▪︎ Chapter 58 ▪︎ “You would’ve done it.”
───
The scent refused to fade.
It lingered beneath the towering pines, woven into damp earth, crushed needles, bark, sweat, and gunpowder.
To a human it would have been impossible to distinguish one from another.
To Isolde, it might as well have been painted across the forest floor.
Her boots landed softly upon the dirt.
One step.
Another.
The black fabric of her dress drifted behind her as she moved between ancient trunks, impossibly fast, scarcely disturbing the undergrowth.
Her jaw hurt.
Only after several minutes did she realize why.
She was clenching her teeth so hard they ached.
She didn't loosen them.
Every heartbeat she heard ahead only made the pressure worse.
...
Fire.
She could still smell it.
Smoke.
Burning wood.
Burning fabric.
Her home.
Her sister's terrified breathing as she'd wrapped the damp sheet around her, pulling her close before climbing through the shattered window.
The sunlight.
Even now her skin seemed to remember it.
Not the agony she'd nearly endured...
The choice.
If the police hadn't arrived when they had...
If those sirens had been even a minute later...
She would have had to step into daylight.
Not because she'd wanted to.
Because her younger sister had still been inside.
Her crimson eyes narrowed.
The forest blurred.
She accelerated.
The first men she'd found hadn't slowed her.
She hadn't wanted them.
They'd simply been unfortunate enough to remain between her and the scent she sought.
One had barely managed to turn before she struck him.
Another had attempted to flee.
Neither had delayed her for more than moments.
Frank.
She remembered the name.
She remembered hearing one of them shout it.
The one who'd led them to her home.
The one who'd ordered the fire.
The one responsible.
Her breathing deepened.
The scent was stronger.
Closer.
Branches snapped ahead.
Someone was running.
Fast.
Far slower than she was.
She emerged from between two trees just as the man glanced over his shoulder.
His eyes widened.
"Oh-!"
He barely managed the sound before she reached him.
The rifle came up instinctively.
She caught the barrel in one hand.
The man tried to wrench it away.
It didn't move.
Her other elbow drove sharply into his chest.
A dull impact echoed through the trees.
The air exploded from his lungs in a ragged wheeze.
His feet left the ground before he stumbled backward, collapsing against a fallen log.
The rifle remained in her hand.
She let it fall.
It landed harmlessly beside him.
He curled forward, gasping desperately for breath.
Isolde didn't even look back.
She kept running.
The police.
They'd promised justice.
Justice.
The word felt strangely hollow.
She had believed them.
She truly had.
Until she'd held her trembling sister outside the burning house.
Until she'd felt her shaking.
Until she'd listened to every frightened breath while smoke poured from broken windows.
Justice hadn't been there.
Fear had.
Panic had.
The overwhelming certainty that the only family she had left might die in her arms.
No court could change that.
No prison sentence could erase those moments.
Her compromise had been simple.
Some would live.
Enough to answer questions.
Enough to stand trial.
Enough for humanity to see exactly what had happened.
But Frank...
Frank had forfeited that privilege.
Another scent drifted from the left.
She adjusted course instantly.
The undergrowth hardly slowed her.
Her boots scarcely made a sound against the damp soil.
Ahead...
Movement.
A man stumbled around a tree.
His breathing was frantic.
He froze when he saw her.
Recognition flooded his face.
"No..."
The pistol appeared almost immediately.
His hands shook violently.
He didn't aim.
He simply fired.
The sharp reports echoed through the forest.
Isolde shifted only slightly.
One shot struck bark.
Another disappeared into the canopy.
A third flashed harmlessly past her shoulder.
She reached him before he could fire again.
Her hand brushed the weapon aside.
With the same motion...
She struck him.
Not with a fist.
An open-handed slap.
The impact spun him completely around.
His body crashed sideways into a broad pine with a heavy thud before sliding limply to the ground.
The pistol disappeared into the ferns.
He wasn't dead.
She knew that without checking.
His heartbeat remained.
Fast.
Painfully so.
He wouldn't be standing again any time soon.
She continued walking.
Didn't even glance behind her.
The forest grew quieter.
Only distant birds disturbed the silence.
Then...
There.
A familiar scent.
Sweat.
Smoke.
Accelerant.
Her nostrils flared.
Frank.
She stopped.
The sound escaped before she consciously realized she'd made it.
A low, sharp hiss.
Not loud.
Not threatening.
Just...
Raw.
Her breathing became slower.
Deeper.
Each inhale separated the countless scents drifting through the woods.
The scent of pine, of wet moss, of distant foxes, of fleeing deer, of scared humans, of blood, and of smoke.
Then Frank.
Closer.
Much closer.
Her crimson eyes lifted toward the trees ahead.
He'd changed direction recently.
He wasn't wandering anymore.
He was running.
Trying to put as much distance between himself and the burning house as possible.
As though distance mattered.
She began walking again.
One measured step after another.
No longer rushing.
She didn't need to.
He wasn't escaping.
He simply hadn't realized it yet.
For the first time since leaving the burning house...
Her thoughts drifted to her sister.
She pictured her wrapped tightly in a blanket.
Safe.
Surrounded by officers and paramedics.
Terrified.
She remembered those frightened eyes looking up at her.
Not because she'd been burned.
Not because she'd been hurt.
Because she'd believed Isolde was about to step into sunlight.
That expression lingered far more vividly than the flames themselves.
Her fingers curled.
She exhaled slowly.
The police had arrived.
They'd saved both of them.
She knew that.
She wasn't blind to it.
Nor ungrateful.
Without them...
She wouldn't be walking through this forest now.
She'd probably be ashes now.
That knowledge only sharpened what remained.
Frank had forced that choice upon her.
He'd nearly forced her into the sun.
Nearly forced her sister to watch.
No.
That wasn't something she could leave entirely to courts and judges.
The others...
Perhaps they would survive.
She hadn't stayed long enough to make certain.
Some would.
Some wouldn't.
She genuinely didn't know.
She hadn't cared enough to find out.
Only one outcome mattered.
Frank's heartbeat.
Frank's scent.
Frank's voice.
The forest grew still.
Even the wind seemed to fade.
She closed her eyes for only a heartbeat.
There.
Footsteps.
Heavy.
Uneven.
Someone exhausted.
Someone stumbling through roots and brush with all the desperation fear could provide.
She opened her eyes again.
The scent had become unmistakable.
Close enough that every breath carried it.
Her expression didn't change.
She simply stepped forward.
Then another.
The distance between hunter and hunted had become measured not in miles...
But in moments.
───
John had stopped counting how many times he'd stumbled.
His lungs burned.
Each breath scraped against his throat until swallowing hurt.
His legs no longer felt like his own.
Hours.
They had been running for hours.
The sun had long since disappeared beyond the horizon, leaving only moonlight filtering through towering pines.
Frank hadn't spoken in nearly twenty minutes.
Neither had John.
There wasn't anything left to say.
The livestream icon still glowed faintly at the top of his screen.
He hadn't turned it off.
At first he'd wanted people to see the truth.
Now...
He wasn't sure why it was still running.
Perhaps because being watched felt better than being alone.
His thumb brushed the display.
Comments exploded upward.
"Call the police."
"Stop running."
"You're not the victim."
"The police are tracking your phone."
"You tried to burn someone alive."
"You idiots."
His stomach twisted.
Just hours ago the same chat hadn't been like this.
Now...
Thousands of strangers looked at him with disgust.
He wanted to stop reading.
He couldn't.
Frank slowed.
Not intentionally.
His pace simply...
collapsed.
John nearly walked into him.
"...Frank?"
No response.
Frank stared ahead.
Breathing heavily.
The forest had become unnaturally quiet.
Even insects seemed absent.
John looked around.
Nothing.
Only trees.
Darkness.
Mist drifting lazily between trunks.
"...She's gone..."
He wasn't sure if he was trying to convince Frank... or himself.
Frank swallowed.
"I..."
He never finished.
A sharp crack echoed somewhere deeper in the trees.
John flinched.
Another.
Not close.
Not far.
His pulse hammered.
He turned in a slow circle.
Nothing.
Every shadow suddenly looked capable of moving.
Every tree seemed too wide.
Too tall.
His imagination filled every gap.
Then...
A figure stepped between two pines.
Small.
Perfectly still.
Pale hair.
Black dress.
Crimson eyes.
John's breath caught.
She wasn't running.
She wasn't even breathing heavily.
She simply stood there.
Watching.
Frank reacted first.
His hand shot toward the pistol at his hip.
The movement stopped halfway.
Not because she'd threatened him.
Because she was already looking directly at him.
Calmly and coldly.
Yet also almost curiously.
"You ran," she said quietly.
Neither man answered.
"You ran while my sister cried after you tried to burn both of us alive."
The words weren't shouted.
That somehow made them worse.
John lowered his eyes.
He remembered the screaming.
The smoke.
The fire.
The girl wrapped in a blanket outside the house.
She hadn't looked dangerous.
She'd looked terrified.
The realization settled like a stone in his stomach.
The comments continued racing upward.
"She had a sister?"
"She was in the house, she ran up the stairs!"
"Oh my God..."
Frank's breathing became ragged.
"We..."
"No."
She interrupted him.
"You've spoken enough for today already."
She walked over and grabbed John by the shoulder, and threw him to the ground roughly.
Silence.
She glanced toward the pistol still holstered at Frank's side.
Then back to him.
"You believe I am a monster, and you were willing to burn another human alive to kill me."
Frank didn't answer.
She continued.
"If believing that I was a monster made everything you did acceptable..."
Her gaze shifted toward John.
"...then prove it to me you're better than I am."
Frank frowned.
"What?"
She nodded once toward John.
"Suppose your life depends on his death. Suppose I tell that, unless he dies in the next ten seconds, I'll kill you..."
She let the sentence linger.
"... what would you do?"
John stared.
"I would've stepped into the sunlight, to save my sister..."
"Though if you try to aim the gun at me, I'll tear your heart out and feed it to you."
His mouth opened.
"Frank..."
Frank slowly drew the pistol.
John felt the blood drain from his face.
"No...!"
His voice cracked.
"No, Frank!"
The livestream erupted.
"Don't."
"Don't you dare."
"He's actually aiming."
Frank's hands shook.
"I...I'm sorry... I..."
John clambered to his feet and took one involuntary step backward.
"We're friends, we were going to be h-heroes...!"
The muzzle continued rising.
"I have a family...!"
Frank squeezed his eyes shut.
The gun trembled.
For one horrible second... there was silence, then the sound of a gunshot rang out in the otherwise silent forest.
John felt a sharp pain in his side, and then he hit the ground hard enough to leave him dazed.
Then...
The pistol vanished from Frank's hand and the sound of a muted thud came as Frank was sent tumbling into a tree trunk.
The pistol struck the ground several feet away with a dull clatter, the muzzle still smoking.
John hadn't even seen her move.
One moment she'd been standing several yards away.
The next...
She was already standing beside Frank.
He curled instinctively, shivering.
The pain in his side hadn't come from a bullet. She had kicked him out of it's path.
She didn't say anything, she simply walked over to the gun.
Looking down at the discarded weapon, she snorted and kicked it away.
Then she looked back at Frank.
"You would've done it."
Frank stared silently.
"You wanted to."
Another silence.
"The only reason he isn't dead, by your own hand, is because I saved him, from you."
Frank's shoulders sagged.
His eyes drifted toward John.
He couldn't meet his gaze.
The vampire finally looked at John.
"I could have let him die, but seeing you 'heroes' realize you're every bit the monster you claim, makes me want to spare you."
Her expression remained unreadable.
"So you can live with that, and remember it always."
John found himself unable to speak.
His heartbeat slowly steadied.
The comments had become almost impossible to read.
Thousands flowed past every second.
"He almost did it."
"He pointed the gun."
"He would've sacrificed him to save himself."
"These stupid hunters!"
Frank looked utterly defeated.
Not frightened.
Broken.
The certainty he'd carried into the forest had disappeared.
The certainty that monsters looked different.
Acted different.
Thought differently.
The vampire spoke one final time.
"You decided what I was..."
She looked between them.
"...before learning what you yourself was."
For several long moments...
Nobody moved.
In the distance...
Sirens.
Faint.
Growing louder.
Blue and red light flickered somewhere beyond the trees.
John looked toward the sound.
When he turned back...
She was gone.
Only the swaying branches marked where she'd stood.
No farewell.
No threat.
No triumph.
Just silence.
Frank slowly lowered himself onto a fallen log.
His hands covered his face.
The pistol remained where it had fallen.
Untouched.
John looked at the livestream one last time.
The viewer count was still climbing.
No one was calling the vampire a monster anymore.
No one was defending what had happened at the house.
For the first time since he'd pressed the button to go live...
John wished no one had been watching at all.
Isolde,