Eternal [HS]

Chapter Twenty-Nine

THE DARKNESS OF THE NIGHT SKY cradles him with every swift step he takes up the length of the driveway, hiding behind the sole car parked there and rushing over the fence to the back yard before anyone, human or vampire, would be able to spot him.

It has been two weeks since they found Elias' house, two weeks since they went to Blume, two weeks since his three-hundred and first birthday—the first he has enjoyed celebrating since Mel died—and he hasn't been able to stop thinking about everything that has happened ever since Jo stepped foot in his world. So quickly, she managed to find her way into the guarded fortress that once was his heart. So quickly, she has come in and stirred up such chaos in his life.

She haunted him on the drive over.

Her sweet scent lingered on his shirt, one of the well-worn black long-sleeves that he reserves for nights like these when he must blend into the darkness, and he cursed under his breath because he realized it was the one she fell asleep in a few days ago. He had to pull over and scour the trunk for a different one. If he kept it on it would have only distracted him, and he cannot afford to have distractions tonight.

The house is mostly quiet, save for the sound of a blaring television upstairs, when Harry slips inside through a forgotten, tiny garage window that he barely managed to squeeze through. Those footfalls are as silent as death as he ventures inside. Though he knows from the detailed security he put on this house that his girlfriend only visits him every Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, on her only days off of work, he remains cautious on his way through the lower level.

Once he changed shirts on the side of the road and got back to course, his mind shifted from his life at home with her to the one he used to live. It shifted from paintings and kisses and a glowing light that followed him everywhere to the darkness. He sank back into it seamlessly as soon as he began sprinting down the street from car to car with clandestine maneuvering similar to that of the homeless street cats lurking about. Before he knew it, he melded with the night and embodied the predator his kind is wired to be, only his choice in prey is the unconventional part.

Rather than hunt humans, who, based on Jo's near-death experience only minutes away from her place of work, are defenseless against their attacks, he hunts the scum that hunts them. And anytime he doubts himself, doubts the sight of a cruel vampire dying at his feet, he thinks about all of the humans he has found in a much worse state and doesn't feel an inkling of guilt.

That's why he feels nothing now. No guilt, or sorrow, or any of what he has felt in the past week, only dark, churning anger.

Since banishing every thought of her from his mind, he picked a different victim of Elias' cult that would not distract him from the purpose of his mission. He picked the woman who he and Zayn once found on the edge of death. Her eyes were glazed over enough that he would've thought her dead until he picked up on the faintest sounding pulse he ever heard, then saw her blink, only once, before looking up at him with a pleading look that will never leave his memory until he too is dead.

He remembers placing a hand down on the top of her chest to feel her fighting heart beneath the surface of skin and bone, and the frail hand that was lying beside his inched over and wrapped around his wrist with a failing grip. He held her hand while Zayn did it. It didn't feel right to let her die without the comfort of another person leading her to the other side like she would have if no one found her, bleeding and twitching right where her murderers left her.

For her, he decides as he climbs the staircase on silent feet and stops in front of the room where Elias is watching television with no one here to witness his demise but him.

He dies, eyes wide with shock at the masked figure pressing into him, pinning him from above, and Harry feels nothing.