After the commotion created by the death of the student called Nick Hortons died down in a couple of days, Hayden decided it was time to get back to his original business again. To hunt.
Lately he felt that he had been slacking off due to all the complications. Ever since he had failed at killing Nathaniel, failure was the only thing he was good at it seemed.
After much consideration, he decided to get back into cases. While the looming threat of Conrad was pretty big, he felt like he needed a win in order to regain his confidence. Not to mention, he had to be extremely careful if he were to do this without getting discovered by Nick.
While Hayden was busy searching for some monster to hunt, he had expected for Nathaniel to show up with some breakthrough or some rant saying how much he needed to find a pristine witch or warlock. He was genuinely surprised when he didn't.
After much search, he found out about some strange disappearances at the town nearby. There have only been seven people so far, but they had disappeared without so much as a trace. While it could be simply nothing therefore digging into it further he realised a common thing amongst its victims.
All of them had lost someone closer to them. Either someone had died, someone got divorced or someone was even related to one of the missing persons. The pattern was there, making Hayden more suspicious. While he never left his grounds, his university for long, he wanted to expand his radius hoping to get a win.
Seeing that it was already Friday he had the weekend off, seemed like a perfect trip. He had just gotten in the car when he felt a sudden whoosh of air brush his face. Hayden took a moment to blink before saying, "I was wondering when you're gonna show up" He mumbled.
In the shotgun seat Nathaniel smirked, "Why, did you miss that much. Been waiting for me all this time?" He teased Hayden.
"More like dreading it." Hayden shook his head. "Get outta here, I don't have time for you and your Conrad business." Hayden huffed.
"Is that so?" Nathaniel raised his eyebrows in a mocking manner. "Well, where are you headed then?"
"Far". Hayden mumbled.
"Far?" Nathaniel snorted. "You do realise that even if I get out of this car, I can still follow you cause I am that fast". He smirked.
"You're that obsessed with stalking me, huh?" Hayden smirked.
"Of course." Nathaniel blurted without any pause taking Hayden by a bit of surprise.
"Fine, I am going to Adler Creeks… for a personal business." Hayden shrugged.
"You can say hunt, I know what you are". Nathaniel smirked.
"So… now that you know where I am going, get off". Hayden sighed.
"Actually I am gonna stick." Nathaniel shrugged. "I have some business there… I can hitch a ride".
"I thought you can run that far." Hayden snapped.
"Doesn't mean I have to". Nathaniel smiled. "Why waste my energy when you're wasting fuel already to go there." He declared cheerily.
Hayden turned around and shot Nathaniel a glare, which intensified at the lopsided grin on Nathaniel's face. Neither of them budged and their momentary stare turned into a staring match pretty soon enough. After a long uncomfortable moment, Hayden sighed. If he wanted he could have tried harder to kick out Nathaniel, but he figured he should save his energy for whatever the hell he was trying to hunt.
As Hayden turned around to switch on the engine, Nathaniel took his liberty to adjust his seat accordingly to lay their comfortably. With a grudging grunt, Hayden drove away.
As a daywalker Nathaniel was not only immune to the sun, but, much to Hayden's annoyance, he was enjoying basking in the sunlight. Hayden, intentionally hit some of the bumpers with a harder speed, in order to annoy Nathaniel but for some reason he continued to look peaceful and even… asleep.
Which reminded him, Vampires didn't sleep so maybe Nathaniel was just pretending to enjoy the ride to annoy him. After driving for around one hour, Hayden pulled away for refilling gas. "Since you are tagging along, how about you pay?" He asked.
"You want me to pay?" Nathaniel was clearly amused.
"I ain't driving you for free?" Hayden smirked.
"As long as you don't have to pay for the gas it's okay right?" Nathaniel challenged.
Hayden shrugged until it hit him, what Nathaniel was really implying. "Wait-" he was about to stop him but Nathaniel had already commenced his plan.
"Hello, we are a little short on cash. Can you let us go without paying?" The cashier stared at Nathaniel blankly before nodding. "Thanks". Nathaniel smirked and turned to Hayden. "Well, that was easy".
"And stuff like these is why I hate Vampires." Hayden huffed and carried on.
"Oh come on," Nathaniel rolled his eyes. "You honestly think if you had this power you wouldn't abuse it as well?" Nathaniel raised an eyebrow. "Cause I think what you really hate about this is that you don't have the same power." Nathaniel challenged him.
"If having your power means being a murderer, then I would never want that." Hayden snapped.
"Like I said before, you are a hunter. You're a killer too. You just don't kill humans." Nathaniel ended up chuckling. "Which reminds me, even humans are killers right? What crime have those poor innocent animals that they eat has done to them?" He asked.
"It's different." Hayden shook his head.
"Yes, cause animals can't speak for themselves right?" Nathaniel scoffed. "Fool yourself all you want, but this is all part of the ecosystem." He shrugged. "I was designed to kill humans, just like you were designed to kill me. Except you would enjoy killing me more than I would enjoy killing an innocent human being." Nathaniel shrugged.
For a moment Hayden was quiet. "Given how much you annoy me, it shouldn't be a surprise that I'd enjoy killing you". Hayden shrugged and hit the gas pedal.