I eye the door. I don’t know how long I’ve been in here. Long enough that I slept at some point and someone put what looks like protein bars on the floor.
My stomach doesn’t growl, but it’s like a wild animal that paces inside me, looking to take over, wanting to pounce. I cross and pick up one of the bars.
It’s a brand I’ve never seen.
VMR X Protein.There’s no picture or exciting graphics, just red letters on a black foil wrap. I turn it over. No ingredient list. Obviously proprietary.
How richishe?
It’s a stupid question.
Lucian Vale has had lifetimes to grow rich by anyone’s means. He’s ruthless enough to get richer by more nefarious means as well, and smart enough to turn all that into something which would make millionaires cry.
He’s built the perfect vessel for a soft takeover of America and a lot of the world. The mecca of media.
VMR.
And pre-dying, pre-being reborn, I could have blown it all open and destroyed him in an exposé for the ages.
Now…
Now I can’t do that.
I close my eyes and breathe deeply. Notcan’t. Just can’tyet. There is a difference.
I curl my hand around the protein bar and squeeze. It compacts and pushes through the packaging at either end.
The stench of the bar hits me hard. It’s the smell of old blood. Vile. I throw it against the wall, but the stench still stings.
My insides contract.
I open my eyes and look down. The bar doesn’t smell. I do.
My clothes are soaked and stained with the dried rust-brown of blood, and beneath that is something else. I slowly lift my shirt and gag.
There’s a hole in me. A bullet hole. Right in the center of my chest.
I stick my finger inside. It’s squidgy, sticky, wet.
Is how I died going to be with me forever?
Another surge of hunger hits, and I finally make myself go to the protein bars. I devour three without tasting them, thenI gobble down four more, my mind balancing out and the ravenous beast within subsiding.
When I finally settle, I slowly eat the last one. I’m full but I eat it anyway, and then I lower myself to the floor, my back against the wall.
I can’t help it. I raise my top again, frowning.
The wound doesn’t smell so bad now and it seems smaller somehow.
I don’t get how my body can repair itself like this when I’m essentially dead. Lucian certainly doesn’t come across as dead. He doesn’t fall apart like a zombie. And when he turns into a fanged beast, he looks like himself, just…
Scarier.
Darker.
Like a predator.
But still himself.
