The Immortal Blood

Final chapter (39)

The following weekend, right after lunch, his wife had kissed him goodbye to go back home, tucking him carefully in before leaving.
Adam had dozed off, tired from the effort of trying to get out of bed and take a little walk on a crutch: he felt as if he had ran a marathon, even though he must have managed only a few steps.
Something had startled him awaken, perhaps the creaking of the door or the sound the visitors chair always did when his wife sat on it, but when he had half-opened his eyes, he'd jumped, caught off guard.
"What...?" He'd mumbled, groggily, rubbing his eyes to make sure he wasn't seeing things. "Alexandra?"
"Hello, Adam." She nodded, confirming she was in flesh and blood by placing her hand on his still heavily bandaged one.
They had studied each other in silence for a few moments, their eyes filled with questions they couldn't voice.
"How are you?" She'd finally asked him, pointing to the obviously injured parts of his body.
"Fine." The lawyer had cleared his voice, shaking from his initial state of shock. "Fractures aside, at least."
"Yes, I can see that."
"You too. I mean, your arm... and your leg! Weren't they...?"
"As you can see, they're back where they belong, thanks to your blood, in fact." She'd smiled, vaguely embarrassed. "Not that I took it from you without asking, of course! It was kind of already, erm, AVAILABLE, so..."
"Where's Todd?" The blond man had interjected, piercing her with his cerulean stare. He didn't know her well at all, but it was clear she was stalling. "What about Vernon?"
"Vernon's DEAD, Adam. He burned in the fire that..." She''d stopped, without looking him in the face.
"'What? What aren't you telling me? Is Todd okay? Where is he?!"
"Adam, what do you remember about that day?" Alexandra eyed him almost reticently.
"I know Vernon broke into the house we were hiding in, kidnapped me, then you showed up and set me free... it's all a blur after that. There was a struggle, and I have these flashes of... blood-filled land, and flames..."
"Is that all?" Alex had pressed him, slipping on the edge of the chair like she was hanging onto his every word.
Adam had shrugged, unleashing a strong, painful twitch to the sides of his chest. "Yes." He'd admitted, angry at himself for not being able to focus better. "I mean, no. I don't know, I can't..." He took a long breath, realizing he was hyperventilating again.
"I want to know what happened."
"All right, I'll tell you." The woman had ran her hands over her face, and only then did the lawyer realize she was crying.
"Todd... is DEAD, Adam."
Adam had stood still like a stone as he absorbed the overwhelming weight of that sentence, the silence broken only by the incessant sound of the monitor picking up his vitals.
DEAD.
'What the fuck are you talking about!' He wanted to scream at her, but he didn't, because he knew it was true.
It had to be, because otherwise there would have been his lover sitting in front of him instead of her, and at that moment, at that very moment, something inside of him had irreparably crumpled, until almost snapping his soul in two.
"Tell me how." He had heard himself demand in a foreign tone, as if he were floating outside his own body.
Todd was DEAD.
"I believe you remember Vernon had been knocked out in his room... I think you somehow managed to overturn a bookcase or something on him, and then Todd stabbed him in the neck. We were supposed to take him out to the yard, call Axel, who had the tanks, and set him on fire, but we never did. He just... Vernon regained consciousness almost immediately and decimated us in mere seconds. He took Axel and literally dismembered him with his bare hands. I don't even... I've never seen him do anything like that before." Alexandra had swallowed with difficulty, hallucinated.
"In the struggle, the first tank had spilled on Axel, so Vernon, once the deed was done, burned his remains. It all happened in an instant. We couldn't even react." She had repressed a hiccup, evidently in conflict with herself.
"Todd figured out what was going on before I did, and told me to run for the other can, but Vernon was ahead of us, and he tore my arm off before I could do anything. Then you came along..."
"Yes." That point was one of Adam's most clear memories. "Todd was keeping him busy, and I went for the lighter, but then I fell..."
"You didn't fall, it was Vernon who cast you back at least two feet. I thought he broke your neck." The girl shook her head. "Instead you ended up landing right next to the lighter, and you set him on fire."
'Of course' Adam thought: the smell of fuel and burnt flesh, the blazing embers staring vengefully at him... yet something important was still missing.
"Todd!" He'd made the terrible realisation, searching for Alexandra's eyes, so similar to his brother's. Eyes that had looked at him through the flames one last time.
"Yes."
"But why... WHY didn't he take my blood?! I was only a few steps away from him..."
"He couldn't. He chose to... keep Vernon pinned to the ground, because..."
"Because he was trying to get to me, and if he did, he'd heal himself, and then we would've been screwed." The boy closed his eyes, trying to stop the cascade of tears that began to sting the back of his lids.
"That's how it is." Alexandra had confirmed, watching him in silence. "He sacrificed himself for us, Adam. By the time that bastard finally quitted fighting, it was too late for my brother."
The blond man had nodded, more to himself than to her, the only undamaged hand he had left clawing around the sheet covering him, to hold onto something solid as an immense black chasm of anger, helplessness and immense pain opened up before him.
He had brought the bandaged arm to his chest, the pain in his cracked ribs suddenly coming back, and it had taken him a long time to realize that what was actually inflicting the most pain was the part of him that had had feelings for Todd, the part that was now leaving him to split into microscopic fragments of the moments they had shared together.
It was atrocious agony, loss, despair and guilt for not being able to do anything to help him. 'Why the hell did you have to be so selfless?' He thought, devastated.
"I had the same reaction as you, you know." Alexandra had clasped him by the shoulder, conciliatory. "I couldn't understand at first how he could make such a decision! But at the end of the day, Todd was like that, and looking at you now, I think I can see why. I haven't always been a good sister, you know. Quite the opposite, I'd say..."
"Yeah, he told me about it."
"Really?" The vampire girl had seemed surprised, to say the least.
"In part." Adam had shrugged, returning with his memory to the conversation of that day, and what Todd had told him about his life as a normal human being. "I think he was sorry in his heart for the way things had gone between the two of you."
"We never really got along, and after what I did to him and my transformation..."
"Alex, I don't really know you, but I'm positive that Todd didn't hate you, and above all, didn't blame you for Vernon's actions. He was a lot smarter than that. "Damn," the vampire girl had squared him, impressed. "You'll have to excuse me, for a moment there, I thought I heard my father speak again. Our parents have been dead for years, though, and because of me, Todd didn't even get to say goodbye." She'd looked down, taking a remote look. "He didn't deserve it. I was so vindictive and mean to him..."
"Listen to me. Vernon was not only a manipulative son of a bitch, but rotten to the core, and yet Todd was able to get over what he had done to him, what he had done to you both, and decide that he still deserved a second chance. That's certainly not for everyone, and it's for the same reason that I'm sure he got over everything bad that had happened between the two of you."
"That's... Gosh, Adam, this may sound silly, but you've hit the nail on the head. You know, when I saw Todd act all concerned about you, I was confused, I couldn't understand how... I never really understood how he could have such tendences, to be honest. He dated a lot of different men, even married ones, and then Vernon came along. I thought he did certain things out of rebellion, even contempt, it was a slap in the face to our parents, our family values, and that was why I was always mad at him. Then I saw you together, what you were willing to do for each other, and it was undeniable: Todd had never cared so much for anyone before, and I'm pretty sure, looking at you now, that it wasn't much different for you."
"I don't..." Adam had started, shaking his head, but stopped halfway through the sentence once he'd realised that despite Cleo, despite his daughters, he had faced Death and Vernon with his arms wide open for a specific reason: Todd.
"One of the few things I remembered, after waking up, is still haunting me." He'd confessed, looking away from Alexandra.
"He looked at me... while struggling with Vernon in the fire. Todd looked right at ME. And I can't help but thinking that the whole time we were together, we never talked about..." they had chosen not to think about the consequences, what would happen once Vernon had been gone, the inevitable choice Adam would have to make between his family and Todd.
And he would've had to make that decision in the end, he was more than certain, now. If only Todd hadn't...
"There was no need to talk about it, Adam. You just answered yourself." He'd heard Alexandra's voice coming from far away, like through a soundproof wall. "There's another reason why I came here today."
"I don't understand." The blond man had regained his composure, abandoning for an instant the unstoppable flow of memories.
"The secret of your blood. I'm the only one left who knows what you are." The vampire girl had smiled, sadly. "And I'll do what I'm sure Todd would have wanted me to: I won't tell anyone."
"I... I don't know what to say." Adam had just stared at her, speechless.
"You don't have to say anything. It's what he would have wanted." She'd shrugged, turning to the hallway where they were starting to set the carts up for the lunch.
"I think I'd better go." She'd apologized, standing up. "I don't think we'll see each other again, Adam... as tempting as your blood of Immortality may be, that's not why I originally decided to be turned into a Vampire. Nor to spite Todd, for that matter."
The lawyer had watched her move to the door, quietly.
"Are you gonna be okay?" He'd asked her, noticing how, despite her determined words, she too was absorbed in her own dark thoughts.
"Probably, yes, in a while... I've always managed to somehow get through." She had nodded with a long, heavy sigh.
"I have the feeling you will, as well. Goodbye, Adam. Good luck." She gave him one last, quick look before exiting from his life once and for all.
"Goodbye." The blond man had replied to the now empty room, letting the last fragment that kept him connected to Todd and all the feelings he had had for him be painfully buried in his soul, locking them away and guarding them in a corner of his soul where he knew he would never forget them. "Goodbye."

THE END