Chapter Eight
Isaiah could hear the echo of voices, disconnected, like vibrations through water, thrumming into his floating being.
“I’m holding him still—his skin is warm and he’s breathing, slow but shallow. His body is loosening now; he doesn’t look like he’s in pain. Keep listening to his heartbeat. Can you repeat it for me?”
“Bum-bum. Bum-bum.” That was Landon. It was Landon, but it was not, broken and terrified and sobbing between each word.
“Keep going.” Was that…? “His blood pressure is rising. He should be coming back to us soon.” Then lower, “Please, come back. We both need this.”
It was Hilker.
Hilker’s hands in Isaiah’s hair, his arms wrapped around Isaiah’s body, his voice encouraging Landon to keep following the sound of the heart monitor to prove to themself that Isaiah was still alive.
“Izzy?” Landon cried. “Please, Iz.”
“Mhh,” Isaiah managed.
“He’s waking up,” Hilker called, then said more softly, “You can do this.”
Isaiah felt like he really, really couldn’t, but somehow life was forcing itself upon him, bringing back the chirp and thrum of the medical machines, the whir of the lab’s endless air conditioning, the slopes and hard angles between Hilker’s body and the floor that the rest of him was lying across.
He wasn’t in pain, not really, but his body still hurt, like the serum had already run through him and what remained were the bruises and aches of its abuse.
The serum… had…
Isaiah squinted his eyes open, blinking at the brightness of the lab lights.
Hilker took his hand, squeezing it. “Easy. You don’t have to move yet.”
It didn’t matter that it was Hilker’s fingers, Hilker offering him support. Isaiah gripped him back like his life depended on it.
“Izzy?!”
“I’m here,” he croaked. And somehow, they heard him.
“Oh thank fuck. You shithead! You fucking ass-eating piece of—” They started sobbing again, but it sounded like relief this time. “You weren’t supposed to leave me.”
“Yeah, well…” Isaiah coughed. His mouth felt like cotton. “I guess I lied. Sorry.”
“Don’t you fucking do that again, you hear?”
His body reacted violently to the ragged edge of Landon’s voice, fear rushing over him in a chill.
Some selfish, scared part of himself had wanted to keep Landon behind a wall, and whether he’d actually had the power to affect that or not, it had felt like his decision, his choice not to at least push for Landon’s presence.
But that choice would be stripped away from him, sooner or later. The way parts of it already had been.
Isaiah coughed again as an uncomfortable sensation wriggled through his front teeth, and he spat on instinct, dislodging something hard into his free hand. As he opened his fingers, he blinked down at the two little objects now sitting in his palm. They were… fangs.
His fangs.
Isaiah was vaguely aware of the heart monitor’s escalating beep, his fingers shaking around Hilker’s.
He ran his tongue over his front teeth, trying to extend in the way he knew would press his fangs back out, but instead of points, he got nothing.
Flat teeth. Human teeth. He jerked upright, nearly falling out of Hilker’s gasp.
“Hey now,” Hilker murmured. But then he must have gotten a look at the fangs in Isaiah’s grasp because he made a startled sound.
“What is it?” Landon shouted, at the same time Isaiah asked, “Did it work?”
“I think it worked…” Hilker replied. He picked one of the fangs out of Isaiah’s palm and twisted to look at Isaiah’s mouth. Isaiah opened for him, too stunned to refuse when Hilker ran a fingertip over his top canines. “Incredible.”
“What—” Landon was still asking, even though they had to know. They just needed it to be spoken aloud, the same way Isaiah felt he would a thousand more times.
“I think it worked,” Hilker said, louder. He detangled himself from Isaiah, sprinting out of the cell and across the lab, where he frantically drew out the entire case of holy silver that had been stashed there, unused for the last—what was it, fifteen days now?
Isaiah still flinched as Hilker brought the metal closer, but as his fear settled, he felt nothing else—no burning, no drain on his body.
Even when Hilker was standing directly in front of him, slowly dropping a piece of the holy silver into Isaiah’s palm, he felt nothing.
Isaiah gave a shuddering laugh, a chill running through him. “Well, damn.”
“What is it?” Landon sounded breathless. Ecstatic. “Do you mean…?”
Isaiah nodded, even though Landon couldn’t see him. Would probably never get the chance to see him, now. “I’m human again.”
He’d forced himself to live one more day just to say those words, and now… now that one day was gone.
Hilker wasn’t looking at him anymore. His hands moved at a near frantic speed as he drew out a variety of the sample collection tools he’d been using for the last three months. But Isaiah knew what Hilker would find. He could feel it in his bones.
“It worked.” Landon sounded breathless. Isaiah heard them press themself against the wall, and he could imagine them gripping it, like that could bring them closer.
“Isaiah, you’re done! You did it!” They laughed.
“You’re incredible, you’re perfect—I know, I know you didn’t have a choice, but I still—I love you.
I love you for everything. Thank god—thank fuck.
We’re getting out of here—you and me. You and me: we’re gonna be human together. ”
They didn’t know.
It broke Isaiah, listening to their hope, their joy, their beautiful depiction of a future that Isaiah was fairly certain Landon’s mother would never let him—the lab rat—have.
He tried to smile through the pain, to pull the strain out of his voice and hope the wet, weak edge would be interpreted as delight.
“You and me, princess,” he said. “I can’t wait. ”
Hilker glanced at him, then looked away. “I have a few more tests to confirm.”
“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Landon said, but clearly they were still thinking beyond that.
Isaiah pressed a hand to the cell wall. “I’m gonna watch, okay?” he asked.
“Tell me what you find!” Landon called back. They laughed again.
As Isaiah stood, he could hear a sound like them falling onto their bed, still chuckling softly—giddily—their future opening up before them for the first time in so many years; eight, nine? Nearly a decade.
Isaiah paced behind Hilker as he worked.
One test—positive for human—another—positive again—a third—same result.
He wasn’t sure why Hilker was even plating the last one.
There was no chance. Hilker’s serum had worked, and the whipping boy was useless now.
Everyone outside this basement already thought he was dead, anyway.
Isaiah forced himself into the chair next to Hilker. “How long do I have, do you think? You haven’t called Varsity yet, right?”
Hilker glanced at him. He set down the sample, and carefully said, “Not yet.”
Not yet. Soon, today, but not yet. One more hour, maybe. “Can I…” What could Isaiah even ask for? “One last wish. Give me that.”
Hilker blinked. “You know what I can and can’t offer.”
“I know.”
“One last wish, then.”
“You can open Landon’s door.” It was a statement, not a question. After all of his avoidance, suddenly, he needed this. It could only go wrong, now—could only end in tragedy. And that made it somehow okay.
Hilker took a deep breath, holding it for a second before answering, “If that’s your wish, then I can.”
Now came the easy part. “What would you want for it?”
“Everything that’s left.”
Everything Isaiah had, in exchange for this—this excruciating instant that he had been avoiding for days, this potentially beautiful, devastating moment that he knew would do more harm than good, this fantastic calamity—a boom instead of a hiss.
When it came down to it, Isaiah was not going gently into that good night.
They would have to tear him out of Landon’s cursing grasp limb by limb, dammit. Even if it hurt them both.
“Whatever you want of me,” Isaiah promised.
He’d been a whore plenty enough times in his life. He could be one for a final time if it meant Landon could see him. And he could see Landon.
Hilker looked slightly less smug than Isaiah had expected, his gaze more serious than anything.
Slowly, he peeled off one glove, then the next.
He reached for Isaiah’s face. Isaiah let him, let Hilker’s smooth skin caress his jawline and grasp around the side of his skull. “Are you certain?” Hilker asked.
The sincerity of the question caught Isaiah off guard.
His heart ached suddenly, sad and happy all at once, and he couldn’t tell why.
It bothered him. He shuddered the feeling away though, and crooked his mouth into something as close to a smile as he could manage.
“A proper slut would not go out without one last orgasm.”
That seemed to do it for Hilker. “I’ll make you feel it,” he purred, tightening his fingers into Isaiah’s hair.
“Even if I don’t have fangs anymore?” Isaiah asked, giving in to the touch, letting himself enjoy the tug on his scalp and the way Hilker was looking at him, all fire and need.
Hilker smirked, his gaze latching onto Isaiah’s mouth. “The fangs were merely a bonus.”
“Ah,” Isaiah said. “Then do your worst.”
And Hilker was moving.
He leaned forward, his mouth catching Isaiah’s like a magnet.
His lips were harsh, thin over possessive teeth that seemed to take claim of Isaiah with such a speed and hunger that for an instant, his brain screamed that he’d never be able to breathe again.
But then Hilker moved on, his teeth scraping along Isaiah’s jawline as his hands found fresh purchase on Isaiah’s arms and neck before he returned to Isaiah’s lips, to his tongue, to Ahhh.