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Chapter Fifteen

Paolina was never stingy with perfume. She changed it regularly, favoring flowers and fruit. Some were nicer than others. Her natural scent had a hint of pomegranate. None stopped me from fucking her, but none drove me wild to eat her alive either.

This is different.

On Sundays, the women baked sfogliatella for the week. At dawn, I luxuriated in it. By noon, it was in the streets, in my clothes, saturating my brain and filling my belly. Every sweet thing in my adult life was a shadow of those Sundays.

When Paolina runs, she brings Sunday with her. She leaves me a trail of sweetness like a ribbon of smoke. Against the human waste in the tunnels, it is a seam of delight that I know, in my deepest gut, will satisfy this gnawing hunger.

The creature holds me back to give her a head start, which enrages me.

But I am fast—too fast, on legs that have not changed completely.

On a hard turn, I hear the soft scritch of my right ankle breaking.

The pain is drowned out by the twist in my chest and the scent of her as she runs, sweat intensifying, up, up, up, and I think, if only we’d run this way when we were lost, because I know she’s getting closer to fresh air and moonlight, even if she does not.

Taking a turn at inhuman speed at an angle sharper than I expect, I bang into the corner and shatter my shoulder. She’s there. And I know she’s there because her scent is as real and tangible as the stone making contact with my head. I’m thrown back.

“Stop.” She’s panting, hoisting the bloody stone for another blow. She reeks of sweet apples. “Carmine. Stop for one second.”

And I do. I see her. I feel the hunger as strongly as before, but I am separate from it. My mind is free, even for a moment.

“Run.” The command comes out with a squeak.

She ignores me. “You’re a decent man. You’ll always be. No matter what you have to do. You are decent.”

Good God, I don’t care. All I want to do is suck her dry.

“Please!”

She drops the stone and runs. She’s not fast enough. I reach for her, fingertips on the ends of her hair. My broken ankle buckles under me and she gains a step that saves her life, turning onto a hall cut by a square of moonlight.

I stop long enough to see two of the Empire’s soldiers entering the sewer with a drunken woman between them.

“Hey, pretty!” the soldier says as Paolina passes.

“Where you off to?” calls the other.

I know their intentions from their body language and vocal tones, but like my supposed decency, I don’t care about their aims with Paolina. I am too hungry to warn them or make a game of it. They are not sweet. They are bread, not cake. They will do.

I take one man by the arm and throw him into the other, piling them like firewood.

I work the weight of one against the other so I can consume both.

The woman stumbles back and watches as I drink from the first, splashing blood into the screaming mouth of the second.

They are the best meal I’ve ever had, filling a hole deeper than my soul, darker than hell, warming a heart made cold.

I sob with relief as I drink from the second, because the hole still isn’t filled but the pain of the hunger is sated.

I drink it all, and think, “This is my life now.”

When I look up, the drunk woman is gone, and Paolina stands at the opening to the street.