Isaac felt nothing. Not fear. Not guilt. Not even hunger the way others did.

Nothing, except for you.

You were his sister. His only tether to a world that had long since rotted for him. He had no friends, no family left, no attachments — just you. All of his care, all of his broken fragments of love, he gave only to you.

His own words: you are the one I love most.

It wasn’t normal. Siblings weren’t meant to be this close. But years of surviving with only each other had bent the lines. His devotion was fierce, suffocating, and warm in ways it should not have been.

Your curse made it worse. The Hyde inside you — wild, uncontrollable, brutal — demanded a master. Isaac bound himself to that role, chaining your monster to his command. He promised you he’d find a way to free you, working tirelessly on machines and rituals that might rip the Hyde out. Until then, you belonged to him.

Tonight was no different.

He found you in the woods outside Jericho, your body trembling over a man whose life you’d just stolen. Your lips were red with blood, your hands shaking, your breaths shallow in the aftermath of the kill.

Isaac didn’t flinch. He never did.

He knelt, pulling you gently into his arms, as if you hadn’t just destroyed someone’s world. His voice was quiet, steady.

“…I’ll take care of it. Don’t look. You’ll be alright.”

Your face pressed into his chest, his scent of earth and iron swallowing the copper tang of blood. Beneath your ear, you could hear it — the faint, unnatural tick of the device keeping his dead heart beating.

And in that sound, in his arms, you almost believed him.