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CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ENDER
I don’t make it far before the exhaustion becomes too much. We’re going to get caught again, and there’s absolutely nothing I can do. I don’t even know where the fuck I am. All that surrounds me are trees and fields and mountains. Where the fuck are we?
I stumble as pain and exhaustion strike me and hit the ground on my knees. I try not to let Mads fall, but I can’t keep a hold of him as we both crash to the ground. He groans and tries to curl in on himself, but he turns still before he accomplishes anything.
On my hands and knees, I’m left in a state of exhaustion. How can being shot by that fucking thing still be causing me so many issues? I guess Mads was right; most vampires would have died from this by now. I’m not a true vampire. Just because I’m different from the rest doesn’t mean I’m invincible.
They’re following me. There’s no way they can’t follow our trail. Mads smells like blood, which is like an invitation leading straight to us. I tear his clothes off and check his stomach where he’s still not healed from his wounds. If he had some blood, I bet he’d heal… that is, if I could get him to swallow it. Bunching up his blood-soaked clothes in my hands, I dash into the darkness where I find a deer that I’ve startled awake. I wrestle it down and tie the clothes around its neck before letting it flee.
Terrified, it bolts into the darkness. It won’t give us much time, but maybe it’ll distract them momentarily. At least he can’t complain about his ass being breezy now that all of him is.
Not that he can complain at all in the state he’s in.
I find another deer and drag it back to Mads. The animal looks petrified, and I know Rylee would be horrified to know what I’ve done as I kill it quickly and try to drip the blood into Mads’s mouth. My blood would do nothing to help him as I’m not a true vampire and neither is Mads who is nothing like me—a being who has to consume vampire blood the way a regular vampire needs human blood—so the deer is all I have.
No, there’s no one like me.
It’s hard to hold the animal and get Mads to open his mouth. I’m pouring blood onto his face when he needs to drink it, but he’s not coherent enough to do so. I pull his mouth open but just getting it in there turns out to be the easy part when I can’t get him to swallow it. It merely pools in his mouth before running out. I nudge him and shake him but still nothing.
“Come on, dammit, wake up,” I snap as I smack his face in the hope of startling him awake, but it does nothing to help. “Mads, wake your annoying ass up.”
Fuck, fuck. I didn’t mean to drain him this badly. I didn’t mean to hurt him like this.
I’m barely getting any blood in him and end up draining the rest of the deer myself. That mouthful or two that he might have swallowed likely won’t do anything, but at this point do I really have any other choice? I can’t wait for him to rest. We have to keep moving because every second matters.
Lifting the naked man up, I drape him over my shoulder and keep running. Maybe I can hit the city soon and reach the VRC… but where the hell is the city? I don’t hear cars, I can’t see houses. The fields around here aren’t farmed, they’re overgrown grassland and brush.
Nausea rolls through me. Maybe I shouldn’t have drained that deer. It’s not like I can’t consume other blood, but when I’m in this condition, vampire blood is probably the only thing that will heal me. Slowing to a walk, I draw my shirt down, exposing my shoulder that I’d been shot in and revealing how my veins show black through my skin.
Hell, maybe this thing is just taking its sweet time to kill me. Just because it didn’t kill me immediately doesn’t mean it’s not going to. I don’t know how much of the drug was put into it or if it would even be affecting a true vampire to this extreme. All I know is that weakness is washing through my body, and even the blood I drank doesn’t seem to be the fix I thought it would.
“How about you carry me some?” I mumble, but maybe he would have if I hadn’t tried eating him. “I’m going to be so pissed if I carry you all this way for you to just fucking die off.”
I try not to notice the way guilt eats at me at that thought. It wasn’t like I meant for it to happen. I never meant for any of it to happen. Doesn’t mean that I don’t have to live with the consequences of it.
Positive that whatever direction I pick will lead me farther from civilization, I pick a random route and start moving, just making sure I’m going the same way without getting turned around. Exhaustion weighs down my limbs as I run until my legs shake, and when I trip, I go down on my knees again, unable to get back up. When I try to rise, I can’t even get my legs under me.
Deciding I’ll just take a short break, I lower Mads off my shoulder and onto the ground before hitting down on my side as the world spins around me.
We’re both just going to be lying here when Abel finds us. He’s going to drag us back and that darkness is going to take us.
You know you can’t outrun me, right, Ender? Where would you even go? You know I own your life. I own you. I created you. You’re special because I chose to let you exist. I chose to let you be. And you have one purpose.
To kill.
No, no, I don’t want to kill them. I don’t want to. They were kind to me. They took care of me and now their blood coats my fingers. I can taste it on my lips. Their pleas, their cries tearing through me.
A hand brushes my cheek, and I reel back because that monster is here. I let him invade my life. I’m lying here because I’m weak. I’m so fucking weak and he found me.
“Shhh.”
My eyes flash over to what’s made the noise, and I realize that the hand slumped against my cheek belongs to Mads and I’m just caught back up in a dream of a life I’d do anything to forget.


CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MADS
I’m not sure whether it was the thrashing vampire that woke me, the feeling of death descending upon me, or something else, but when I open my eyes, I find that Ender is lying on the ground next to me, apparently caught up in the darkness of his dreams.
That fucker tried to kill me. Maybe he’s dreaming about how much of an asshole he is.
His face shows true fear, and I decide that even if he tried to kill me, I can’t just lie here and watch him suffer. “En… der…” I whisper, struggling to even find my voice. It’s no wonder he doesn’t hear it when I barely can.
I try to roll to my side and the world spins around me as I discover that we’re no longer in that room but surrounded by trees that whirl around me. And then I’m consumed by blackness that debates taking me down and not letting me up again.
Ender begs to be let go, to be free of the darkness, and it draws me back into the world enough that I reach out and cup his face. I meant more to give him a push, but it’s hard when I can’t seem to control my hand. “Shhh…”
I plan to tell him it’s okay, that he’s fine, but I can’t find any words.
He jerks awake, and for a split second, I’m convinced he’s going to attack me. Fear spikes inside of me as I realize that I’ve just woken the man who is partially responsible for putting me in this state. Maybe he was taking me with him as a snack for the road. Maybe I’m like a fucking bag of M&M’s he was taking along for a mid-travel nibble.
His eyes are unreadable for a moment and I grow anxious that I might have fucked up before it seems to dawn on him that it’s me. But more importantly, he doesn’t have that cold, dead look in his eyes that he’d had when he’d attacked me.
“Mads,” he says before grabbing my face. “Mads, you’re… Mads…” But before he can complete what he was going to say, he stills. His hand clamps over my mouth and I drift a bit before his look turns to anger. “Fuck. They found us.”
Ender picks me up and I groan as I realize the wounds in my stomach haven’t fully healed yet. Likely due to the lack of blood.
“Fuck,” I hiss.
“Quiet,” he says as he shifts me so the weight is off his bad shoulder and I sink off into the darkness. I can tell we’re moving, but I can’t seem to open my eyes to even tell where we’re going.
The next time I come to, he’s smacking me.
“What the fuck?” I groan.
“Wake up. Dammit. Wake up. We can’t sit still for long,” he says as he hauls a whole dead deer to me before blood drips onto my face.
I consider complaining about all parts of this and telling him that he shouldn’t have killed the poor deer until the blood hits my tongue and I moan, needing more. I want to reach out to grab it, but I can’t seem to find my arms. Thankfully, I don’t need them because he lowers it so I can greedily drink. I groan as the sweet blood fills my mouth and runs down my throat. I’m not sure blood has ever tasted this fucking good before.
When the blood stops coming, I whine, displeased, and try to reach for the deer even though I was prepared to chastise him about it.
“You’ve drained it. I don’t hear another, so we have to keep moving.”
It wasn’t enough. I need more. I need blood. I need⁠—
Ender picks me up even though I’m positive I just want to feast. I drift, caught up in a restless sleep until I’m plunged into the coldest water I’ve ever felt in my life.
“Fuck!” I yelp, jerking awake. All desire to sleep is just tossed right out the window as I try to figure out what is happening and why I’m suddenly being subjected to this.
“You reek of blood. It’s making it easy for them to follow us,” he says as he pushes me back under the water and begins scrubbing me with his hand. I’m positive this must be a torture technique and that maybe I should have been nicer to him at some point, but he’s quick and I’m still suffering from arms made of lead, so I quickly give up the fight.
Even so, he doesn’t look good. The veins racing up his neck are black, and his skin has an unnatural gray hue to it.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“Worry about yourself,” he says curtly.
Ender picks me up as I hear the rushing water. It’s a very soothing sound and begins to lull me back to sleep until it starts to become too loud.
“Why’s it so loud?” I groan as I open my eyes and discover that I’m overlooking a huge waterfall… down below us.
“Hold on to me.”
“For what? Why the fuck would you jump? Even half dead, I can see all the rocks down there. How are you going to heal from that? You already look⁠—”
He obviously doesn’t care as he leaps off. I understand that he is trying to disrupt their ability to track us, but does shattering bones really help?
Ender hits the water, narrowly avoiding some of the larger rocks, and I’m plunged under it. I fight against it, but I’m so disoriented that I can’t seem to figure out which way is up. The coldness is eating through my limbs as a hand wraps around my wrist and I’m dragged back through the pounding waterfall and up onto some rock. After a minute, I realize he’s guided us to a small alcove behind the waterfall.
“They’re so close and I can’t keep running while carrying you,” he admits as he strains, trying to bust the chains around my ankles. They cut into my skin as he uses all of his strength to break them. He’s pulling so hard that he ends up crashing into me when they finally give before slowly pushing himself upright. The hand he’s leaning on is shaking so badly he’s barely able to hold himself up. “I don’t think I can get your wrists. I’m going to leave you here and draw them away.”
It takes me a moment to comprehend what he’s saying. “You just admitted you can’t keep running,” I say. “So why would you run?”
“We don’t know that this will even disrupt our trail enough for them to lose us. If I head out and distract them, you can heal up and get out of here. Keep heading east. I have no idea where we are. I’ve run for miles and have come across absolutely no signs of civilization, but you’ll have to hit something at some point.”
I throw all of my energy into grabbing his wrist. It’s a pain with these binds, but I can still use my hands just fine so I latch on to him, refusing to let go. “Ender.”
“Don’t delay me,” he snaps.
“We’re staying together. I know you feel guilty over what you did to me, but that’s ridiculous. What’s happened has happened.”
He jerks his hand back, but I just catch his ankle, and he’s so weak he crashes to the ground. I feel slightly bad about it but not bad enough to let go. If he falls on his face just from me grabbing his ankle, then what’s he going to do when someone attacks him? It merely proves why he shouldn’t be out there.
“We’re going to chill here and hope they lose us,” I say.
“If they don’t, I can’t fight all of them. That’s why we should split up.”
“So in one scenario, you get caught; in the other, we both get caught or possibly both get away. I like the idea of us both working together to get away,” I say. “I know you feel guilty, but sacrificing yourself doesn’t fix anything.”
“I don’t feel guilty,” Ender retorts, but he’s fighting me a whole lot less now that he’s on the ground. “I’m probably going to die anyway, so it doesn’t fucking matter.”
“You’re not going to die. If you made it this long, you’re clearly going to make it,” I assure him, although the way he looks, I’m not so positive. I push myself up and glance down. “When did I get naked?”
“Quite a long time ago.”
“Sounds kinky or concerning… I’m struggling to remember if I was awake for it.”
“Yeah, definitely the vibe I was going for as I tied your blood-soaked clothes to a deer and sent it off. It did distract them for a while because they lack a brain,” Ender says.
“Did you tie my underpants to it as well?”
“Had to. Would have been weird to have just left your underwear lying on the ground somewhere.”
“What if the deer is now running with my clothes for eternity?”
“You think the vampires didn’t catch and eat it?” he asks.
“I was hoping they didn’t. That poor deer… you killed another deer to feed me, didn’t you? Poor thing.”
“Yes, because the humane thing to do would have been to let you die instead of sacrificing a deer to keep you alive.”
I decide that I can’t really fault him if I look at it that way. “I’m cold as fuck. Come cuddle me for warmth.”
“I would rather freeze to death,” he says.
“Why’d you try to kill me and then choose to come back and save me?”
He remains silent and refuses to look at me.
“Ender?”
“I liked you better when you were quiet.”
“Ender, answer the question. Was it just because you wanted to get me naked?”
“Go back to sleep or I’ll go sacrifice myself so I don’t have to talk to you.”
“Ender, you know you want to answer the question. Come on now. I’m all ears. I’m a phenomenal person who is willing to forgive you. I mean, do you know many others who’d be willing to forgive you after you literally ate them? It just goes to show you that I am a kind and caring being, which is why you should spill all of your dark secrets to me.”
“If I’d eaten from you a bit longer, you would still be quiet,” he realizes.
“I don’t quite think you did it on purpose, did you? You acted different. You were uncontrollable and your eyes looked dark. Like in sexy novels I’ve read where she’s all ‘his eyes turn dark’ like what the fuck is happening? Is he turning into a werewolf or something? I’ve been with both men and women and their eyes always seem to stay the same. Does that mean I’m doing it wrong? Anyway, your eyes actually turned darker. OH! Or is it the pupils? But the pupils are already dark… or⁠—”
“Do you ever stop talking?”
“I don’t know, I did earlier when you tried murdering me.”
“My bad.” He closes his eyes, and I see the way his fingers dig into the stone. He’s lived this long, hasn’t he? Would he really have lived through all of this only to die from it now? Slowly dragging myself up into a sitting position, I look down at my stomach and see that it’s mostly closed. Still fucking hurts, though, which tells me that I really do need more blood.
Crawling over to Ender, I manage to reach him, which makes him jerk awake.
“Your dick is uncomfortably close to my face.”
“Says the man who stripped me. Didn’t even leave me a sock to cover myself with.”
“It was bloody. Everything was bloody. You want some of my clothes? They’re wet and cold.”
“Not until they’re dry,” I say as I give him a push and pull his shirt down until I can see his shoulder. The location of the bullet hole hasn’t fully healed. The blood that’s seeping from it is black, and when I swipe it with my finger it smells strange. I rinse my finger off in the water before turning back to his wound.
“You have a knife?”
“Just a sword. You planning on stabbing me to get back at me?”
“Sure am,” I say as I put a knee on his arm to hold it down.
“I’d like to look at what you’re doing, but every time I do, I just see your dick.”
“It’s a good distraction, eh? Talk about some high-class entertainment. Maybe more people would go to the doctor if this was how their doctor dressed.”
“Absolutely no one would go to the doctor then.”
“Just me?” I tease as I awkwardly maneuver the sword to cut open the bullet hole.
“Fucking hell. You really fucking stabbed me!”
“I told you I was going to!”
“I didn’t think you were being serious. What are you doing? The bullet is out. You could have asked.”
“I know it’s out but I’m curious…”
“You’re cutting me open because you’re curious?”
“How do you think the first doctors learned about the layout of a human’s internal organs? They just cut people open to find out.”
“Dead people!”
“I forgot that first part,” I say as he tries to struggle beneath me, so I put a knee against his throat as well. His look of disbelief seems to calm down his struggling, though.
Trying my best to cup water with my wrists bound, I pour it over the wound to flush away the black blood so I can get a look at what’s happening inside. I’d never been permitted to examine any of the dead vampires who’d been killed by the ammunition and since there weren’t any vampires who lived through it—besides possibly true vampires who I doubt would allow me to dice into them—I’m thrilled to have my very own test subject.
Ender stares right at me, so he’s evidently going to survive looking my way with my dick out. “A part of my delirious brain was like ‘Hey, maybe he really can help,’ but your maniacal grin as you dig your fucking fingers… fuck… into my flesh makes me question if you’re just torturing me as payback.”
“If I were torturing you as payback, you’d know it.”
“How would it be any different?” he asks.
“Because I’d go, ‘Hey, I’m torturing you as payback.’ But I’m not. I’m torturing you for your own good. Honestly, out of the goodness of my heart, really.”
“I smell bullshit,” he grumbles. “Your maniacal smile reeks of bullshit.”
“Shhh. You’re in good hands. Honestly, it can’t get better than these hands. And I’m not smiling. This is my look of concentration.” I see something glistening and dig my fingers into it. It makes Ender glower at me, but when I pull it out and examine the small shard, I realize what I’m seeing.
“They’ve modified them. The ammunition must leave behind small pellets or shards.”
“But I pulled a bullet out. It wasn’t a shotgun shell that hit me.”
“I don’t know, I don’t make ammunition,” I say, realizing that just touching it is making my fingers burn. I flush the wound again and find three more small pellets that I pull out and toss into the water. “I’m not sure if that’s all, but let’s see if you begin healing before I start dicing some more.”
“You act like you weren’t loving every minute of it. You looked like Rylee when she was opening her birthday presents.”
I stop pinning him down to wash my hands off. “That was just because I was thrilled to be saving your life.”
“You were fascinated by whatever the fuck you were doing,” he says.
“Out of the kindness of my heart filled with love, I was saving your life. If I got some minor enjoyment out of checking out what was going on, you can’t blame me. Now in exchange, you will cuddle me and give me warmth.”
“I can go get that dead deer you can cover yourself with.”
I grimace, positive that I’ll just pretend he didn’t mention any of that before slowly sinking down into his arms. I do this by pinning his weakened arms with my body and curling up against him.
“Why are you touching me?”
“You nearly murdered me. The least you can do is offer me a cuddle.”
Ender tries to push me off, but in his weakened state, he can’t fight me too hard.
“I should have left your ass behind.”
“Instead, you nakafied it. Did you like what you saw when I was dangling there with my ass crack out? Wanted to see more?”
“Your dick is smashed against my thigh. I can feel it.”
“Shhhh, just go to sleep and try not to dream about me,” I say, thrilled to have some warmth. We’re both wet, half dead, and exhausted, but where my body is pressed against his, I can feel the slightest hint of warmth.
“I don’t like the touch of others,” Ender grumbles.
I hesitate because I didn’t actually plan on torturing him psychologically. I really just assumed he was being fussy and stubborn. “I see,” I say and push back. “I apologize. I’ll take the first watch, so get some sleep. I’m feeling significantly better after that deer. Thank you for getting me this far. I really appreciate it and am aware I wouldn’t have gotten away without you.”
He watches me scoot back to give him space as the cold eats into me. As a vampire, it wouldn’t bother me if I was up to my normal strength, but like this, it’s quite bitter.
Ender slips off to sleep quite quickly, and I leave him alone as I listen to the forest around me. There are animals moving about in the night and the sound of the waterfall crashing beside us. I’m trying to stay awake, but my body is still struggling.
I sit up so I can be less comfortable to help keep myself from accidentally falling asleep. Then I tuck my legs against me as I listen to the world around me. At one point, I hear multiple vampires and listen carefully, anxious that they’ll find where we’re hiding. It really is a good spot to hide and any little noise we might make will instantly be drowned by the crashing waterfall. The only problem is it does make it harder to hear them until they’re quite close.
“I think we lost them a mile or so back,” a woman says.
“Abel won’t be pleased until we bring at least one of them back. He acts like he needs the British one, but his fixation is clearly on Ender.”
“He talks about making him, but he’s made many of us. He’s my maker as well, so what’s so special about him? Ender obviously wants to kill Abel, so why would he even waste time with him unless it’s to kill him?”
“Did you see the way he killed those two and ate them… I think Abel needs to kill him, not capture him.”
They wander far enough out that I can’t hear them. I’d wondered if that man was Ender’s maker… but what kind of genetic makeup does he have that allows him to feast on vampires the way he does? I’d begun to question if he was some type of true vampire… but instead…
I stare at him as my thoughts run wild.
He still doesn’t look well, and if anything, I feel like he looks worse. He likely needs more blood to replenish the poisoned blood, but unless I haul a person to him, I don’t think it’s going to work. And in my condition, the possibility of me successfully getting a live vampire back to him seems quite slim.
I poke him to see if he’ll wake enough to let me know if an animal will suffice—but if it would, wouldn’t he have had his fill along the way?