In The Sight of These Hills (Dolan Twins)

Oblique

Chapter 28: Oblique

"What I told you about saving people isn't true. You might think it is, because you might want someone else to save you, or you might want to save someone so badly. But no one else can save you, not really. Not from yourself. [...] You fall asleep in the foothills, and the wolf comes down from the mountains. And you hope someone will wake you up. Or chase it off. Or shoot it dead. But when you realize that the wolf is inside you, that's when you know. You can't run from it. And no one who loves you can kill the wolf, because it's part of you. They see your face on it. And they won't fire the shot."
― Ava Dellaira, Love Letters to the Dead

It all happened so fast: Ethan going inside after Aaron hung up, Grayson's amber eyes and not being him at all, grabbing him and slamming him against the wall, threatening him, then Ethan running through the woods, panting wildly, so incredibly sore, and Grayson pursuing him teasingly, maliciously.

"We are one, you and I."

What had he meant by that? What could he possibly mean by that?

"Now, where would you like-?"

There was no choice. It was giving him no choice. He was reaching for his shoulder, he was going to bite him, to infect him. He was going to turn him.

How far away from the house had they gotten? He had been trying to get him away from people. It only seemed like a few minutes that the chase had taken, and Ethan looked around in the gray darkness, trying to recognize the trees or the landscape. They all looked the same: generic and fragile. Only there he saw the leaves falling, down, down, to lay themselves against the ground like a tribute.

Thumpthumpthumpthump. There it was, his own heart beat pounding in his temples as the blood rushed hot and quick through his veins. He closed his eyes for a moment, and then opened them again.

Then he looked down at Grayson. It only took a few seconds.

He hadn't meant it, not at all. He hadn't meant to hurt him.

No, no, no.

There was the distant sound of leaves hitting the ground, falling in rapid succession with the air. It blew, cold and harsh, bringing the leaves up and they hit against Ethan's body. Even in the darkness, the grayness of it, Ethan could see the blood that was leaking from his head wound. He was lying completely still, limp, his eyes closed, and Ethan couldn't tell if he was breathing or not. What if it was just a trick? What if, when he got close, its eyes were going to shoot open and it was going to grab him?

He was panting, looking down at his still form, and he dropped the stick. He felt frozen there under the rich fall trees, the sky a blanket of black, his sneakers hard against the ground.

"No, no, no," he mumbled to himself in a kind of panic.

"Gray," he said, but it was mostly to himself. He was in shock, and it felt strangely like that night. The cold kissed the back of his neck, his bruised cheek.

There was the scent of pine somewhere, sharp and rigid, and for a moment there was pure silence. It was silence of the dead: breathing hard, panting, whispering.

"Grayson," he whispered and knelt beside him tossing all self-preservation to the wind. He shivered, and placed his hands on his warm, wet shoulders, and began to shake him. He should be running just in case, he thought, but no, he couldn't leave him. This was still Grayson lying there in the dried, dead leaves. He may have been psychotic, may have tried to bite him, may have tried to hurt him, but he wasn't going anywhere.