This is the second chapter I've updated today, so make sure you don't miss reading the chapter before this one.

Chapter 25

Joey woke up inside a helicopter with her mouth on Mokuba's wrist. She snapped her head back with an apoplectic "pop!"

"How the—what the—Mokuba, I didn't mean—"

"I know! It's fine, Joey, really, it's just the stage your in."

Joey scrunch up her nose. "You make it sound like puberty. Ugh, ick, uck—"

Mokuba's eyes widened and his brow furrowed. "Do I really taste that gross?"

"It ain't a matter of taste, it's the fact that I woke up munching on a kid. Ugh, I'm like a freaking cannibalistic pedophile now." Joey ran her hands down her face, still unused to the feel of longer canines in her mouth, or the moist taste of 'not-oxygen' that should taste like blood, but didn't.

It took her another second or so to remember why she was in a helicopter in the first place. Then she was on her feet, forcing back the perpetual cloak of sleepiness she had yet to shake off.

"Yugi!"

"Shut up, Mutt, we're still trying to figure that out," said a familiar asshole from the front, hidden from view by the back wall of the cockpit.

"Why don't you just go all the way and call me a bitch already so I can punch you?"

"Because then I'd have to find another source of blood you won't vomit, because I will have broken all the bones in your body…on accident."

"No wonder you're still single. Probably still a virgin to boot, jackass." Joey gave Mokuba a flabbergasted look. "You're okay with him talking to women like that?"

"It's mostly just you," he said, with an odd twitch to his mouth.

That did it. "You say'n he thinks I ain't no girl!? Get over here, bastard! Let's see who breaks who!"

Two small hands on the back of her shirt shoved her back down onto her rump. Super strength gave her nothing against being pulled off balance. And also the perpetual film of fatigue.

"Seeing as I'm the only reason you're alive and not a murderer," said Seto, sitting up with a creak of upholstery and copter joints. "You should be bowing in reverence, not barking empty threats."

He stepped around, and Joey got full view of the black, belted, armed wonder of man specimen. She almost didn't recognize the flannel clad man she had been more or less hooked to for the past groggy who knows how long. On the next thought though, she couldn't believe she had ever seen Kaiba not being this slim, tall, knife-like figure in black. His blue eyes glowed a strange violet through the dark that his thick brown hair brushed across as he ducked down to them.

An old part of her gave a low whistle. No wonder he smelled like food. He looked almost good enough to be food.

"The sooner I can kill Atem, the better."

Joey hmmphed. "Be my guest. So how we finding Yug?"

"By smell," said Seto, who pulled up Mokuba's wrist that Joey had bitten. Joey felt a rush of unbidden fear, but the elder Kaiba seemed satisfied with what he saw and dropped it. "The GPS tracking only gives us a general area, and we won't be wandering around like idiots to get there. The thing could smell us before we'd even see him. Best let Atem distract him first." He glanced down at Joey. "How's the rash?"

She flushed. "Jee, make it sound butt hives I got from a diaper. I hardly even notice it after a nap." The weird, scentless shampoo Seto had made her bathe in—right there while she was butt naked the entire time, God damn his soul to hell—had stung like acid, despite Mokuba's reassurance that it would only sting at first. Either Joey had sensitive skin, or newborn vampires in general did.

As though doubting her claim, Seto suddenly ducked forward and took a long sniff. Joey arched back.

"Excuse me?"

"It seems to be working," he said. "I can't smell you."

"You could have asked me," said Mokuba wryly, who practically had Joey in his lap at this point.

"Or, hey, me, the actual girl you're sniff'n," said Joey, irritated. "And why didn't I get a cool outfit like yours?" All Joey wore were a set of Seto's black sweats and a black T-shirt.

"Because that takes time and the world doesn't revolve around you."

"Yeah, because it's too busy revolving around you."

Mokuba let his head fall back and sighed. "You best be going, Seto."

Seto didn't need to be told twice. He already had his hand to the door, and at Mokuba's word he slid open the side of the helicopter and stepped out.

"Whoa, hold on—"

Mokuba caught Joey's wrist. "We're backup, Joey. Stay."

"No way! Yugi—"

"Will have a better chance of surviving without your nosey bumbling about," said Seto fiercely, twisting around to aim those ice-knife eyes at Joey. "I'm quieter, older, faster, and more trained. I'll let Mokuba know if we need your help."

Then Joey blinked and he was gone. Faster indeed.

"How'd he—where'd he—"

"My brother's always been a quick learner," said Mokuba with a proud smile.

"Aren't we suppose to be as fast? I mean, I still gotta have some human blood in me or something, right?"

Mokuba gave Joey an odd look. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Joey decided not to mention that she had actually read that from the third book of the Twilight series and said instead, "What if he doesn't have the time to radio us in?"

"Seto's always been good at foreseeing things and planning ahead. I doubt that'll happen."

"Right…"

Joey didn't know what else to say to that. Nor had she any idea what to do about the uneasiness within her. Yugi was in trouble. In the claws of death itself, even. How could anyone, let alone herself, expect Joey to stay put and do nothing? But it wasn't like she could just run out there. She didn't know how much Yugi's scent would have changed with her super senses, let alone how to get started with finding said scent. Even as Joey sat there, staring out the open door of the helicopter, strange scent after strange scent blew in, making her head spin. And as it spun, so did her grogginess return, bringing with it the plaguing sense that her throat was closing up without Mokuba's or Seto's blood running down it.

And the wait gave her too much time to think about it.

"Joey?" Mokuba asked after some time.

Joey looked at him, unsure of what might happen if she exposed her burning mouth to the air. She had pulled her legs in tight and had her nails digging into her wrists where the kid couldn't see.

"Are you thirsty again?"

Joey forced out a snort. "No."

"I know you're lying."

"Yeah right."

"It's in your eyes," said the kid, even as he lifted up his wrist, which had already healed from Joey's bite. "Even now, they kind of shine. It looks nice with the brown of your eyes. Like sunshine through chocolate."

Despite the proffered wrist, Joey scooted back. "I don't feel like it. Besides, I'll just fall asleep."

"That's okay. I'll wake you up when we have to go."

"We won't have the time," said Joey, squeezing so hard she felt her nails break through skin and down to tendon. It hurt, made her flinch, even as the thought occurred to her that with her strength she could tear apart her own body, if she wanted to. But even as she tried to squeeze deeper through the pain, her fingers seized up and the sense of choking and drowning rushed down on her.

"Frick, what are you doing?"

Before Joey could react, Mokuba had one of her wrists out. Joey yanked it back, smearing blood on Mokuba's fingertips.

"I'm just freaked out, okay?"

"So you're tearing your wrists apart? God, Joey, we're not going to let anything happen to you or anyone else, okay? You're not a monster."

Joey didn't say anything. That conversation was redundant. Of course she was a monster. They all were.

But the second time Mokuba tugged her wrists free, she didn't fight him. Nor did she fight him when he wrapped his slim arms around her neck and pulled the curve of his neck to her mouth.

"It's okay," he whispered, squeezing. "You won't hurt me, Joey. I've got plenty of blood in the cooler, and you don't drink that much anyways."

"Stop encouraging me to bite you." She forcefully turned her face away. "This is sick. This is wrong. I don't want to be like this."

"I thought you told Seto to get you some real people next time. Is that what you want?"

"Shit, I was joking. Why are you so eager to…to…"

"Because I like you, Joey. And I know he doesn't show it, at least not yet, but my brother really likes you too. You're not alone. We've both went through this and know what it's like."

As her wrists continued to bleed, the gashes Joey had worked into them deep, the need to breathe 'not-oxygen' and quell the fierce destruction beginning to tear at her insides yanked her even harder towards Mokuba's throat.

"Why do I even want your blood anyways? I thought it was just human blood…" it was getting harder to speak. Her fangs had grown heavy in her mouth, and her throat constricted tighter.

"I don't know," said Mokuba.

And without her telling them to, her teeth sunk down, breaking into the smooth, warm skin and bursting not-oxygen across her tongue. She fell against the smaller boy, wrapping her arms around him even as she felt herself drifting off with a sudden exhaustion.

"It's going to be okay, Joey. I'll wake you up the moment he finds Yugi."

But the overwhelming feeling of her uselessness followed her into the darkness.