw themself at Isaiah.
He didn’t mean to catch them, he just did, like it was a move they’d acted out a thousand times before, wrapping them up and lifting them into the air.
Isaiah was immediately aware of the weakness of his new human muscles, and he lowered Landon back down, but they clung to him even so, laughing and sobbing in equal parts.
Isaiah held their shorter body close, pressing his lips to the top of their head and whispering, “God, I missed you— I missed you so fucking much; you have no idea.”
Landon laugh-sobbed once more and let go just enough to look up at Isaiah.
There was a moment, Isaiah thought, where two wires almost connected between them, a spark nearly shooting off, drawing their mouths together.
But no electricity fired. No urge slammed through Isaiah, and Landon’s mouth quirked, their gaze fixed not on Isaiah’s lips but on him.
On the person beneath his dark skin and long lashes.
So instead of a kiss, Isaiah brushed his fingers along Landon’s temple, pushing back an unruly bit of hair that tried to hang into their eyes. “You’re so perfect.”
“Speak for yourself,” Landon teased, and hugged him again.
Hilker interrupted with a cough.
Was this it? Isaiah’s heart sank. He hadn’t specified a time frame. This could be it. His last look, his last touch. He wanted to keep clinging to Landon, but he forced himself to turn. If Hilker was going to drag him out, then he’d give the man his best—
Huh.
Hilker didn’t look ready to fight, he looked ready to flee, sweat staining the underarms of his button-up and a cooler in one hand, his keys in the other.
“Come on,” he said.
“What?” Isaiah asked, his brain still catching up with what his eyes were seeing.
“Why?” Landon specified, more intelligently. “You were done with the experiments! You got it right. He doesn’t have to go with you.”
Hilker gave them an exasperated look. “Both of you are coming with me. Unless Landon would prefer to wait here for whatever home imprisonment their mother inflicts on resurrected children?” he asked.
“You mean…” Isaiah looked at Landon, who replied with wide eyes and a flush of excitement across their cheeks.
“We’re really…?”
“Only if you come,” Hilker all but shouted, motioning them forward. “Before someone notices that I knocked out the cameras.”
Oh. Fuck. They were doing this.
They were—
Landon grabbed Isaiah’s hand and dragged him forward. As they left the cell, heading for the double doors at the end of the hall, Landon glanced back toward the lab. They stalled. “But the serum?”
Hilker waggled his cooler. “I have it—let’s go!”
They ran after him.
Landon pulled Isaiah along, faster and stronger despite their size now that Isaiah no longer had his vampirism to aid him.
They caught up to Hilker as the deadbolts on the lab’s entrance unlocked, clanking back into the wall one by one.
With each sharp sound, freedom got a little closer, but all Isaiah could feel was his anxiety over the bolts that remained.
He bounced on his heels, and the moment the door popped open, he and Landon burst through, taking the stairs beyond two at a time.
Hilker was panting when they reached the top, fingering the collar of his button-up but seemingly unable to pop it open. Isaiah itched to help him with it, but he ignored the impulse, squeezing Landon’s hand instead.
The hall they emerged into had three doors on one side, closed and dark, and at the far end, a bulkier version, complete with two more locks. Anthony waved a badge to bypass one lock, inputting a code and his fingerprint for the other. He flung open the door to reveal a dark forest.
The crisp night air tasted like freedom and a sob caught in Isaiah’s lungs, but there was time only to keep rushing onward.
He stumbled as his bare feet met gravel, and Landon wrapped their arm around him, helping him forward.
He couldn’t see the way he was used to in the night, no monochromic vampiric vision kicking in to fill the shadows with outlines or tell him what the path looked like beneath his feet.
As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, though, he recognized the manicured state of the trees—not simply a forest, but someone’s forest.
Isaiah let Hilker guide them, but Landon came to another stop, looking back through the trees.
Fear cascaded through Isaiah’s body, making him oversensitive yet numb all at once. He tugged at Landon’s arm. “Come on.”
“Quinn and I used to come here,” Landon whispered. Their gaze looked distant, a layer of moisture filling their eyes. “We’re almost home…”
And with a knot of terror, Isaiah understood.
If it had been Ala Santa they emerged into, Justin possibly standing, unaware, just around the corner, would Isaiah have let Hilker, or Landon, or anyone drag him away?
Landon had told him that if he took their hand, they wouldn’t let go either, but that had been back in a cell.
In the quiet distance of the laboratory, they had been everything to each other, because there was no one else to be anything real at all. But here…
Isaiah had thought he was as nervous as a person could be, but now he felt the pit fall out of his stomach.
He couldn’t stop Landon if they left him now—he hadn’t the right, nor the strength—but he could already feel the emptiness that threatened to descend: a hollow void he didn’t have the strength to push through. Not again.
“We have to go,” Isaiah begged, trying to guide Landon onward.
They grabbed onto his bicep like a child. “What if we could all go home, you and me and Quinn. As long as we’re human…”
“I can’t.” Isaiah shook his head frantically.
“Whether I’m human or not, I’m nobody to your mother but proof of her cruelty.
” You’re nobody to your mother, either, just a husk with the label of child, Isaiah thought, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it.
If twisting Landon’s emotions was the thing that convinced them to come with him, he didn’t think he could live with himself after.
What he should have said instead was, I’ll be all right, if you choose to stay.
Don’t worry about me. But he wouldn’t be okay—he’d be right back to the broken and hurting place he’d landed after Justin, trying to find relief in the worst ways.
So what came out instead was a plea. “I don’t know how to do this on my own. I still need you.”
“I know,” Landon whispered, their voice wet and broken. They gave one last glance back, then squeezed Isaiah’s hand.
Isaiah led them onward, hoping from the marrow of his bones that he wasn’t just dragging the darkness of the lab along with them.
Together, they followed Hilker through the trees to an unpaved parking lot, where spaces for two cars remained empty. The third was filled by a small grey SUV. Hilker unlocked its doors and ushered them in. Without letting go of Isaiah’s hand, Landon scooted into the backseat.