F R E N Z I E D

[Raegan (DELETED 9663)]

Warning: Description of domestic abuse.

There was a warning chiming in the back of her mind when she had finally opened her eyes, only to be greeted by the scent of cigarette smoke and the sound of glass breaking. As she untangled her legs from the threadbare sheets that he allowed her to own, the ringing of the bell grew to deafening volume. Pressing her hand through her thick violet curls, she pressed her feet the chilled hardwood and quickly scrubbed the sleep from her lashes. Any other woman would have been in a panic at the chaos that was ensuing outside of their door, but she had grown used to the childish and manipulative games that her boyfriend played.

It was the same song and dance.
Usually.

Easing from the tattered mattress with a quiet whimper, she pressed her bruised hand to her ribcage and winced when she felt the bones crack beneath her touch. She knew she wouldn’t be able to endure much more of his violent streak, yet she found herself curling her fingers around the chipped brass knob, her arm carefully pulling back to allow the door to creak open. It wasn’t hard to follow the trail of shattered glass and scattered papers that littered the hall, and as she stepped outside of the safety of her room, she knew that something about tonight was different. He usually met her at the door, his lips twisted with a wry smirk. Yet, tonight, the hall was empty, and instead, she was left to follow the scattered trail of pieces of her life.

With her heart in her throat, she stepped around bits of glass and made her way towards the living room, each step feeling as though it was leading her closer to the guillotine. In a way, it was. Every second she spent in his presence was another second she prayed for a quick demise, just to escape the rough treatment of his wrath. Reaching out a trembling hand, she warily curled her fingers around the corner of the wall and cleared her throat, her lips parting on a quiet greeting that she never had the chance to voice. It had been the only warning he needed to alert him of her presence, and before she had a chance to brace herself, she found herself sprawled on the floor as a fresh coat of blood stained her already cracked lips.

“Did you honestly think I wouldn’t find out about this? You’re a goddamned disgrace.”

Placing her palms on the ground, she attempted to pull herself to her knees, but another blow sent her flying, her back slamming into the wall with a sickening crunch. “How long did you think you could play me for a fool, Raegan? How many were there? How many?!” His voice rose with each word, until the walls began to tremble with the impact of his rage. Unable to utter a word, she found herself once again on her feet, his thick hands tangled in her hair. Her scalp screamed in agony as he jerked her head back, his face inches from hers, green eyes blazing with fury. She could tell by the fire dancing in the emerald glare that it wouldn’t matter what she had to say – she wasn’t going to escape his fury with her life intact.

-------------------------------------

Hours passed before she was finally able to open her swollen eyes, her arms trembling with the exertion that it took to lift her battered body from the floor. Darkness dimmed the edge of her vision, and with each breath she took, pain splintered through her entire form. There wasn’t a single inch of her slender, once flawless frame that had been left untouched. Curling her fingers against the blood-soaked hardwood, she eased herself hesitantly to her feet. The second she was upright, agony had her doubling over again as her vision clouded, and she caught herself with a hand against the broken entertainment center. It was when her fingers touched the splintered wood and felt the broken pieces of the television embed in her palm that she finally allowed herself a dizzying and nauseating examination of the aftermath.

It looked as if a goddamned war had taken place.

The furniture was overturned, and glass blanketed the floor, causing the expensive hardwood to shimmer in the pale moonlight that trickled in through the torn curtains. What parts had been left unscathed from his volatile rage, had become stained crimson from her blood as she had feebly attempted to escape his heavy fists. How she managed to survive, let alone bring herself to her feet, astounded her. With careful consideration of her state, she began to stumble towards the front door and out into the dimly lit street, where she found herself met with an eerie silence.

It wasn’t unusual for the neighbors to disappear the moment they saw her headlights pull into the drive, nor was it abnormal for each yard to be plunged into darkness, giving the surrounding homes the appearance of being uninhabited for the night. Within the first week of unpacking her suitcase and enduring their first fight, she had come to the realization that no one cared for her safety. They would rather bury their heads in the sand and pretend that everything was fine than to lose the donations that allowed them to live their exuberant lifestyles. Even in her current state, she found herself unable to put her trust in those that were so uncaring of her predicament and instead, she began to stagger her way further into the city.

Unsteady feet carried her through silence, through darkness, and what felt like the waiting arms of Death itself as the world around her, what little bit of it that she could make out as her vision swam before her, seemed to plunge into an icy shell of the city street she had known so intimately for so long. A sharp, wet cough sent a bright splash of crimson across the sidewalk, the agony of that quick movement through her torso sent a wracking pain through her entire body, sending her crashing to her knees, leaving her trembling as she held her weight with her arms, before she collapsed, curled about the puddle of blood that had poured from her gaping lips. Shivering and alone, she watched the darkness and waited for Death as it closed around her.

[Jesse Fforde]

WEARING

The music blared in the vampire’s ears; he wasted no money on the wireless headphones, hundreds of dollars of technology crammed into two little earbuds. The bass thrummed and vibrated through the bone behind his ear, pounding through his skull. He sprinted in time to the beat, the steady thud thud of his feet on the pavement reverberated up his spine, mimicking a heartbeat he hadn’t felt for years. How long had he been running for? Hours? No, couldn’t have been that long. He wanted to feel the fatigue, he wanted to tire himself out. So often these days did he do nothing with his night; he lazed around at the parlour, sketching or doing his job. He lounged around Limbo, playing video games or travelling down to Cerberus to tend to his plants, snake wrapped around his neck.

Sure, he had those meandering nights of chaos, of fire and bloodshed. But with the current political climate he tried his best to curb his enthusiasm for all things gory. He had to keep his head down; he had to wait and see how things would turn out. They were all standing on the sharp edge of a knife, and if they stumbled the wrong way they could be sliced in half. Either way, he supposed – the vampires couldn’t work together. Really, what hope was there for them?

Although he’d been running for at least an hour, Jesse couldn’t feel it. His limbs were well-oiled cogs in a machine that would never die. Whether he jogged or ran or sprinted depended on the song in his head. He ran from the blood and the gore, he ran from the thirst that never gave him reprieve. The humans he approached did their damnedest to stay out of his way, and it was for the best. He kept his eyes ahead, taking random streets and shortcuts, ducking through parks and trees only to come out again on the cement playground of Harper Rock. The city was big, but not big enough that Jesse Fforde did not know every single inch of it. He’d been playing this game since he could walk.

Somewhere along the way he’d ended up in suburbia. Up ahead, he could see a figure on the road. At first he thought it was rubbish – someone had tossed it on the curb, early for collection. The closer he got, however, he could tell that it was not trash. It had limbs. It had a face, and purple hair. It was a girl. A woman? Someone, curled up in a place where she should not have been curled up. But nor was she Jesse’s business. He was not the kind of good Samaritan to stop and help those in need. And so he kept on running, shoes caught in the grit of the street, scritch, scritch, scritch.

It was the wind that got him. The breeze, gentle and light, swirled as he passed her by. It picked up, caressing the shoulders of the shivering body and danced in Jesse’s direction.

Oh, my… a voice crooned in his head. Blood. Oh, sweet ******* blood. The very scent of it sparked a thousand fires in Jesse’s veins, that thirst so close to the surface now a raging beast. Yes, he told it. Okay, yes, he sighed, not in resignation but with a quiet glee. The night was dead silent apart from the sound of his shoes as they came to a halt, as he turned, heels grinding into the ground. The music blared, tinny from the outside, from earbuds that were supposed to be the best of the best in noise cancelling. At least, Jesse could hear nothing outside of the music. Queens of the Stone Age – The Real Song for the Deaf.

Moving to the soundtrack he’d picked for himself, Jesse dropped to his hands and knees as soon as he was at the girl’s side. His fingers swiped the blood from the cement beneath her, unaware of his own growl of pleasure when he licked those fingers clean. So unbecoming. So uncaring.

He moved around behind the woman – the girl – the woman, and tugged, pulled her broken body into his lap. He should have asked what had happened to her, but the vampire had taken over. The thirst had the wheel. All that mattered was whatever blood was left. The way he held her, he might have been grieving, back hunched, one arm behind her shoulders, the other wrapped over her waist. He rocked with her – with the music in his ears. Sharp canines pierced tender and bruised flesh. Greedy, a vulture, he would take what was left.

[Raegan (DELETED 9663)]

That man is going to kill you one day.

Who was it that had whispered those haunting words to her? Who had it been, that had brushed their fingers through her bloodied curls as they lifted her from the bathroom floor? Their face was in her mind, gentle and warm, even as their vibrant eyes had been filled with fear. The name was dancing on the edge of her memory and balancing on the tip of her tongue, but as another painful cough tore through her body, it vanished. Whoever they had been, they had become forgotten.

Turning her head, she spit up the mouthful of bile and blood as it began to build in her throat, threatening to choke her. She needed to move. She needed to lift herself to her feet, to crawl to the nearest phone – or to the door just across the road. If she could make it to the door, where a dim light flickered in the window, she could ask for help. Someone had to help her, right? She had made it out of her neighborhood, where they kept their doors locked and their eyes closed. No one here knew her. They hadn’t witnessed her shame, they hadn’t heard her screams. Someone had to have compassion.

Even as the thoughts ran through her mind, her muscles refused to uncoil. Instead of lifting to her bruised knees, she remained curled on the sidewalk, the blood-stained cement cooling beneath her body. He can’t win. Not like this, she thought, her voice distant, even in the walls of her own mind. He had already taken so much from her – her pride, her happiness, and her sanity – he couldn’t have her life, too. She couldn’t let him get away with standing over her coffin, his eyes red from feigned tears, only to have him step into a closet to get his **** sucked from the mortician. The thought of it was enough to make her gag, a quiet groan following the sound as blood trickled from her lips.

Just as she tried to convince herself one final time to move, the steady pounding of approaching feet vibrated through her cracked skull. Panic slammed into her chest with the force of a wrecking ball, causing her eyes to fly open, the blue trying to frantically adjust to the blurred shape. It wasn’t the right height and it was far too muscled to belong to Cristof, and yet there was something about it that frightened her. She didn’t feel safe in its presence, and that that fear grew when it dropped to her side and growled like an animal caged. Clenching her teeth – which she soon regretted with a cry – she tried to fight as she felt herself being lifted. Every broken bone and twisted muscle screamed in protest as the beast curled her into his chest, though that pain was nothing compared to what came next.

Teeth tore into her throat, and that scream that had been silent suddenly exploded, before she felt herself growing weak. No. **** this, no. She wasn’t going down like this. She was done with this ****. She wanted off this fucked up merry-go-round of victim trading. Even as the conviction splintered through her mind, she couldn’t bring herself to fight him. Her bruised fingers curled into his shirt, and yet, she could do nothing more as she rested, limp, in his monstrous embrace. It wasn’t just the state of her body that had her unable to fight back – but something he was causing.

Before she had a chance to think too much on it – really, what else could she do as she died? – The screech of tires and smell of burning asphalt filled the night. A sudden shout screamed through her skull, and instantly, her body tensed. She knew that voice, knew the anger intimately. It curled around her, and even as she remained immobile in the animal’s arms, she still trembled in fear. Fear that she had grown to hate, fear that left a bitter taste on her tongue and threatened to choke her. He had turned her into someone she barely knew, and now, even as she lay dying in someone else’s arms, he tossed accusations at her. She could barely make them out above the growls that rumbled against her ear, but she knew what they would be. Despite his claims of intelligence, they were all the same.

“I knew you were a ******* whore, Raegan! Two minutes, and you’re already climbing onto some ****’s ****! Get the **** off her!”

She was sudden jostled, lips parting on a scream of pain, as cool fingers curled around her arm to pull her from the beast. It hadn’t been gentle, and the sound of her shoulder snapping as it dislocated bounced off the walls of the surrounding buildings. As if realized she wasn’t going anywhere, Cristof dropped her arm without so much as an apology, his fist curled – and aimed straight for the beast’s face.

[Jesse Fforde]

The venom slipped, silent but deadly, from Jesse’s fangs; they looked so much like the fangs of an adder, and were equally as dangerous, too. He was the snake, intent not only on disarming his victim but on consuming it, too. If he could, he would turn into that snake, could bask for days in blissful gluttony as his body, slick, scales stretched near-bursting as the body of his meal digested, slowly, within.

But of course that was not possible. Even as a snake he was not big enough to swallow a whole human. Even as a snake, he was no Anaconda – though how great would that be? Instead, he would merely bleed it of every ounce of blood it had. Gender meant nothing to the vampire. Man or woman, child or elderly, it wouldn’t have mattered who was bleeding on the pavement. He would have attacked them all the same.

In the mind of the beast there was no concern for disruption. He had not expected it. And knew that should it occur, he would defend his meal. Because it was his. It belonged to no one else. The blood had a hold of his senses. The sound of screeching tires failed to compute. Even the shouted accusations did nothing. There was a new burst of adrenaline, of fear – he could taste it in his victim’s blood. It was like biting into a ripe cherry tomato, the juice exploding upon his tongue. It was… delicious.

It was only when there was a jostle, the interloper trying to take his meal from him, that the fangs extracted from skin. Blood dripped over lip and chin as the vampire looked up, confronting the thing that would deign to steal his victim. Blood splattered as the vampire all but hissed. His arms were curled so tight around his victim that he did not stall the fist that collided with his cheek. It only fuelled his anger. His hold loosened on his meal and he stood, fingers curling into fists. He was the snake, uncoiling, disturbed from its pit. Shadows curled around him, strengthening, solidifying. They wanted to strike; Jesse held them back. No, he wanted to tear this ****** apart with his bare hands. He wanted to feel the hot blood beneath his fingernails.

Nails that sharpened into razor-like claws. He stepped over the body at his feet, approaching the man who seemed to inspire such fear in her. Insipid creature – not worthy of her terror. The claws unfurled, and were thrust upward, aiming under the ribs.

Jesse wanted to tear the fuckers heart from his chest.

[Raegan (DELETED 9663)]

For the briefest moment, she thought to thank him. Not the Beast, but the man that had instilled such fear within her for so many years. The gratitude would have been for the way he had distracted the animal, had forced it to pull its fangs from her throat. He had taken its attention – and as she no longer felt the violence of its hunger pulse against her skin, she felt her first second of relief. That second bled into two – and ended before it had reached three. The relief vanished in a cloud of painful smoke as she rolled onto her side, the last of her strength used to lift her lashes from her cheeks.

She was barely able to part her lids, and so she watched as the beast stalked towards its prey with purpose, its hands elongating into dangerous, jagged claws. “C—Cri…” The warning was there, the name working against the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t speak it. It wasn’t just her death that was causing her to hesitate, but the memories of his hands around her neck. The closer the beast approached the charismatic man, the more the memories played, until tears soaked her skin. It was almost over – she could feel it in the air, the way the tension started to evaporate. Within seconds, he would be gone from her life forever, and she would no longer have to live in fear of what he might do.

She would no longer lay awake at night, waiting for the knob to turn. She would no longer walk into the living room, to another woman bent over their couch with him behind her. She would no longer endure his insults as he continued to **** that woman, nor would she have to hear their laughter as she fled the room. There would be no more sleepless nights, no more fearful days. She wouldn’t have to walk on glass, and she wouldn’t have to make up lie after lie when she stumbled, bloodied and broken, into the hospital. As soon as the beast pounced on its victim, she would break free from her nightmare.

Dropping her head to the ground, she barely felt the gravel as it bit into her cheek. Her attention was captivated by her fiancé as he lifted his hand to take another swing at the beast. It went wide, his strength no match for the creature that stalked him. He was used to pushing her into the wall, his practice with his fists being used against someone much smaller than the monster that lunged. He barely had a chance to protect himself as the fist slammed into his chest. Blood spewed from his mouth as his wide, achingly familiar green eyes found her. As he fought for his last breath, she placed both palms on the ground and slowly lifted herself to her knees. The agony threatened to consume her, but she refused to allow the last memory this ****** had of her was one of her defeat.

With her heart threatening to give out at any moment, she bent one knee and placed her foot on the ground, her exotic, glacier hues locked on his as she finally brought herself to an unsteady stand. “Rot… in hell,” she hissed. She didn’t give a damn that this was her last thread or that she was more like a puppet on a string than someone that was acting on her own free will. It was a miracle she was even on her feet – feet that threatened to fall out from beneath her with each second that ticked past. None of it mattered as the life ebbed from his eyes.

She had won – even if it had been at the hands of the beast.

[Jesse Fforde]

Clawed fingers punched through grid and muscle, through flesh and past bone. His fingers closed around the warm vessel that pushed and pumped precious blood through this bag’s body. But he didn’t tear it out yet. Jesse was vaguely aware of movement behind him, but he feared no threat from the woman who’d been too weak to stay standing. He’d taken enough blood from her that any blow she might try to give would be like a cotton ball pretending to be a bullet.

If lights turned on in the windows of the houses nearby, the vampire paid no mind. He should have, but he didn’t. When the woman gasped rot in hell he assumed it was directed at him. The vampire. The monster who was about to glut on the blood of a man he did not need. A man who tried to get away, stumbling back, door of the car slamming as his body fell against the solid mass of the car. All the better.

The vampire’s fingers tightened their grip on the struggling muscle. Any gasp or desperate cry for mercy was ignored. Death was not gentle as it ripped into the interruptor’s throat, a low growl emanating from the vampire as he began again. Blood was the be all and end all. He pulled and sucked and maimed the skin as he did so. He tore and ripped and shredded and when there was no blood left to pull from the dry veins, only then did he wrench the heart from the guy’s body.

The green of the human’s eyes was glazed and unseeing as the body slumped, completely and utterly dead, to the asphalt. Blood dripped from Jesse’s hands – now hands again, rather than claws – the heart a dark red, still throbbing and oozing with precious, delicious cruor. If Jesse were a cat he’d be purring as he lifted the hunk of meet to his lips, as his tongue swirled over the creases and found the torn aorta. It was like pulling juice from a juice box, complete with straw.

But this meal was almost finished, this container empty of the food that the vampire believed was kept just for him. Once the heart was a dried-up husk, he dropped it. It bounced beside the body of its owner. Only then did the vampire return its attention to its first meal – the one it had fought to protect because he’d wanted no one and nothing to take it away from him. As full as he was, he would never say no to seconds. Or thirds. It depended on the night.

[Raegan (DELETED 9663)]

In the time it took for her to blink, her nightmare had finally come to an end. The man that had haunted her every waking moment, who judged her on what she wore, how she talked, how she stood was dead. All of the nights that she had spent beneath his fists, the bones that had never properly healed, the disgraced way he had used her body – were now a thing of the past. She would never again fear coming home; she would never look at herself in the mirror only to see a stranger in her reflection. The beast had taken the last of her fear, and ripped it from the world with just an expert twist of his wrist.

Now, her new nightmare was about to begin.

Slowly, she tore her brilliant gaze from the crumpled form of her fiancé to stare into the eyes of the enraged creature. It took all that she had to hold her hands up, blood stained palms facing him. “I can’t die,” she gasped, thick lips trembling as blood choked her throat. “He can’t win.” How the **** was she still speaking? With each second that ticked by, she found herself unable to stand. Her knees trembled beneath her weight, unable to support her for a moment longer, and yet she somehow managed to prevail. As much as she loathed to give credit to the twitching form at his feet, she had to admit that knowing he was gone for eternity renewed her, even if she were moments away from the Reaper, herself. “You…you’re---“ Choking on the blood, now, she closed her eyes and groaned.

“Different. You—You can help me, can’t…” She never had a chance to finish her sentence. One second, she was on her feet, her eyes bright with determination – even in the face of death – and the next, she had crumbled to her knees, blood spilling from her lips to soak the cement. Her skin began to shift in shade, paling even quicker than it had when she was trapped in his dangerous embrace. Bowing her head, the violet fell to shield her features, the last word stuck on her tongue. The word that could potentially save her life – the word that could make him see that she needed him.

She had heard the stories. She had believed in them. She had dreamt for years of being strong enough to overcome her nightmare, and now… now she was seconds away from joining him. Falling forward, she pressed her hands to the ground, her arms shaking with a violence that caused her teeth to chatter.

[Jesse Fforde]

It wasn’t hard to put two and two together, even in Jesse’s frenzied state. The cogs continued to turn in the background, subconscious sight taking in all the signs, all the pieces, and fitting them together to create a whole. The woman was already broken when he found her. The man had screamed at her, called her a whore. She didn’t want him to win. Clearly, this was a case of domestic abuse and Jesse – both the man and the vampire – hoped that this woman had fought back.

The creature he’d become wasn’t insensitive to the things that he had suffered. No, the creature he’d become had probably been part of him since childhood, and was the product of what he had suffered. He, too, had been victim to domestic abuse, and had been witness to it more times than he could count. The world was not a nice place, not beneath the surface. People were not nice. As many do-gooders as there were in the world, he believed there were twice as many who would do harm. There were twice as many who’d been downtrodden and who had lost all hope and basic kindness. There were too many who grasped at whatever power they could and used it against those weaker than them, only to feel like they have some kind of purpose in this world.

Jesse Fforde had gained literal fangs and claws due to the things that he’d lived through, and the power within his grasp wasn’t used for vigilantism. He was a hypocrite in many ways; he was one of the downtrodden who lacked common kindness for the innocent. Because in his mind, no one was ever truly innocent.

The words the woman gasped, disjointed as they were, were tantamount to permission. Jesse had been cause for her greater injury, had fast tracked her path to death. But she was asking to live. She was asking him to save her. He could just wait and see. He could sit there on the curb and see if she came back from death, a simple poisonous bite enough to force the change in her.

But there was a car idling in the middle of a road and a maimed body beside it. There wasn’t time to wait. Canines still sharp, the vampire tore into his own wrist. The same wrist that was coated in the blood of the dead, already starting to dry and clot. The temptation to lick said wrist – and hand – clean was strong, but he resisted as he crouched down and held the fount of life-giving blood in front of the dying woman.

”Drink it,” he said, husky tone weighted with the gelatinous blood he’d just consumed.

[Raegan (DELETED 9663)]

The wind picked up around them and danced through her hair, bringing with it the scent of blood and something foul. Her nose crinkled against the assault, and she had to turn her head as she gagged. The force of it had her crying out as her muscles contracted, the pain blinding her. That boy is going to kill you one day, the woman had said, and she had been right. He had taken it too far. His rage had gotten too far out of control, and she had witnessed the devil in his eyes. Scraping her nails against the concrete, she bit down on her lip to stop from screaming out again, her eyes burning with tears that she would never shed. He would never again be the cause for her tears. Even in death, she would defy him.

Running her tongue over her lip, she tasted the sharp copper of her blood and lifted her head. Somehow, she had managed to keep herself upright, even as crouched as she was. Her thin body swayed, ribs pressing against her skin as she watched the monster approach her. Gone was the manic need that had glowed like burning embers in his eyes. Now, there was a glint of conviction. She could still see the hunger that danced beneath his mask, the desire to – she assumed – rip his fangs into her. She couldn’t – wouldn’t – give him that satisfaction. She was done being the victim, the pathetic woman at the mercy of someone stronger. It didn’t matter that soaking wet, she barely weighed a hundred pounds. It didn’t matter that, if she were to try and fight him, he would rip her to pieces with one hand.

Please, fix me.
I am so ******* tired of living this life.
Just ******* save me.

The words screamed through her mind, and as he finally came to her side, his body dropping into a crouch with the fluid of water, she lifted her wild eyes to his. She was like an animal caged, prepared to fight back, even if it meant the prolonged suffering of her own demise. Her lips parted on a sound, a word that never had the chance to fully form, as her throat closed around the blood that filled it. As she lifted one hand, prepared to strike him, he spoke. His gruff words broke through the madness of her thoughts and calmed the chaotic need for survival that flooded her veins. Instead of striking him, she dropped her hand to his arm, cold, blood soaked fingers curling around the strong muscle. With her gaze locked on his, she pulled his arm closer, her tongue flicking out to glide across the blood.

She had heard rumors, just as she had watched the news and the movies. She lived for the paranormal ****, and she had hoped that there would be a time that someone would find her. Now that he was there, she didn’t think twice as she wrapped her lips around the wound and did his bidding. She had asked for this – and she would be ******* damned if she squandered this. Just as her eyes started to close, she caught a shift in the atmosphere just over his shoulder, a flicker of a familiar form before it was gone.

[Jesse Fforde]

It was always there, still, that sensation of a bond being formed. It was the sensation Jesse Fforde had once been addicted to, one that he could not get enough of. Now, it lingered though it was not something he had to satisfy in order to keep himself sane; he’d talked himself out of caring so much whether it worked or failed, whether the bond sparked a fire or fizzled into smoke. It was all he could do to keep his eyes from rolling to the back of his head, to revel in the sensation of his own blood being taken from his body when he’d just made a glutton of himself.

Even as he crouched there, fingers curled into a fist, he wondered what the **** he was doing. It was always a week. One week, every single night having to visit the dying, the sick and decrepit thing that the human had become. The thing hallway between life and death, dead already and balanced on the edge of a knife. Tip one way and they would become immortal. Tip the other and they would be dead forever, a spirit to be consumed, eventually, by those who sought to use their metaphysical energy for their own gains.

For a whole two minutes he remained. His fingers flexed, squeezing into a fist before releasing, encouraging the flow of blood. He would have remained five minutes, ten, if he hadn’t heard the sirens in the distance. Someone in one of the surrounding houses had called the cops, finally. Someone had picked up the phone to do something about the domestic incident occurring on the street. Jesse’s eyes flew open, nostrils flaring and pupils dilating as he caught sight of all the blood. His teeth clenched, a growl reverberating in his throat. No. He couldn’t give in, now. He couldn’t give up the ounce of control he had regained.

”C’mon, up,” he said, wrenching his wrist away from the girl.

”You can have more later. We have to go,” he said. She’d just been beaten and broken by a man and it should have occurred to Jesse that she shouldn’t be manhandled, but he knew what was going to happen next. His blood might try to heal her but it was going to completely break her, first. It didn’t work like it once did. She’d be violently, near-fatally ill before she got any better. If she got any better. And so he attempted to grab her, to lift her, to do whatever he could to get her to the car that her boyfriend had left idling on the street.