Chapter Twelve #3
Isaiah watched in stunned horror as Landon tore down two more of the pseudo-soldiers.
Someone must have drawn out the holy silver then, because Isaiah’s skin prickled, but it hardly seemed to affect Landon, slowing them just enough for three more of Varsity’s team to grab them from either side, pinning them down as they shrieked and hissed.
At least that meant they were alive, Isaiah told himself. Alive, for one more minute.
Keeping to the shadow of the back tire, Isaiah snuck a little closer.
“They stole the unfinished serum! They must have taken it,” Hilker shouted, and to his credit, it didn’t even sound like a lie, all the right intensity and anger and curiosity and fear knit together to make it seem like the most reasonable of all possible options.
Varsity had a streak of blood across her cheek, and a block of holy silver in her hand. With her other, she punched him.
Hilker hit the ground so hard that Isaiah had to press his palm to his mouth to keep from crying out for him. A shudder ran through Hilker’s shoulders as he tried to get his elbows under him, and he spit blood into the dirt. Slowly, meticulously, he pulled himself up.
Varsity punched him again.
He seemed more ready for it this time, at least, swaying and stretching out his jaw, but not going down.
“Where’s the lab rat?” Varsity snapped.
Hilker stared at her, and Isaiah swore he’d never seen a look so hollow. “Found him like this one,” Hilker said, motioning to where Landon was being shackled, still hissing and wriggling even with two sets of bonds on their arms and legs. “Only he didn’t survive the transition.”
Varsity made a sound. She waved her hand and the nearest of her team grabbed Hilker.
They pulled him toward one of the cars—the big black van, specifically.
Isaiah’s heart lodged in his throat, and he had to stop himself from scrambling out after them.
But they were hauling Landon there too—Landon, who looked pained out of their mind, hungry like a vampire who hadn’t eaten in weeks, but somehow, hadn’t died either.
And Isaiah couldn’t save them.
The knowledge hurt, from his jaw to his throat to his heart to his gut, his whole body screaming out in anguish as Landon vanished into the back of Varsity’s van. Alone. Without Isaiah.
Part of him wanted to run to them and beg to be taken along—even if he died, at least that way he’d die with Landon, for Landon perhaps.
But after the last week in their arms, listening to their laughter, their fear, their dreams, a twinkle of something almost like hope held him back.
If he was free, maybe there was a chance, however small, that he could get them back.
He could be their knight without dying for it, give them both the world they deserved.
And Hilker would be there with Landon.
Isaiah caught one last glimpse of him as they closed the van doors, his bun lopsided and his eyes tired. He looked toward Isaiah. Then he was gone.
The van pulled out, then the car behind it. The last one lingered. Slowly, two black heels exited. The driver called, weakly, “Doctor?”
The woman motioned them off.
Isaiah couldn’t see above her shoulders, but he knew who she was all the same; her long, severe frame, her dark hair, her face so like Landon’s and yet so different at the same time.
She picked her way across the dirt and stopped beside Hilker’s car.
Isaiah’s heart beat so loudly he swore she could hear it.
He held his breath. One second. And one more. And one more.
Just as slowly as she’d come, she turned around and walked back through the darkness. She got into her car. She left.
And Isaiah was alone.
A surge of emotion hit him then, like breaking the surface of a deep pool to find biting wind and pouring rain.
He sobbed, pulling his arms around his head and his knees to his chest as the torrent took him.
Between the pain, and the loss of Landon, and seeing Hilker turned from captor to captive for their sakes, he couldn’t tell what he was crying for, just that he had too much of something huge and overwhelming trapped inside him, and he needed—needed—needed to get it out.
That fucking bastard.
His bloody princess.
Their future.
It wasn’t gone—it couldn’t be gone, it was just…
out there, so hard to reach once again, and he was tired.
Tired, and hurting, and hungry for something he should not have been craving, his desire for blood growing stronger by the minute.
Still sobbing in great gulps of air between sniffles, Isaiah forced himself to crawl out from under the car.
He leaned his back against it, and tried to hold it all in. One more second. If he could just put himself together for one more second…
In the quiet, he heard the faintest sound of buzzing.
Isaiah crawled towards it until he could scoop Hilker’s phone out of the dirt. He squinted at the screen. Shock and hope took him over. Scrambling to catch the call before it ended, he hit receive.
The person on the other end didn’t give him a single moment of silence. “What the fuck do you want from me, Anthony? We are not suddenly friends simply because you send me your castoffs—do you understand?”
Isaiah hiccupped, then sniffled. “Hey, Clem,” he managed. “It’s—it’s Isaiah. I need help.”
There was a sharp inhale, then a thud and a rustle, and distantly, Isaiah could hear Clementine calling, “Babe, it’s Isaiah! He’s alive! Babe!”
Isaiah pressed the phone to his forehead and begged his body to hold on. One more second, one more minute, one more day.
As Justin’s voice rang through the phone line, Isaiah knew: he would not die today.