The thoughts settle into my consciousness with terrible finality, and with it comes the crushing weight of everything that means.
I died.
That creature in the parking lot killed me.
Drained me dry and left me for dead, except death didn’t take. Instead, I came back as something else, something monstrous, something that needs blood to survive.
Human blood.
It makes me want to scream, to run, to claw my way out of this skin that doesn’t belong to me anymore. But I can’t move because Trudy has returned, carrying a knife to cut someone’s pie, and when she sets it down on the counter, the blade catches her finger.
Just a tiny cut.
Barely visible.
A single drop of blood wells up, bright red against her skin, and my world detonates.
The scent hits me with a physical force, rich, overwhelming, and absolutely intoxicating. Sweet doesn’t begin to describe it. This is beyond taste, beyond smell, beyond any sensory experience I’ve ever had. This is life distilled to its purest essence, calling to me with a voice that drowns out every other thought, every other instinct, every shred of humanity I’m desperately trying to cling to.
My vision tunnels, everything except that single drop of blood fading to insignificance. My fangs throb with painful urgency, saliva floods my mouth, heat races through veins that shouldn’t carry warmth anymore, setting every nerve ending on fire with need so overwhelming I can’t breathe, I can’t think, I can’t do anything except want.
Trudy doesn’t notice. She just sucks her finger absently, cleaning away the blood, completely unaware that she’s triggered something catastrophic in the monster sitting three tables away.
ButInotice.
God, I noticeeverything.
The way her pulse accelerates slightly from the minor pain. The sound of her heartbeat amplifies in my ears until it’s the only thing I can hear. The warmth radiating from her body is a beacon designed specifically to draw predators from the shadows.
I’m on my feet before conscious thought catches up with instinct.
The diner blurs around me as I move, inhuman speed carrying me across the space in seconds. The other customers don’t even register my presence, too absorbed in their meals, their conversations, their blissfully ignorant human lives.
Trudy pushes through the back door, heading toward what I assume is a breakroom or storage area, and I follow without hesitation, my body operating on autopilot, driven by hunger so profound it’s eclipsed every other consideration.
The door swings shut behind me.
We’re alone in a narrow hallway, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, the smell of grease and old food thick in the air. She doesn’t hear me approach, too focused on whatever task brought her back here, completely unaware that death is stalking her with silent, perfect efficiency.
I’m behind her before she turns.
Before she can do more than drag in a breath, my hand wraps around her shoulder and spins her to face me.
“What—” Trudy starts, but the word dies when her eyes meet mine.
Terror blooms across her face, instant and absolute, as whatever she sees in my expression communicates the danger her conscious mind hasn’t processed yet. Her heartbeat skyrockets, fear flooding her system with adrenaline that makes her blood smell even more delicious, even more impossible to resist.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, and I mean it.God, I mean it with every fiber of the person I used to be.“I’m so,sosorry.”
Her eyes widen, breath hitching as she opens her mouth to scream.
I move without thinking.
My hand clamps over her mouth, sealing the sound inside her, feeling the vibration of it against my palm as terror shakes through her body. I hold her there, pinned and trembling, my own chest tight with something dangerously close to grief.
Then my head tilts back, my fangs sliding down on their own.
And I bite, piercing her throat with perfect, terrible precision, slicing through skin, muscle, and vein with an ease that should horrify me, but instead feels right as if my mouth was built for this exact moment. Blood surges instantly, hot and thick, flooding my mouth, spilling over my tongue in waves of sweetness so intense it makes my knees weaken.
