Kit sat there contemplating his increased appetite as the gulls squawked outside. One neighbour’s house had them nesting on the chimneys, and soon there would be ugly little hatchlings with their insistent shouting for food. Kit understood them. How he yearned to be full, to experience anything other than this unending emptiness inside of him.
You’re never going to be happy, darling.
It had been so long that Kit couldn’t remember if Lawrence had ever actually said those words to him, or if Kit had conjured them up from nowhere.
He’d thought himself ready to move on after years of hiding himself away—that he could have a life. Friends. Fulfilment.
How typical of Kit to be wrong.
He was more alone now than ever. The connection tethering him to Lawrence was gone, along with its poisonous bond. It had been a tangible thing, reliable even in its awfulness. But it had been snuffed out in the instant that Shaun killed their creator.
Sighing at his melancholy, he moved to the bed and flipped open his laptop. The mail icon showed hundreds of notifications, the majority being pointless subscriptions and marketing emails he hadn’t got around to deleting, but, interspersed throughout the e-clutter, were messages from the very vampires he’d been ignoring.
Shaun emailed him the most often, but DJ came a close second. There were even a few from Rake, though Kit didn’t know why any of them felt like they owed it to Kit to keep in contact. They barely knew each other, and yet, in the years since the debacle in Brighton, the triad had doggedly attempted to engage with him.
Kit hated being pitied. He was, he would admit, rather pitiable. But having to read DJ’s stream of consciousness about their latest adventures, or Shaun’s tentative attempts to connect, or Rake’s matter-of-fact summaries of the recent goings-on just made him seethe with anger. It was like they wanted to rub it in his face; how blindingly in love and happy they all were.
Ever the masochist, Kit opened Shaun’s latest email.
Hi Kit,
I hope you’re doing well!
I’ve heard Anstruther is lovely this time of year - would love to see some photographs of the sea if you have any.
We’re all doing good - working on our latest game. It’s about vampires. All a bit meta, of course, but we figured we might as well lean into the whole thing.
You should come for a visit again soon. It’s been too long. Or we could come and visit you? DJ is always up for a holiday.
Just let me know when might work best!
Until next time,
Shaun
Kit slammed the lid of the laptop shut, catching it at the last moment to avoid smashing the screen to smithereens. Within seconds he left the house.
Anstruther at night was quiet, with no one around to see as he ran down the street, far faster than any human could, and then kept going.
He didn’t stop until his entire body shook with exertion.
Hands on knees, he glanced around. He’d gone miles inland and now stood in the middle of nowhere. Tilled earth lay underfoot, ready for planting. There wasn’t a building in sight, only wide-open fields and a few fences. Kit craned his neck back, looking up at the sky. Stars stretched across the midnight blue in every direction, winking smugly down at him, mocking him for his dramatics.
He reached for his phone to check his location, but realised when patting his pockets that he’d left it at home, lying on his bed. He screamed in frustration, wild and untethered. Once his scream petered out, he slumped down onto the ground. He held his hands out, watching the tremors that ran through them.
Unsure of the time, he glanced to the east. There were the first signs of the rising sun. He’d almost burned once before, and he wasn’t keen to repeat the experience.
Maybe he should stop running away from his problems. It only seemed to get him into more trouble.
Kit made his way back towards the coast, walking at a human pace to rest his aching muscles. It was as humiliating as it was boring, trudging along through the fields. There wasn’t even anything to look at but endless farmland.
At last, he reached a dense expanse of trees, stretching on either side as far as he could see. The sky was now more of a cobalt colour, so he chose to go through the forest rather than find a longer way around. He was forced to duck under low-hanging branches, which snagged on his curls, growing increasingly irate with every branch. He couldn’t avoid it—the trees were all bunched together, the area wild and overgrown. Without realising it, he waded through a bramble bush, which tore at his shirt and jabbed at his skin. Yanking himself free, he paused for a moment and screwed his eyes shut in frustration. This entire night had been bullshit from start to finish.
Finally, the edge of the tree line came into sight. Before he could take another step, the back of his neck prickled with awareness.
Kit stilled.
He stayed frozen on the spot, all senses on high alert, but nothing made itself known.
