Komazzi held his breath as he pulled into the driveway. His iron gates were still wide open. He had never felt so violated. The organization had snuck into his house, killed his friend, and destroyed his home. The bloodstain on his stairs served as a horrifying reminder of what may lay inside. The front door blew slightly, opening and closing in the breeze. He suddenly realized he hadn't locked up in the rush to save Cat.

Matt noticed his father's hand trembling slightly as he pulled into the garage. He had never seen fear in the vampire's eyes, but it was obvious now. As the garage door closed behind them, only the dim light of the door opener lit the car, causing weird shadows to dance across the walls. Komazzi had insisted they drop Rory off at the hotel and make sure the house was safe before bringing her here.

"I need you to brace yourself. It's not pretty inside," Komazzi insisted, not moving to open his door. "I don't know how much damage was done, and there's blood...a lot of blood. Since you've had your first taste, you'll need to ignore the smell and focus on searching the house. Cat's blood especially can be intoxicating."

"I'll be fine. Can we just get this over with?" Matt shoved open his door. Komazzi hadn't cared about his well-being when he forced Matt to take his vampire DNA. Part of him wanted to punch the redhead, but the other half was just scared to find out what he really was.

"I guess," Komazzi said, his heart pounding as he followed Matt to the door. As it opened, the coppery smell hit his nose immediately.

Without hesitation, Matt stepped inside with Komazzi close behind. The automatic lights flicked on, and Matt glanced around the mudroom. The door leading outside to the front yard was still locked, but someone had broken the window. Shards of glass crunched under his feet as he slowly drew his Glock and crept down the hallway.

A man lay in a pool of blood just off the dining room. Something had ripped his abdomen wide open, and intestines spilled out of the gaping wound. The unmistakable stench of shit and rotting flesh permeated the air. Matt's throat burned as vomit rose up from his stomach. He couldn't get sick now—they had a job to do. He tore his gaze away from the corpse and followed a trail of what looked to be bloody animal tracks into the living room.

Flies buzzed around dozens of bodies strewn across the room. Many of the dead had been impaled on statues. Matt walked over to the fireplace and stared at the bullet-riddled wall that had once displayed family photographs. He looked down at the floor, smeared with blood and littered with hundreds of shell casings. Shattered picture frames mingled with the gore. He knelt and picked up a bloodstained photo of himself and Komazzi, taken eleven years ago at Cat's birthday party. He had just gotten out of the hospital for the third time, but they both looked happy.

"I'm going to have to rethink my security system," Komazzi mumbled, coming up beside Matt.

Matt rolled his eyes, realizing the security system was moot at this point. Suddenly, through the stench of corpses, he smelled something he couldn't quite place. It made his stomach growl in hunger. His eyes swept over the room, trying to find the source of the odor as it overwhelmed his senses. He moved toward the scorch marks and blood by the stairs, and the smell grew stronger. He had completely blocked out the world; all he could think about was licking the dried blood. A crash behind him snapped him out of the trance.

Matt's eyes darted around frantically. Komazzi was nowhere to be found. The closet under the stairs was now wide open, and a bloody vase was in pieces on the wood floor. There was another loud bang in the kitchen, followed by Komazzi yelling something Matt couldn't make out. He ran into the kitchen and spotted Komazzi struggling to fight off a man wearing a black combat uniform with a mask and cuff around his neck. The man looked to be overpowering the vampire.

"Matt, fucking help me!" Komazzi snapped, ducking away from the man, who grabbed the redhead, knocking him to the ground. A silver stake caught the gleam of the LED kitchen lights. Matt looked around for anything he could use as a weapon before deciding on hand-to-hand combat.

All the anger from the last few days coursed through Matt as he kicked the man in the head, briefly dazing him. He swung at the man's face, breaking his nose, hitting him again and again. Screams echoed around the empty kitchen. In one swift motion, Matt grabbed the stake out of the man's hand and drove it directly into his forehead. The man's body crumpled to the floor—but Matt didn't let up. Blood splattered on his face and clothes as he beat the corpse until its skull split open.

Komazzi ripped Matt off the trashed body and threw him against the wall with a loud thud.

"What the fuck is wrong with you? If you would have listened to me about Cat's blood, you would have been coherent enough to not let that son of a bitch almost kill me!" Komazzi yelled, pointing an accusing finger at the blood-soaked boy. "He came out of the closet you were literally standing right next to. You are a goddamn adult, you need to act like it, and not ignore everything I tell you!"

"Maybe I'd listen to you if you actually told me the truth for a change," Matt shot back. He pushed past Komazzi and ran upstairs.

"Don't walk away from me!" Komazzi climbed the stairs two at a time. He grabbed Matt's arm and spun him around. "You have no idea what reasons I had for keeping the source of your abilities a secret. I did it to protect you!"

"It's my life, I deserve to know!" Matt wrenched his arm from Komazzi's grasp. "You lied to me! You said that my powers came from the T.V, but you were the one who turned me into a freak!"

"You're not a freak," Komazzi protested, and Matt heard the pure anguish in his voice. "I'm sorry I never told you about the blood transfusion, but you were too sick to comprehend what was happening, and Bane didn't want the organization to find out. We figured the healing properties in my blood would give you a better chance of surviving your injuries."

Matt blinked back tears. "Kids were spreading rumors about me when I first got sick. My mother thought I was possessed or something."

"The transfusion gave you some abilities in the beginning, but they wore off quickly." Komazzi cleared his throat. "The drugs we were giving you weren't fighting the virus as we'd hoped they would. It took several weeks before we found a protocol of drugs strong enough to put the virus in remission."

"I remember having a rough time with the treatments." Matt grimaced at the memory of lying in bed, his body racked with pain and nausea. "I still felt pretty crappy after I went home with you, but I wanted to have fun like a normal kid."

"Your condition was progressing faster than I'd ever seen before," Komazzi explained. "While you were still in the hospital, Bane ran some tests to find out why. He discovered a mutation in your DNA. We don't know what caused it, but he thinks that it's the reason your body kept trying to reject my blood, and why you needed such a high dosage of medication."

Matt frowned, struggling to make sense of Komazzi's words. "A mutation...is it something I was born with?"

"Probably." Komazzi didn't say it out loud, but he wondered if the organization had picked up on that with their tests. It would only fuel their curiosity more. "We knew you wouldn't be able to survive on treatments and blood transfusions for long—the virus would have eventually killed you. So we had to take drastic measures."

"Like what?" Matt demanded, feeling a sudden chill in the air.

Komazzi averted his gaze. "We did a bone marrow transplant. That's why you had to go back to the hospital."

Matt's legs turned to jelly, and he leaned back against the wall for support. There it was again...bone marrow. He didn't know much about the transplant process, but his mind was rapidly filling in the blanks. Massive doses of drugs that made him sick...the weeks he'd spent in isolation. He looked up at Komazzi. "Who was the donor?"

"Me," Komazzi confessed, and Matt's mouth fell open. "Your body accepted my bone marrow without too many complications. My cells have done a pretty good job keeping the T.V in remission."

"So that's what Bane meant when he said your blood was in my veins," Matt whispered. "D—does this mean I'm a vampire?

"Why don't you sit down? You look like you're about to fall over." Komazzi put his arm around Matt's shoulders and led him into his old bedroom. They sat together on the edge of the bed. "Technically, you're a human-vampire hybrid. You have the same powers as a full vampire, but our weaknesses are different. You're able to walk in sunlight, and being half-human, you can survive on either regular food or blood. You've never had a thirst for it, though."

"Until the organization forced it down my throat," Matt said bitterly, pulling away from Komazzi. "I guess I have you to thank for that, since you never stopped to consider how your decision would affect me. You did it for your own selfish reasons because you didn't want to be alone!"

"Matt!" Komazzi exclaimed, his eyes flashing in a rare show of anger. "I did it to save your life!"

Matt stood up, consumed by fury of his own. He slammed his fist into the wall, leaving a gaping hole in the drywall. "You should have given me a choice! I just spent 24 hours being a fucking science experiment for the organization. They treated me like I wasn't even human. Like my pain and suffering didn't matter as long as they got what they wanted out of me. Nobody should have to live like that!"

"I know, son." Komazzi's expression softened. He rose from the bed and wrapped Matt in a hug. "You've lived eleven years longer than anyone expected, and that's all that matters to me. Even if you hadn't developed powers, I still would have adopted you."

Matt choked back a sob as he buried his face in Komazzi's shirt. "Promise?"

"I told you after your parents kicked you out that I would always take care of you." Komazzi smiled. "Now, why don't we call in the cleanup crew to help with this mess, then you can go take a shower?"

"Good idea." Matt laughed through his tears. He walked toward the door. A coyote emerged from the bathroom, carrying a severed arm in its mouth. Matt jumped back, his heart racing. The coyote barely glanced at him as it ran downstairs with its precious snack.

"This has been a weird day." Komazzi chuckled, following Matt out of the room to go make their phone calls.