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Kenna doesn’t answer, and Maddy’s hands turn to fists. Her stomach clenches again, but she pushes against the hungry sensation. Caleb’s gone, and she’s more than famished. The red grows stronger. She whirls and marches around the room, trying to fight the need to feed.
Caleb had helped her, and she could distract herself when he was close. But he’s not here, and it’s her fault. The emotions are turning into a tsunami. She places her hands against the wall and leans toward them, her chest heaving.
She must eat. She must feed. Not on the bagged, stale cold blood in the cooler, not this time. She needs something fresh, something alive, and she needs out of the building. The room’s too close, too constricting. She straightens, marches toward the exit, and strides through the others before they even know what’s happened.
When she steps out of the room, she takes a sharp right down the corridor. In a blink, she’s at the entrance to Veritas and outside the door. A gust of wind blows across the parking lot, pushing trash and grass clippings from one side to the other. She stops in front of the door and takes a deep breath, but it doesn’t help. The red of the sky matches the red in her gaze. Another blink, and she’s out of the warehouse parking lot, driven by her hunger alone. If she eats, she’ll be able to think clearly and find Caleb. It’s the only truth she knows.
In a blur, she’s out of the parking lot and cruising down the sidewalk. She doesn’t know how far she’s gone, but she’s already in a part of Mercy City she doesn’t recognize. On, she goes. She could consume anyone, she could be the last face someone sees, but she doesn’t want just anyone. She needs to feed and tohelp… So…if she can find…
A pain-filled shriek catches her attention, and she stops at the next corner to the south. Across the street, two guys have a girl cornered at the end of an alley, and they’re touching her, pulling on her clothes while she yells at them to stop.
“Come on, show us something,” the taller of the two demands.
When she says no, the shorter one laughs. “Do you think you can get rid of us?”
The corners of Maddy’s mouth twitch and tip upward. Those two are perfect. She charges across the street and stops behind a large dumpster. Two men won’t be a problem. Not now, not as a vampire. Her emotions surge, and the hunger compels her.
Maddy rushes the two attackers, relishing their horror as they realize what she is. She lifts one of the men away from the wide-eyed young woman and tosses him behind her. He slams into the cinderblock wall of the convenience store next door and groans as he slides to the ground. She leaps on him and stomps him into the ground. Each impact forces a rush of air and a grunt out of him. Then she lunges at the other one, dragging her mouth over his neck, pleased when one of her teeth nicks his skin and a bit of blood seasons her tongue.
“Oh, crap!” he yells, swatting at her and pushing her away. “She’s got teeth.”
“Teeth? What are you talking about?” the one on the ground rasps.
“Vampire! She’s a vampire!”
“Holy shit!” He tries to get to his feet, but he can’t get up from the ground.
“I’m your worst nightmare,” Maddy growls and lands a right hook on the shorter man’s chin.
But a whimper pulls her attention away from the two men to the young woman. She’s frozen in place, her hand resting over her gaping mouth. Guilt floods Maddy. What is she doing? Playing with her food before she was going to eat? Who is she? But even as the questions bump into one another in her brain, she knows she isn’t letting these two get away. She has to eat, has to feed, and they are her prey.
“Run.” Maddy releases the shorter man and waves to the young woman. “Get out of here. Go. You don’t need to be here for this.”
The girl doesn’t wait to be told twice, and she bolts out of the alley without a look back. Maddy grins at her retreating back and then turns back to the two attackers as one of the men rams into her. Maddy catches him in her arms and crushes him until he cries out.
She has so much strength now. She feels powerful, strong, and every jump, every move makes the blood pound in the veins of the two men, whetting her appetite like the smells of a feast simmering before serving.
They’re both on the ground beside one another: a blood buffet.
Maddy drops on the one with the wound on his throat and licks away the remainder of the blood on his neck. They both whimper but neither tries to get away. Some kind of vampire hypnotism or were they both just that afraid of her?
Then she presses her teeth into his neck, and the man calls out as the sharp points puncture his skin. Whatever doubt she has disappears as the metallic taste nearly overwhelms her. So much delicious warm blood and consuming it would solve everything wrong inside her, wouldn’t it?
“Maddy, don’t! You don’t want to do this!” someone yells from the end of the alley.
Maddy almost recognizes the voice. Who is it? But the blood inside the man… She needs the blood to fill her stomach.
The woman comes closer. “You don’t want to have to tell Caleb you did this.”
Caleb… Oh, man, oh, man…What would Caleb say if she had to tell him aboutthis? Maddy raises her head, and she stares at the woman for long moments, trying to place her, trying to recognize her. Except the men’s heartbeats thunder in her head, their blood rushes in her mind.
“Who are you? How do you know Caleb?” Maddy can’t think straight, not with the blood pulsing beneath her.
The woman drops to the ground beside Maddy and places her hands over Maddy’s. “It’s Cora.”
“Cora?” Maddy scowls. “I didn’t recognize you. How did you find me?”
“Vampires can find vampires,” she says. “And the fleeing young woman was a good clue.”
