"Huh?" the employee said, not aware his hands were turning black. In the next second, his face creased in pain, and he dropped to the floor, letting out a banshee wail of death as the venom met his nerve endings. Baz watched him with detached curiosity.
I no longer cared. Guess I wasn’t the one who was going to keep us all together because all that mattered was the iron scent of Nemo's blood in the air. There had always been something about his blood, in particular, that drove me wild. Orson was clean and sensual but not filling. It could take the edge off of the hunger and fill my belly, but it didn't satiate me.
Baz's was exotic. Citrus and spice, burning on my tongue and hot in my belly. Like any spicy meal, it offered the pleasurable bite of pain that simmered into numbing ecstasy. Still, it wasn't something I could have much of. Too much turned it from something delightful to something unpleasant.
But my Nemo had the blood of an animalistic king pumping in his veins—visceral, raw power. I could swallow down gallons and fill my belly until it felt distended on what he had to give me. He nourished me, but he was only one man—even if he could qualify as the size of two—and he was a man I didn'toftenwant dead.
I should have paid attention to the warning signs of my hunger because right now, I felt logic slipping away, shucked off like a bad outfit. A little laugh bubbled from my lips as my fangs descended slowly. No doubt, my eyes were becoming black pools.
The hunger wasn't just the squeeze in my stomach. It wasn't just yearning in my throat and saliva pooling in my mouth. It was an infection that took control of me entirely. I was no longer Bree. I was the hunger. It was the curse that came with the power. Something Zero had gifted me when infecting me with his own Eldritch blood. So much power, it was hard to control. Often, I failed, and this happened.
"Bree," Orson said. He was standing beside me. I hadn't realized he'd moved. My eyes were latched to Nemo. He was still splayed out on the ground, shirtless, and the open indents of Orson's bite leaked a trail of blood down his neck. Delicious.
"Yes, Orson?" I licked my lips.
"You'll be mad at me if I don't remind you not to kill Nemo."
"Will I?" I imagined for a moment drinking Nemo down whole, consuming him until his entire being was inside me forever. A shudder of bone-deep delight rolled over my body.
"Eat the humans first, at least. Save the best for last," he commented. The hunger could see the logic in that. I lunged for the crowd, who were already running in a stampede towards the door after Baz killed the employee.
Bloodbath was the perfect description of what the place turned into. Neck after glorious neck. I wasn't clean with it. Iquickly sank in my fangs before ripping the vein clean open in a gush of blood that soaked their chest in a matter of seconds. It sprayed on me, on them, on the floor, the ceiling, the walls. I tore into neck after neck, killing them all in an attempt to get what was inside on the outside in the swiftest, messiest way possible because I wasstarved.
Baz was right, we were better off in the asylum. We were unhinged.
My tongue ran up necks and dug into fountaining wounds. My clawed fingers dug into shoulders, holding them in place as I bit their throats to shreds. I shoved them aside when the next fresh neck behind them tempted me more than the one already in my mouth.
The moment was frenzied and pressing. As the sensation of starving subsided and pure unrestrained desire lightened me, it was freedom in the best way. A whole store to gorge on freely. No one to stop me. No moral qualms either. Who cares about those?
"Bree," Orson hissed, attempting to pull me off a human I'd tackled to the ground. Orson's hands slid off my blood-painted body. Even my hair was dripping with red as if I'd been dunked into a vat of the stuff and drank my way out.
I pulled my head from the neck I was feeding on and hissed.
From behind, large arms wrapped around me, trapping me in a bear hug as I was lifted from the ground.
"Nemo!" I wailed. "I'm hungry," I whined.
"You are not hungry," he murmured deep in my ear. I squirmed against him. "And Supra's found us."
7
UH OH
BAZ
His nametag said Andrew, and the moment he died, I knew we’d be friends.
We sat together on the floor, surrounded by blood and unopened candy bars, watching Bree go feral on the store’s entire population. I bumped my boot against Andy’s shoe—I figured he wouldn’t mind me calling him Andy. Mainly because of being dead, but I hoped that our friendship counted as a factor, too.
“You know how they say the crazy ones fuck better?” I asked, smiling under the mask. Andy didn’t say anything, naturally. I dragged my finger across the green and black veins on his hand.
“Well, let’s just say it’s true.” I turned Andy’s head, letting him get a good look at the insanity of my girlfriend and figure out how good she fucked. Well, took a fucking, really. I know Orson liked to lay back and let her ride him like he was a dying horse, but I very much enjoyed doing the exact opposite.
Bree maniacally laughed before a blood spray painted the ceiling in dots.
“She scares me,” Andy said. I nodded.
“Me too, buddy, me too. Well … occasionally. To be honest, it’s hard to be scared of someone you’ve seen choke on your cock.” I laughed and knocked my shoulder against his. He fell over on his side. I let him stay there—it looked like he needed a nap. Guy time was fun.
