Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
Simon took the corner at forty-five degrees, knee almost kissing asphalt. His skin burned along his left side. A sort of phantom pain that had nothing to do with road rash and everything to do with the vampire currently dying somewhere northwest of here.
The pull in his chest twisted sharper, dragging him forward like a hook behind his ribs. Not left at this intersection. Straight. Then right at the next light.
He didn't understand how he knew. Only that Charlie was that way and getting farther from safety with every second.
The sky had shifted from gray to pale gold. Each minute brought fresh agony rippling through his chest. Charlie's pain echoing in his bones like his body couldn't tell the difference between them.
Three more turns, following nothing but instinct and the growing certainty that if he didn't hurry, something essential would be lost. The sensation spiked suddenly.
Charlie must be in direct sunlight now. Simon's vision blurred at the edges.
The pull led him to a forty-story glass tower in the financial district. Dawn reflected off its windows like a wall of fire.
Up, his instincts screamed, confirming his earlier vision of Charlie on a rooftop.
Simon ditched the bike at the curb and assessed the building entrance in two seconds. Glass doors, magnetic lock, security desk visible inside with one guard reading something. Camera positions at two corners.
Twenty-two minutes until full sunrise.
He pulled out his Organization ID. It wasn't for vampire hunting but the cover they used for law enforcement cooperation. He knocked on the glass with fake authority.
The guard looked up, ambled over slowly.
"Building's closed," through the intercom.
"Police business." Simon held his ID to the glass, angling it so the light caught the official-looking seal. "I need roof access. Now."
"I need to call—"
"No time." Simon's voice carried the kind of command that made people obey first, question later. "There's someone on your roof. Open the door or I break it down and you explain the insurance claim."
The guard hesitated. Simon felt Charlie's pain spike again, sharp enough he had to lock his jaw to keep from gasping.
"Your choice," Simon said, hand moving to his belt where the knife rested. "But I'm going up either way."
The guard's hand moved to the button. The lock buzzed open.
Simon was past him before the door finished swinging, already mapping the lobby. Elevators to the left, stairwell access to the right behind another security door.
"Hey! You need to sign here first."
"What floor is roof access?" Simon called back, jabbing the elevator button.
"Fortieth floor, but it's locked. You need—"
The elevator doors closed on whatever he needed.
Simon hit 40 and tried to calm his breathing. The phantom burning had spread across his entire left side now, his skin prickling with sympathetic blisters that weren't really there. Charlie was running out of time.
The elevator climbed with agonizing slowness. Twentieth floor. Twenty-fifth. Simon's hands clenched and unclenched.
Thirty-fifth. The pull in his chest had become almost vertical, confirming Charlie was above him.
Thirty-eighth. Almost there.
Fortieth floor.
The doors opened on a service corridor. At the end, a heavy door marked ROOF ACCESS - AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. It was secured with an industrial lock, the kind meant to keep people from jumping.
Simon pulled his gun—the one loaded with regular bullets, not silver—and shot the lock twice. The sound echoed in the narrow corridor like thunder.
The lock mechanism sparked, mangled but still holding. The door didn't budge.
"Fuck."
Another wave of Charlie's agony dropped Simon to one knee. The burning sensation had spread to his chest now, his body convinced it was dying despite being safely out of the sun.
No time for finesse.
Simon aimed at the hinges instead. Three shots on the top hinge, the metal shrieking as it gave way. Three on the bottom. The middle hinge bent but held, and Simon kicked the door at the weak point. It toppled outward with a crash.
Blazing golden light poured through the opening.
"Charlie!"
Simon ran across the roof, gravel scattering under his boots. The smell hit him first—sweet and charred, like meat left too long on a grill.
Charlie was curled in a ball against the AC unit, knees to his chest, but the shadow had shrunk to almost nothing.
His feet and lower legs stuck out into direct sunlight, the skin blistered and blackening.
One arm, wrapped around his shins, was burned from fingertips to elbow.
The left side of his face where he'd pressed it against his knees was an angry red, already starting to blister.
His right eye, the one still in shadow, tracked to Simon with disturbing clarity.
"Couldn't jump." Charlie's voice came out as a rasp. "I tried. I'm sorry. My legs wouldn't—I tried to jump but—"
"That doesn't matter now." Simon was already pulling the UV blanket from his backpack, shaking it out.
"You came." Charlie sounded confused by this, like Simon appearing was more surprising than the sunrise currently cooking him alive. "I thought—you killed them all—why did you come?"
The sunlight was creeping closer, the shadow shrinking by the second. Simon could watch new blisters forming on Charlie's exposed ankle in real time.
"Don't worry about that." He threw the blanket over Charlie, making sure every inch was covered. The moment his hands made contact, Charlie went completely still. Not tense, but calm in a way that made no sense given the circumstances.
Simon scooped him up, blanket and all. Charlie weighed nothing. The burned parts of his body were rigid, but he curled into Simon's chest with disturbing trust, face pressed against his neck.
"I couldn't jump," Charlie mumbled against his throat, still apologizing. "My body wouldn't let me."
"Stop apologizing." Simon headed for the ruined door, moving fast but careful not to jostle Charlie's burns.
"I ran up but couldn't get down. Isn't that stupid?" A broken laugh. "World's most useless vampire."
Simon kicked the fallen door out of his way and plunged into the blessed darkness of the stairwell. He should put Charlie down now. The immediate danger had passed. But Charlie was shaking under the blanket, little tremors that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than pain.
"How did you find me?" Charlie's head poked out of the blanket, breath hot against Simon's neck. Too close to where his pulse beat.
Simon didn't answer. How could he explain the pull in his chest, the certainty that had led him here? The way Charlie's pain had felt like his own?
He took the stairs two at a time. Thirty-nine floors. The guard would have called the police by now. They needed to get out before—
"Simon." Charlie's voice went strange. Thin. "I think... am I... am I dying?"
Simon looked down. Blood was seeping through the blanket where Charlie's burns were worst. Not normal bleeding. The flesh was trying to heal but couldn't. Not without...
"You need blood." The words came out flat.
Charlie made a sound that might have been a laugh or a sob. "Oh. Then…"
"You're not dying." Simon said it with more force than necessary, something fierce rising in his chest at the thought. "I won't let you."
The words hung between them. Too possessive. Too much like a promise.
Floor thirty-two. Thirty-one.
Charlie's breathing had gone shallow, rapid little gasps against Simon's throat. "Think we can… grab… ketchup packets?"
"That's not funny."
"Little bit funny." But Charlie's grip on Simon's jacket was weakening, his body getting heavier as consciousness slipped.
Floor twenty-five.
Simon stopped on the landing, setting Charlie down carefully against the wall. He pulled back the blanket enough to see—
The burns were worse than he'd thought. Not healing at all, just continuing to eat through flesh like acid. Charlie's vampire body trying and failing to repair damage that required fuel it didn't have.
Simon pulled out his knife.
"No," Charlie mumbled, eyes struggling to focus. "Why… would you…?"
"Shut up." Simon sliced across his forearm, deeper than before. The blood welled immediately, rich and dark.
Charlie tried to turn his head away.
Simon wouldn't let him.
"Look at me." The command came out sharper than intended.
Charlie's eye snapped to his immediately, pupil dilating.
"You're going to drink," Simon said, bringing his bleeding arm to Charlie's mouth. "Now."
Charlie's cracked lips parted without hesitation. The moment the blood touched his tongue, his entire body shuddered. Not revulsion. Relief. Like a drowning man getting air.
His fangs descended fully, but he was too weak to bite. Just pressed his mouth against the cut with a desperate sound that made something twist in Simon's chest.
"That's it." Simon's other hand came up to cradle the back of Charlie's head, holding him in place. "More."
Charlie made another sound, muffled against Simon's skin. His unburned hand reached up, fingers wrapping around Simon's wrist. Not to push away but to pull closer, to keep the source of life from leaving.
Simon watched the burns start to change. The blackened skin at Charlie's ankle flaked away, revealing raw but healing flesh underneath. The blisters on his face began to shrink.
It was working. Better and faster than Simon had expected.
Charlie's grip on his wrist tightened, and Simon felt the pull—not just blood leaving his body but something else. Something deeper. Like Charlie was taking more than sustenance.
Like he was taking pieces of Simon himself.
"Enough," Simon said.
Charlie didn't stop. Couldn't, maybe. His eye had gone unfocused, lost in the feeding.
"Charlie. Stop."
Charlie's mouth left his arm instantly, like Simon had forced him away with an invisible shove. The vampire fell back against the wall, gasping, blood on his lips and confusion in his eye.
"I didn't—" Charlie touched his mouth, looking stunned. "I wanted to keep going but I just... stopped. How did you…?"
Simon didn't have an answer.
He had suspicions, but nothing more than that.
The words of the old vampire came back to him.
Do you have any idea what that means? Giving a starving fledgling your blood.
Simon tried to silence the voice in his head as he wrapped his arm with a strip of gauze, watching Charlie's burns continue their healing. The skin wasn't perfect—mottled and pink in places—but it was whole.
Alive.
Or whatever passed for alive with vampires.
"Can you stand?"
Charlie tried, made it halfway before his legs buckled. Simon caught him before he hit the stairs, pulling him back against his chest.
"Apparently not," Charlie mumbled. Then, quieter, like he wasn't quite in control of his words: "You taste like safety."
Simon's chest went tight. "You're blood-drunk."
"Maybe." Charlie's head lolled against his shoulder. "Doesn't make it not true. Even your anger tastes protective. It's weird."
What was that even supposed to mean?
"Stop talking."
Charlie's mouth snapped shut. His eye went wide, and he made a muffled sound of distress behind closed lips.
Simon's gaze narrowed as his suspicions grew stronger.
"You can talk," he said carefully.
"What is happening?" Charlie's voice came out high, panicked. "Why can't I—when you say things, I just—"
"We're leaving. Now." Simon scooped him back up, blanket and all. Whatever was going on between them, the stairwell wasn't the place to figure it out.
Floor twenty. Fifteen. Charlie had gone quiet against his chest, breathing evening out as the blood worked through his system.
Floor ten. Five. Simon stopped at the second floor, reality hitting him. His motorcycle sat outside in broad daylight. Even if Charlie was wrapped completely, there was no way to secure him on the bike. One slip of the blanket at sixty miles per hour...
Through the small window in the stairwell door, Simon could see into the lobby. The security guard stood by his desk, phone pressed to his ear, gesturing at the elevators.
"Problem?" Charlie mumbled against his neck.
"Transportation." Simon pulled out his phone one-handed, scrolling through contacts he rarely used. The Organization had resources, but calling them meant admitting he had Charlie.
He couldn't do that.
But he had one other option. Someone who owed him a favor.
"Viktor," the voice answered on the second ring. "This better be important, Hale."
"I need a discreet pick-up. Van or SUV with tinted windows."
A pause. "You working?"
"Something like that."
"Text me the address. I'll be there."
Simon sent the location and pocketed his phone. He couldn’t wait in this stairwell with that guard potentially checking floors. Maybe even with back-up.
"We're going to the basement," Simon told Charlie. "Less chance of running into people.”
"Smart." Charlie's voice was getting stronger, more coherent. "Simon?"
"What?"
"Thank you. For coming back."
Simon didn't answer, just started down the last flights of stairs toward the parking level.