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CHAPTER FIFTEEN
MADS
Uncertain of what else to do, I wait until it’s been a good hour since I heard anyone and slip along the rocks to stay dry as I leave. My legs still feel leaden and the shackles on my wrists feel like they’re weighing me down, but I head out into the trees looking for a road or something to eat.
Where are we? We came from inside a building… so was it some facility set off in a remote location that’s hidden in the forest so dense we can see no way out? I hear an animal and stop to listen to determine whether it’s large enough to take some blood from. I’d prefer another deer, something I can drink from and refrain from killing without it bloodying me in return.
I find one and grab it, drinking enough that the animal weakens but not enough to kill it before letting it free. And that’s when I hear someone.
Quickly, I slip against a tree and press my bare backside into the bark as I listen. They seem to be alone as they move through the trees at almost a leisurely pace. I wonder if they’re lagging behind with the hope of not finding Ender, who seems more than willing to murder anyone on the spot.
I’m far enough from the waterfall that interacting with them won’t lead them to our location. Quietly, I move closer to them, unsure if I could take them in a fight at this point in time—especially when I can’t take most people in a fight on a good day. When I get close enough to see the person clearly, I notice that he’s staring at his phone… which I could very much use. He’s so fixated that he’s slowing until he stops and then sits down right there in the trees. Whatever he’s doing is apparently the most interesting thing he’s ever seen because he doesn’t see a thing as I slip out from behind the trees and slam him to the ground.
He screams, which isn’t helpful, so I dig my nails into the back of his head. “Keep screaming and I’ll tear your scalp off,” I hiss.
He immediately shuts up and I feel like a badass. A rather naked badass… hell, maybe it’s been my clothes limiting me all this time?
“Where is the nearest road?” I demand, just rolling with my new bad guy routine.
“F-Fuck if I know! I was just told to find you and the other guy. And I don’t want to die so I thought if I just hung back I’d be okay. But you still found me, and I really don’t want to die. Please? I will do anything you ask. I will give you my life savings. It’s really not much, but I’ll give it to you. I have a car! You can have the car!”
“How the hell do we get out of here?”
He glances this way and that like there might be an out that I hadn’t noticed myself. “Well, uh… I mean, I know the way back to the compound. Then from there, there’s a dirt road leading out which we take to get back to the city.”
“Which direction?”
“Let me think… the sun is always in my eyes as I drive in. So… whatever way the sun rises… east? Is it east? West? Fuck if I know. I just know I don’t want to die.”
“Why does he want Ender?”
“I really don’t know. That fucker is crazed. He just rushed through and slaughtered a bunch of vampires with ease. It was like he was playing with humans. He fucking ate them.”
“Give me your clothes,” I demand. I’m honestly getting pretty good at this. Maybe I just needed to be pushed to my limits to learn my badassness.
“You can have them all!” he says as he starts stripping his shirt off with speed. When he lifts it, I see he has a gun.
“Hands up!”
“O-Of course! I don’t even know how to use the thing! Ha. Save me.” He lets me take the gun, but when I do, I see that his phone is in his hand.
“And your phone.”
“It doesn’t work out here.”
“What were you doing on it?”
“J-Just reading a book.”
“Open it.”
He does and as he continues stripping for me, I open the map. While it’s not registering much, it does show me the area we’re in. The issue comes in when I zoom out, and it shows me that only a small area was loaded in and none of that area shows me a road of any kind.
“Where are we?”
“A national park in Canada.”
“Excuse me? At what fucking point did we end up in Canada?”
“I don’t know. I just like… drove into work and you were there. You were the talk of the compound. I didn’t think I’d actually get to meet you.”
“You need a different job,” I say. “Clothes.”
“Oh right, right.” He hands me his hoodie, shirt, and trousers, all of which he’s removed. “Can I please keep my underwear? If someone sees me with no underwear…”
“Are you going to tell anyone you saw me?”
“No, of course not.”
“Are you lying?”
“I promise. I really didn’t want to be involved in any of this.”
“Because if you tell someone, I’m going to kill you.”
“I won’t!”
A part of me wonders if I should take him back to Ender, but I know Ender would likely kill him and then what? I’d have the dead body of some foolish young man to deal with.
“Alright, I’ll let you go, just… don’t fuck me over,” I say as I debate keeping the phone. It really serves little purpose now and they could use it to track us. I drop it on the ground and cock an eyebrow at the man now standing in his socks and underpants.
“I won’t, I won’t,” he promises me.
I begin moving away from the waterfall, planning to circle around when I’m no longer in his sight, before I hear something whizzing right at me. I barely miss the tree branch that was sent with such force that it’s embedded itself in the trunk of another tree.
Just as I turn, that lying asshole rushes me. There’s this little part in the back of my mind going, “Remember how you weren’t going to mess with him because you are in shit health? Remember how you are atrocious at fighting, so you choose to use your brain and avoid fights?” and another part that’s like, “But I already plowed him to the ground with such finesse; I was so badass! I was so confident that I robbed him with expertise!” and then there’s the biggest part that’s like, “If you’d just killed him like Ender would have, he wouldn’t currently be slamming you to the ground.”
So down I go, brawling this asshole who is almost as naked as I am. The clothes and gun go flying from my hands because I can’t even manage to hold on to any of that as I face-plant. He knows I’m weak and tries going for my eyes, but I very much like my eyes and would honestly prefer them to stay right where they are.
“I thought you were nice,” I cry. “We had a moment where you were all, ‘I won’t stab you in the back,’ and I was all, ‘I’ll let you live because of it.’”
“Nah, you were just extremely naïve,” he says with a chuckle as he slams my head into the dirt. This is really quite embarrassing.
“Because I try to see the best in people?” I ask before clawing at his side, my bound wrists hampering me. I really need to take some fighting classes and stop relying on my charm to get me out of things alive. Being a vampire doesn’t really miraculously make you a phenomenal fighter like people seem to think it does. All I’m doing over here is flailing, kicking, and going for the balls since that sounds like a decent idea.
None of which he seems to overly enjoy, but he’s trying to go for my eyes while claiming that I “don’t need eyeballs to tell Abel what he wants to hear.”
“Well you don’t need your fucking nuts either,” I snap as I try my hardest to knee them up into his body. He groans but it’s not enough and I end up with a slice in my side. I would very much rather not bleed out again when I just managed to get some blood back into my body, but he’s weirdly unconcerned.
“You are being very mean!”
“Does it look like I care?” he asks.
At this point it’s evident he plans to maim me enough to drag me back to the others where they’ll try beating out of me where Ender is and then stab me some more until I tell them everything I know.
I flip to the side, hoping to get to my feet and try my hand at running. If Ender were feeling a bit better, I’d run to him in a “Hey buddy, I brought you a snack!” way but at this point, I’m not even quite sure he’s alive enough to help me with his snack! We might end up being the snack!
“I fucked up, I fucked up,” I cry as he grabs my leg before I can get to my feet and jerks it back so I slam down onto my face. The nice thing about this is I hit extremely close to a rather sharp rock. I grab it and just as he’s trying to crush my throat, I twist, having this grand plan of slamming the rock into his head in this badass fight. What happens instead is that he runs into the rock. It’s really a joint effort. The sound it makes is quite icky and I quickly scuttle away as he hits the ground, rock embedded in his head.
Obviously, he’s not quite dead. But to kill him, I would have to remove his head, bleed him dry, or go for the heart, none of which sounds easy to do when I’m still over here pleased that I’ve got two eyes.
“I am alive!” I realize. “Ha! Did you see that badass move? I am a proper badass, thank you very much!”
Hurriedly, I retrieve the clothes and gun that I’d dropped. Since he had a gun, why didn’t he go for it earlier? Unless the ammunition would kill someone like me and he very much knew Abel wouldn’t approve of it.
I hear a noise that is still quite far away, but has someone heard what’s happening?
Shit, shit, shit.
I tuck the clothes under my arm and run as quietly as I can in the opposite direction of the waterfall. I’ll make my way back when I feel like it’s safe. Sadly, besides replenishing a bit of blood, I’ve accomplished a whole lot of nothing.
Thankfully, Ender is still asleep when I get back and I don’t have to recount that embarrassing experience.
I see that he’s shaking, though, so I take the new clothes and drape them over him, hoping that warms him up. Then I close my eyes and think about how the fuck we’re getting out of here.


CHAPTER SIXTEEN
ENDER
The moment I’d said something to Mads about lying next to me, he’d pulled away. The cold had immediately eaten at me as he huddled in the corner, and I questioned why I couldn’t ever keep my mouth shut. It wasn’t all that awful having him pressed against me, but still, I did my best to drive him away. I knew he was too sympathetic of a person and that would be the only way to get him to respond, and it worked perfectly.
But that just led to me feeling guilty. It’s such an irritating feeling.
Before I could say or do anything more, I fell back into the darkness.
Abel haunts my sleep, but I’m too exhausted to pull out of it. When I wake, I feel worse, making me wonder if there are other shards or pellets or whatever they are still inside of me, pumping the toxins into me. Resting is obviously not doing anything, so we need to keep moving… if I can find the energy to do so.
As I stir, I realize I’m covered in dry clothes and am quite confused about how that happened. Mads, who is still on watch, is currently playing with a disassembled gun. Where the fuck did he get a gun?
“Why are you still naked but I have my clothes and someone else’s clothes on me?” I ask.
“You were shivering.”
“I don’t shiver.”
“Ah, right. Sorry. You were… flickering your body. Is that better?”
I ignore all of that and slowly sit up, but doing so makes the world spin around me.
“You’re clearly not any better.”
“I’m fine. Why aren’t you wearing any of the clothes?” I ask.
“I already told you.”
“Put them on.”
“I’m doing okay. I fed some.”
The idea of feeding perks me up. “Where’s the guy these clothes belonged to? I’d like to eat him.”
“Out there somewhere… in his underpants, very much alive.”
“You didn’t kill him?”
“He nearly killed me,” Mads says as he uses the barrel of the gun to nudge something. “How long do you think you ran to get us here?”
“I don’t know… I wasn’t moving quickly, but probably two or more hours of moving time. I did take multiple breaks. Why?”
“I’m going to go back. If I don’t live, then move on. If I do, I’ll try to be back by tomorrow evening.”
“Why are you going back?”
“I want to see if there’s something to help you. And I have to assume that if they’re tinkering with the ammunition to make it more deadly, they have something I can use to get us out of here. Hell, even if I just got more ammunition.”
“There’s no way Abel is going to sit back and let you tinker with his shit.”
Mads bites his lip. “He probably has to leave the building to rest at some point, right? I’ll just slither in then.”
“Tell me how your fight went with the guy you got these clothes from,” I say.
“Splendidly well. I kept both eyes, I took his clothes, I rocked him in the skull.”
“The state of your hair tells me you also rolled around on the ground for a bit.”
“I was like a dog that rolls in their kill when they’re done with it,” he assures me.
“You said you didn’t kill him. Now how are you going to handle, oh… ten? Twenty? Thirty of those?”
He’s quiet for a short while. “Well, guess I’m not coming back alive. Will you mourn me? Go to my funeral service? Pretend to be my lover so people think I didn’t die lonely and sex-deprived?”
“Sure,” I say with ample sarcasm.
“Fine, that idea has been unwillingly scratched,” Mads grumbles before crawling over to me. He’s still naked, so this is quite concerning as he gets closer. Then he grabs my face and now I’m questioning if this is supposed to be romantic or torture. “If you murder me… I will… I will… be so fucking pissed.”
“At least it’ll be quiet,” I say.
I watch in confusion as he bites his wrist and shoves it against my face. I can’t even hesitate or do the whole “What’d you do that for” because the smell of it enraptures me. I grab his wrist and jerk it to me as I sink my fangs into it and groan. The taste is so sweet. So perfect. The blood that fills my mouth is unbelievably satisfying. Have I ever tasted such sweet blood? It’s hypnotizing as it pushes away the pain in my body, even if for a brief moment.
“Alright, getting close to my limit,” Mads says as he gently taps me.
But I don’t want to let go. I don’t want to pull away. Not when this is the best I’ve felt.
“Fun fact. If you don’t kill me, you can keep snacking on me later. But if you murder me, that’s just it. All gone.” He plucks me in the face, and I jerk back.
I lick some blood off my lips. “I wasn’t going to kill you.”
“Good to know.”
“Why’d you do that?” I ask as he nabs the spare pants and pulls them on.
“Because as I was wallowing around in the leaves with a vampire I’d purposely let go and turned my back on—the very man who was going for my eyes while yelling ‘You don’t need your eyes to talk!’—I realized that maybe I fucking suck at fighting. If I’m getting out of this alive, it’s only going to be with my feisty guard dog. That is you,” he says as he pats me on my head. “You will get me out of here very much alive.”
The words put a sour taste in my mouth. Of course I’m meant to fight and kill and do as I’m told. That’s what I was created for. “I see.”
“I’m going to just sit back and cheer your half-dead ass on. I can incentivize you in different ways. Like… you can have my blood, my body, or my heart.”
His teasing words still me. Was it a joke? I don’t quite know how to tell. Everyone who wants something from me never gives me anything in return. Not that I want most of what he’s offering. “I only want one of those things.”
“My heart? Oh my.”
“Sure, I want your heart to pump more blood into my mouth,” I grumble. “We need to get moving while I can stand.”
“I can try to dice you up again to see if I can find more shards in your shoulder, but at this point, I’m not quite sure that bleeding you out by cutting you open and fingering around in there would be ideal when I didn’t see anything more last time. I’m just afraid of you losing more blood. The best thing would be if we could get you a scan at the hospital, but funniest thing ever, we’re in some giant forest in Canada. Hilarious, right?”
“When the fuck did we end up in Canada?”
“That’s why it’s a funny story and I don’t know.”
“Let’s go,” I say as he finishes dressing himself. “I’ll get you through this and then you can go your own way.”
“I kind of thought after our near-death experience that maybe you’d take me out on a date… you know, in exchange for the attempted homicide. It’d be the cutest story to tell our kids. ‘Papa, how’d you meet Other Papa?’ ‘Well, my darling, he was so attracted to me he decided to eat me so no other person could ever look at me again.’ See? Romantic.”
“You just said you wanted me to be your ‘guard dog.’ I will get you out to make up for what I’ve done. If you’re wanting more, tell me. Now let’s go.” My voice comes out sharper than I meant it to, but does it really matter?
Mads hesitates. “Ender… I feel like I said something wrong. Suddenly, I feel like the bad guy here⁠—”
I ignore him and slip around the water to try to stay dry as I go out and begin walking.
“Wait. We’re heading this way,” he says as he points south.
“You know this for a fact?”
“No, but I have to assume the asshole lied to me. He told me that when he comes in, he’s driving east, but I have my doubts he was really helping me… you know, after the brawl. The map on his phone wasn’t fully loaded, but it was loaded farther to the south, telling me that he came in from the south before he lost reception.”
“Makes sense,” I agree. “Let’s head that way, then.”
I’m not in much of a condition to run, so I start off walking in the hope I’ll feel more lively the more we move.
“I’m sorry,” Mads says.
I look over at him. “For?”
“I was making a joke earlier and I feel like something I said bothered you. If you talk to me, you could explain what it was that bothered you so I don’t make the mistake again.”
“It didn’t bother me,” I say, unsure why he thinks I care about something he said enough to be bothered by it. I only care about Rylee and that’s how it’s going to stay. He can say whatever he wants, and it doesn’t bother me at all.
“You know you don’t have to lie about everything, right? Sometimes you can tell the truth. And it’s okay to feel upset over something. It would just help if you told me why so I knew.”
“What about you? How much are you lying about? Are you really just some innocent vampire who joined the council however many months ago? You know what? I don’t care. I just want to get home and keep Rylee safe from that monster. That’s it. That’s all.”
“It seems like he wants you, not Rylee.”
“Because… he doesn’t know much about her.”
“I really wasn’t… meaning to imply that I wanted to use you… if that was it,” Mads says. “I’m not going to lie. I’m using pretty much everyone in my life. While I know that’s wrong, I can’t fight worth a damn, so I’d probably be dead by now if I didn’t at least somewhat use people. It was dumb luck I ended up taking down that guy I stole the clothes from. I never wanted to be a vampire. I’ve never been good at it. You want to hear something hilarious? I really fucking hate vampires. I’ve just never met one who actually gives a shit about something worthwhile. I think most of them have lived for so many years that they get this sense of superiority. They’re convinced they’re better than everyone else. They’re older than me, so they expect that they should be able to control what I do. I was sent here by the UK council because they thought I was useless. Why waste their numbers when they could send someone useless like me out? They just needed people to go, ‘Yes, Callum SHOULD be the new council president. Callum is the best man I’ve ever met!’ so they can worm their way over here.”
I glance over at him. “How the fuck does anyone not realize you’re an intelligent and conniving man?”
“Right? Thank you! I’m over here double-agenting it and they’re oblivious! It’s because vampires focus on brute strength. They focus on who is oldest and who is strongest, which means I’m insignificant.”
“So if you don’t only work for the council, who do you work for?”
“See, I knew you’d ask me that. Would you believe me if I said that I don’t work for anyone in particular but am working for something I believe in? That I care about?”
“I’m going to be real honest, if it doesn’t benefit me, I don’t care if you’re working for the British royalty.”
“I bet I’d look sexy in a crown and with a scepter. I mean… I have a scepter but a different one… if you get what I’m saying.”
I slowly look over at him and get the joy of seeing him trying to wink at me. It might have been considered sexy if he didn’t look like he’d gone through hell and back. “Are you calling your dick a scepter and have any belief that’s going to turn me on?”
“Well… a man willing to carry my naked body across a forest might be interested in my scepter jokes. The very man who stripped me. I’m just saying…”
“Go back to talking about being a double agent. Not that I care, but it’s leagues better than this shit,” I say as I keep walking, really wanting to get back to Rylee.
“Do you forgive me?” Mads asks.
“I was never mad at you.”
“Maybe not mad but disappointed,” he says.
I glower at him. “You honestly think I care enough about what you have to say to be disappointed?”
“I could hope. And I really think you do, even if you act all prickly on the outside. I generally leave a giant gap between me and others. But there’s something about you that I like. Now others, I just pretend to like so they will lower their defenses. You should try it sometime!”
“No. I’m not acting like anything or doing any of that shit.”
“It’s okay if you can’t act. I never was good at acting. I tried to join a theatre group once. They told me that I really had the heart but not the skills. I might have shed a tear of embarrassment.”
“Should have threatened to eat them. Literally anything I want, people give it to me,” I say, feeling like we’re not getting anywhere fast at the pace we’re walking. It’s like the small high from his blood is already wearing off.
Mads trots in front of me and kneels down. I’m not quite sure what this move is but it creeps me out and makes me want to boot him in the ass so I don’t end up staring at it. It’s the lack of blood causing my eyes to wander.
“What the hell are you doing?” I ask, well aware threats are the best way to hide any of these issues.
“You look tired, so hop on.”
“HA! There’s no way I would ever get on your back.”
When he looks back at me, his face is scrunched up. “What the hell? You carried me for miles, let me carry you for miles.”
“I would have to have lost at least four limbs to even consider it, and even then, I’m confident I’d still roll my way through these woods instead of relying on someone to carry me.” I hurry past that foolish idea.
He zips in front of me and kneels down again. “Have you really never had anyone to rely on, Ender? And don’t say Rylee. She’s as cute as a button but you cannot rely on a child. I’m here for you.”
“I wish you weren’t.”
“I will carry your load.”
My mind drifts back to him showing me his ass not even a minute ago. “I just feel uncomfortable about every second of this conversation,” I say as I walk around him.
“You’re the one with the dirty mind. My mind is full of innocence.”
“You were just talking about your scepter.”
“Nothing slips by you.”
I turn around and decide I’ll take my chances going north. Hopefully someone can capture me and take me away from this man.
“No, no, come on, I’m joking. I’m sorry. My humor isn’t for everyone. Neither are my titillating flirtation skills.”
“Were you flirting?”
“It must work. I do find men and women are highly interested in me.”
“Your face is what works,” I say, which is a huge mistake because he beams at me and rubs his chin in a strange manner that I think he believes is seductive.
“Ho. Ho. Ho? You think my face is working for you?”
“I’m just going to take a nap right here,” I say, tired enough that nothing sounds better. My arm throbs, I want to tear Abel’s head off… but I guess I’m not filled with the uncontrollable rage that generally keeps me moving forward. Instead, I’m filled with the desire to just drop down onto the ground right here. My leaden limbs definitely don’t help. Every step feels like it takes an impossible amount of effort.
“Then take a nap on my perfectly broad back, room for just one. I heard it’s a five-star ride.”
“I would rather die.”
“You are so stubborn,” Mads says with a growl before disappearing. He isn’t gone long before he returns smelling like blood. “I met the sweetest moose. I was like, ‘Let me drink from you,’ and it was like, ‘If I could stomp your ass into the ground first,’ and I was like, ‘Nah, I’m good,’ but then I found a deer which was much more edible. I didn’t kill it, of course.” He holds his arm out to me.
“What is this?”
“I’ve decided that I’m going to be your travel snack until we get you someplace that I can better dissect… I mean, get you to a hospital.”
“You really want to dissect me, don’t you?”
“Just a little bit,” he says. “Like… a tiny bit. Just for science.”
“I’m not going to keep draining you.”
“Either drain me or get on my back⁠—”
Mads doesn’t even get to finish that sentence before he cuts his neck and the smell of the blood is enough to make me lose any stubbornness. I rush him, unable to control myself. As I do, he turns, which somewhere in my mind I think is weird, but I’m too fixated on the blood to care. It tastes so fucking good. I wish I could just fill myself with it. Maybe I’ll weaken him enough he’ll be quiet. Like does the man ever stop talking?
I moan as I close my eyes and soak in the sensation washing everything away until I feel like I should probably stop before I really do murder him. It’s very grudgingly that I do, and for a moment I’m caught up in the bliss of it. I feel so satisfied that I could just take a nap⁠—
Why the fuck am I moving?
I snap back to awareness as I realize that somehow, while I was making a fool of myself off in fucking blisstown, he dragged me onto his back and is carrying me off.
“What are you doing?” I snarl.
“Carrying my bride-to-be,” he says, and I try to drop off him.
“I tease, I tease! Come on, is this hurting you in any way? You actually moaned, you were enjoying it so much.”
“I didn’t moan,” I snap. His bound hand clings to my left leg so hard that when I try to get off, all my weak ass manages to do is flip myself backward. “Let go!”
“Your foot is stuck in the chains! Why’d you just dive off to oblivion? Do I revolt you that much?”
“Let me free.”
“You’re like a child! How does being helped hurt you?”
“It’s hurting my foot!”
“That’s because you stuffed it through the shackles before diving off like you’re an Olympic swimmer!”
Mads must finally free my leg before turning around to look at me where I lie splayed out on the ground. Now that I’m down here, I’m not quite sure how to get back up there.
“Are you embarrassed about how you acted while being helped?”
“Not in the slightest.”
He raises an eyebrow. “I can run. You cannot. I thought you wanted to get home to Rylee. I mean, look at you, you can barely get up off the ground even with my blood. As long as I keep stopping to drink, I can keep resupplying you with blood and get us out of here.”
Using all of the energy in my body, I push myself up to my feet. “I don’t need help.”
“Why?”
“Because Abel makes me kill every fucking person I’ve ever grown an attachment to. So if you don’t want to die, leave me alone,” I snap as I head off.
At least that shut him up. Maybe he’ll leave me the fuck alone now.
“Ah well,” he blurts out. Really, that didn’t quiet him down long enough.
“I went into this pretty sure I was going to die,” Mads continues.
“I’m ignoring you.”
“So if you kill me along the way, it’s fine. My chances of living through what I was going to do are pretty slim and getting slimmer by the day.”
I keep ignoring him as I walk and he finally falls silent.
But now that he’s not talking and talking, I have absolutely nothing to focus on but the misery my body is in. My arm is screaming in pain, my body feels weak, and I just want to get home to Rylee. And instead, I’m going to fucking die out here. Will Finn be able to protect her? Will Orin? She really likes them. But Finn is just a human, and does Orin understand the lengths he’d have to go to keep her safe?
At least I won’t die alone. I always assumed I would.
I stop walking. “I just need a minute.”
“I’ll get you more blood.”
“You’re risking your own life every time you give me blood. What if I lose control again?”
Mads says nothing as he leaves and when he returns, I’m kneeling on the ground. I don’t even remember how I got there.
“Can I just cut off my arm?” I ask plaintively.
“It’s in your shoulder and already in your bloodstream. I can try searching for more shards but given the state you’re in, I’m beginning to think it’s already fully expelled its poison into you.” He stills and I realize if he’s hearing something I can’t, then I really am fucked. “We have to move.”
I push myself up and decide that as long as I don’t ever care if he dies, then I can use him. That’s all I’m doing, using him, and he can use me. It’ll be fine if that’s all we end up doing.
He seems to understand as he grabs my arm, pulling me in and dragging me onto his back where I’m pulled back into the darkness.