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He watched his friend for a few seconds longer.

He considered offering to help, but he knew at this stage, it wouldn’t make any difference. Nick was hardly an expert on vampire transitions anyway. He’d never changed anyone himself, deliberately or on accident. He only had his own experience of the transition to go on, and his had been horrible, terrifying, basically traumatizing.

At least Jordan was surrounded by people actively trying to help him now.

Either they would be trying to bring him back, or, if it was too late for that, they would do what they could to ease the transition. At least someone would be watching over him, not leaving him alone in a plane cabin to choke on vampire blood and venom, like Nick.

Nick had heard they had drugs now, things that could both speed the worst of the transition along and make it less painful.

If Jordan was already past the point of no return, if they’d switched from trying to bring him back to trying to aid him through the process, Nick couldn’t do much to help with that, either, not until Damon regained consciousness.

Nick had no idea how long that would take, especially with the newer drugs and the tech they had at their disposal. For Nick it took two full days before he was even mildly coherent. Nick figured they maybe could cut that in half with the current methods.

Still, it had to be hours yet before the change stabilized in Damon, possibly longer.

Hours at minimum. Hours as a best-case scenario.

Until then, Nick couldn’t really help him.

Damon likely wouldn’t be up to a real conversation for at least a few days.

Possibly as long as a week, depending on how his body dealt with the transformation.

Nick fully intended to be there for his friend then.

“How long was I out?” Nick muttered.

“Over an hour. Probably closer to two by now.”

“How is he?” Nick asked it through gritted teeth, nodding towards Jordan. He never stopped rubbing his temples. “Is there any chance they can keep him from becoming––”

“I don’t know. No one’s exactly keeping me informed on the matter.” Morley’s voice shifted lower, turning grim. “Truthfully, I haven’t asked since they started working on him. But I’m guessing not. It didn’t look good, Nick. I honestly thought he was dead… really and truly dead. When they cut him down from the ceiling he wasn’t breathing at all. They did CPR but it didn’t do shit. He didn’t start screaming like this until about a half-hour before you woke up.”

Nick nodded, fighting back a wave of grief.

That’s pretty much what he’d expected.

He winced when another stab of pain clenched part of his head.

“He got away?” Nick asked.

When Morley didn’t answer immediately, Nick jerked his head towards the hole in the wooden door.

The ragged, splinter-filled hole was stained with blood.

“The dickhead,” Nick said. “The dick version of me. The doppelganger.”

“So far.”

“So far?” Nick glanced over. “Who’s looking for him?”

There was a silence.

Then Morley let out a disbelieving grunt.

“Gee, dunno, Midnight. Maybe just every single available agent and officer working for law enforcement on the goddamned continent. Maybe every person on the Long Island PD. Maybe every person they can spare from I.S.F., H.R.A., the Leash. Just maybe, they’ve got most of the NYPD out looking for him, too, and a bulletin on his rough description out to every protected area and transport system in the world.”

“Somyrough description.” Nick grunted. “Fantastic.”