To Kiss a Killer | boyxman | (OLD VERSION)

Chapter VIII - The Slayer

My head throbbed when my eyes opened after a full day of recovery. When I looked about my surroundings, I was able to tell I'd been checked into a hospital. The room was dark due to night having fallen over the city a few hours ago. I was alone; the only sound breaking the silence was the heart monitor hooked up to me.

Under the influence of some kind of drug the doctors must've given me, I pinched the bridge of my nose, waiting patiently for the pulsating to fade away. And then it all came back to me.

My brother Jackson.

The mission given to him by the Public.

The fire.

Dominick Von Kraige.

Did he make it out? For the sake of my sanity I sure hope so. Then again, I guess that's all I could do. By the looks of it, I didn't have my cell phone anymore... oh yeah... I threw it away. I couldn't get to him because he no longer had a home, and I definitely wasn't positive where else he'd go for shelter. For all I know he would have caught fire when the sun rose over the city, or was even killed in the fire my brother set.

Dominick...

My Dominick... I'm so sorry.

Tearing the needle from my arm, I sent the heart monitor to a flat line, and winced when I peeled away an amount of my skin. Moving across the room, I opened the small closet door beside the bathroom and rummaged through it for my clothing. Once I was dressed in a pair of denim jeans, a shirt with my favorite band on it, and had my shoes tied, I swore when a nurse reacting to the flat line entered the room.

"Young man," she addressed me, "You can't leave just yet; you're not feeling well. Your grandfather instructed he'd be here soon."

I didn't pay attention to her words. "I have to get out of here. Someone may be hurt; I have to leave."

"Young man, please; your grandfather insisted we keep you here."

I grabbed my backpack sitting on the chair beside the door and strapped it over my shoulder, but the nurse cut me off from leaving the room. "I'm sorry, you cannot leave. Your grandfather already signed your papers."

There was a knock on the room's door and in thinking it could just be Julius, I turned away, upset that he'd handed me over to the hospital. He knew how I felt about them. The nurse backed away from me and opened the door. "I'm going to speak with him alone," said a voice that eased my soul. I turned around and Dom stood in the frame of the doorway. There was a faint smile on his face to show he was happy to see me, and I was more than excited to see he was alive.

The nurse nodded with the blankness of someone set under a spell, and moved past Dom to exit the door. We stood there in a silence unlike any other I had come to know. Though there was the constant buzz of the flat line, all else was nothing more than a haze of nothing. Without indecision I shoved myself against Dom's chest, him taking me in his arms to catch me in our moment of revelation.

"I thought you were dead," I almost cried out, "I'm so sorry, Dom; could you ever find it in yourself to forgive me?"

He kissed my hair, "What is there to forgive; you did nothing."

He placed my arms around him to embrace him correctly, but I winced in pain when the scar I left on my arm from having torn the needle out grazed his sweater. I stepped back and cupped my forearm, but when a feeling overcame me I couldn't restrict myself from looking up at Dom. He was staring at the amount of blood seeping from me... but not in a hungered manner like I'd expect a vampire to.

He reached to grab me without force, but I didn't snatch my arm back. His gaze then met mine, and he softly pulled me across the room to a cabinet beside the small closet door. "Take a seat," he said.