Chapter Twelve
Isaiah might have been human, but he swore he’d never moved so fast in his life. He was scooping up Landon’s body before either of them could take another breath. Landon let it out with a groan. They squinted, flinching as Isaiah helped settle them into a chair.
“What—” Isaiah started, but Landon grimaced.
“You’re so loud,” they whispered.
“Sorry.” Isaiah pushed aside the messy cuts of Landon’s bangs, trying to see into their eyes. They struggled to focus on him. “What’s wrong, princess?”
“I don’t know,” Landon answered. “My body doesn’t feel right.”
“Are you sick?” Isaiah couldn’t remember what being sick was like anymore, after so many years with his vampiric resistance to illness.
Landon shook their head. “It’s just us here, and we’ve barely even been outside. I don’t think illness usually works that way. Unless there’s just something wrong with my— Mmh.” Their face wrinkled up as they stiffened in pain, then slowly released.
“I’m paging Hilker,” Isaiah said.
“No, don’t,” Landon whined. “What if it’s just— Gah, fuck.” They cringed again.
“What if it’s not.” He could feel his own panic waiting at the doorstep, a sledgehammer in one hand and a grenade in the other. But he couldn’t let it in yet. One more minute, he told himself. Just focus. “This could be a late reaction to something in the serum.”
“But you were injected first.”
“I was a vampire longer. I have different allergies. I’m taller. My serum came straight from the fridge. There could be lots of reasons.” He squeezed Landon’s hand. “You need help.”
Landon whimpered, and Isaiah couldn’t tell if it was from the thought of Hilker returning or the pain actively building in their body. “Fine.”
Isaiah ran for the pager.
He pressed the middle button as he returned to Landon, scooping them up and helping them to the couch.
He pressed the button again. It seemed to be doing something, a tone buzzing in the background, but there wasn’t any response, any return beeps or acceptances or anything Isaiah associated with the devices he was used to. He called again.
And again.
With each attempt, the sun dragged a little lower in the sky, and Landon got no better. If anything, they were worsening. They didn’t want him to know it, he thought, hiding their grimaces with weak smiles.
“I have to get help,” Isaiah finally said. “I’ll hike down to the main road and flag someone. I know Justin’s number, I think. Clementine has his own medical equipment. They can call Hilker, if they have to.”
He didn’t think Hilker was purposefully ignoring them.
There had to be something more going on, some reason he couldn’t answer, or didn’t have the pager on him.
That thought gave Isaiah’s anxiety a second grenade and a launcher.
He breathed through the nausea it birthed.
Pain tingled beneath it. One more minute.
No matter what his body wanted from him, he had to ignore it for one more minute. And then one more after that.
Landon shook their head, reaching for Isaiah.
“You can’t leave me, Iz.” They held onto him, as if to prove their point, pressing their forehead to his arm as they grimaced through another bout of pain.
When they were finally able to look at him again—look toward him, at least—they added, “I’m coming with you. ”
Isaiah didn’t bother asking them if they could make a trip like that.
They couldn’t. But they would anyway, just as they couldn’t live one more day in that cell for so many years but they had all the same.
And Isaiah didn’t want to leave them here, alone, in pain—not knowing if they were safe, or conscious, or even alive.
He squeezed their hands. “Then let’s go. ”
They followed the road.
Isaiah didn’t know what else to do but that.
There was certainly a faster route than the winding, weaving dirt path, but Isaiah didn’t know how to find it, or keep it, much less with Landon clinging to his arm.
He guided them along, pressing the button on the pager again and again for good measure, then every other button, too.
Where the hell was Hilker? Where the hell were they?
What the hell was— No, he didn’t even want to start thinking about Landon’s predicament.
Still, he watched closely for signs of a shift in them, hoping for something that showed they were recovering and dreading anything else.
Some steps Landon stumbled and hesitated, others they seemed to push themself to keep moving, almost pulling Isaiah along as they threw themself forward.
The lowering sun still graced the trees, and Isaiah noticed a disturbing pattern.
He didn’t want to believe it, but the more attention he paid, the more it was confirmed: Landon was avoiding the sunlight.
Subconsciously or not, they were pushing their body toward the shade, then lingering there until Isaiah pulled them forward, the pattern becoming more prominent with each repetition.
When they stopped altogether at the edge of the next patch of shadow, Isaiah squeezed them gently.
“It’s almost sunset,” he whispered. “Just keep going.”
“It hurts,” they whined.
They wouldn’t meet Isaiah’s gaze, and he found they were looking just a little below his chin and to the left.
At his neck. Where his—presumably still—human blood pumped.
Presumably, because behind the anxiety still threatening to tie him into knots, an ache was creeping in.
He felt like he hadn’t eaten in days, hadn’t slept in weeks.
One more minute. One more bend.
“Come on. We’re almost there,” he lied. Maybe. Probably. He couldn’t recall this part of the road.
It seemed to go on forever.
Isaiah pulled Landon forward. They hissed their distaste through the sun-touched section, lunging for the shade in a way that reminded Isaiah far too much of the mindlessness of a vampire who’d gone a week without food. His neck itched. He could feel the pounding of his own blood in his veins.
They might only have a few more minutes until...
Isaiah stopped them both, helping Landon settle onto a fallen tree on the roadside. Landon’s attention seemed to slide over him, and, strangely late, they asked, “What are we doing?”
“You are feeding.” He rolled up the cuff of his shirt, holding out his wrist to them.
A flash of Landon’s old self shot across their face as they scowled. “I don’t— The fuck?”
“You know what the fuck, my bloody princess.” If he had to cut himself, let them smell it…
Landon scowled even deeper, but when they spoke, it was desperate. “I don’t want this. I never wanted this.”
“It’ll help,” Isaiah insisted, gently. He squatted a little lower in front of them, just to be sure—yes, there they were. “You have fangs again. You need to try.”
Landon moaned. “No.” It was a pathetic sound, desolate and tragic, and Isaiah wanted to wrap them up and kiss their head and tell them that he’d make everything fine, but this was how he did that, damnit—this was the closest he could get, anyway.
“Please, try,” He begged. “Maybe Hilker can fix this, or Clementine, but only if you’re alive enough to get to them. He cupped the side of Landon’s face. “I love you like this, remember? I love you human, and vampire, and every other way.”
Landon’s throat bobbed. They took hold of Isaiah’s wrist. Once they’d made the decision, it seemed their body could no longer hold them back: the instant their fingers touched Isaiah’s skin, his flesh was suddenly beneath their fangs.
He flinched from the strength of the bite, no venom, no preparation, just teeth and the drag of his life-source out of him.
He let Landon feed for as long as his body could handle before pulling his arm away.
He had to give the tug an extra twist to get Landon to let go.
They looked dazed after. Better, but dazed.
Landon licked their lips. A single tear slid down their cheek.
Isaiah put the fang cuts in his own mouth to quell the bleeding, and he couldn’t help the odd kick it left in the back of his mind, as though the vampiric parts of him were reacting to the taste of still mostly human blood, even if that blood was, eerily, his own.
He shuddered. With his other hand, he offered Landon help up.
They took it, but they didn’t seem to need quite as much assistance as before, at least for the next four or five bends.
Twice more they had to stop to feed Landon—once while the sun was still a hot orange ball in the sky, and again as its glow sank into the horizon. Perhaps it was the lack of light, or the pain building inside Isaiah, but he swore his blood looked darker that time. Too dark.
They had to be nearing the main road. Isaiah had been telling himself that for minutes…
hours? Minutes, probably. He couldn’t track time very well, his attention drifting from one footstep to the next, seeming to lose whole spans of the path in his memory.
They’d seen a glimpse of the paved road farther down the hillside two bends ago though, and he swore he’d caught sight of— There, through the trees. Another flash of headlights.
“We’re almost there,” Isaiah whispered, pulling Landon along a little faster.
They moaned, and near the end the sound turned into something reminiscent of a hiss. They leaned into him. Their hold on his arm trembled.
Another flash of lights rolled through the tree line.
Isaiah wrapped his arm around Landon’s waist and heaved them onward. “Come on, you can do this, princess. We’ll get you help. We’ll fix everything. We’ll…” he babbled, not sure whether Landon could tell what he was saying anymore. Isaiah certainly couldn’t.
The headlights flickered before them again, but this time, their angle shifted, back, then around and the other way, then… coming towards them. There was a car coming their way.
Isaiah’s heart seemed to catch in his throat, relief rushing through him. The moment it did, the pain followed.