Page 42 of Inhuman Natures #1

Lawrence shoved DJ down onto the floor. “Now you’ll have to eat if you want to heal.”

“I won’t,” DJ gritted out as he cradled his wrist. He wouldn’t feed on his own, anyway. Lawrence wasn’t compelling him yet. He would hold out until he had no other choice .

Lawrence tutted. Actually tutted at him like some old-timey governess displeased with her errant charge.

“That’s a shame. I was going to let this man live if you fed from him.

Alas, I will have no choice but to dispose of him.

” Lawrence stood and drifted towards his victim, who could do nothing but press himself against the wardrobe, eyes wide and leaking tears.

“You can’t,” DJ said, barely able to get the words out as his broken wrist cried out in agony.

“I don’t understand how you haven’t figured it out by this point, boy.

I can do whatever I want. Nobody is going to stop me.

” Lawrence grabbed at the man’s hair. The strands were just long enough for Lawrence to push his head back and expose the quivering vein on the side of his neck.

Taking one single claw, Lawrence drew it across the man’s neck, right over the vein.

It was a shallow cut, but blood flowed freely from the wound.

DJ was in front of the man before he realised he’d moved. His tongue darted out, tasting the dripping blood. It wasn’t enough. He needed more.

Blood pumped through DJ’s body as he latched on to the man’s neck, sucking at the vein. The sensation of his wrist healing was an odd one. It wasn’t instantaneous, but a slow slide as his bones and muscles righted themselves.

There was a voice in the back of DJ’s head the whole time, screaming at him that everything he was doing was wrong. But that voice was easy to ignore with fresh, hot blood in his mouth.

A sharp pain in his neck had him rearing back. Lawrence held DJ’s head, scruffing him with his claws digging in around the collar; a sadistic imitation of what a bitch would do to her misbehaving puppy. “Enough,” he said.

DJ gave Lawrence the most resentful look he could muster. Not only had he made him feed on someone he didn’t want to, but he was now stopping him from taking what he needed. It wasn’t fair. DJ bared his fangs.

“You almost killed him,” Lawrence said, amused.

DJ turned to look at the unconscious man, covering his mouth in shock.

“It’s a good thing you didn’t,” Lawrence continued. “I’m going to recreate more vampires.”

“You what?” DJ choked out.

“You’re not special, boy. I’m building myself an army. Now, get back on the bed.” Lawrence layered a compulsion through the words. DJ’s feet moved, complying with the command.

“You can’t change half of Brighton into vampires,” DJ reasoned, but Lawrence was too busy shoving his bleeding wrist into the man’s mouth. DJ turned away.

“Put those cuffs back on yourself,” Lawrence compelled as the man drank lethargically from him. “Attach them to the headboard.”

DJ glared as he put on the first cuff, following the instruction to thread the other through the iron railing before fastening it to his free wrist. This time, he looped them through one railing and not several. He hoped Lawrence wouldn’t notice.

When Lawrence lifted the man into his arms and started walking from the room, DJ couldn’t help but speak up. “Where are you taking him? ”

“If you must know, they’ll be stored down in the basement. I believe you saw it.”

DJ’s mind flashed to the desolate, dark basement. He shivered. “But I’m staying here?”

“I mean, if you’d rather be down there…” Lawrence said with a quirk of a pale brow.

“I’m good here.” DJ shuffled on the bed, planting himself more firmly, as if that might dissuade Lawrence from changing his mind.

“Thought so.”

Lawrence left and returned to the house a dozen more times that night, right into the wee hours of the morning.

DJ heard each of the new vampires being recreated after Lawrence had gorged himself on their blood.

The chain between the cuffs was long enough that he could cover his ears, but it didn’t dampen the sounds the way he wanted.

DJ was stuck listening to Lawrence take the life of person after person, unable to stop him. Once Lawrence was done with them, he took them to the basement, beyond DJ’s hearing. There was no sign of them after that.

DJ shuddered at the prospect of being put in a basement with the other vampires. He supposed he now knew why Lawrence had been collecting the cuffs and ropes—to keep the creations from escaping.

DJ could tell when dawn was upon them. For one, Lawrence stayed inside the house, and for another, there was this odd new feeling inside of DJ.

It made him think about when he and his mum had gone to visit his grandparents in Jamaica, and how discombobulated he’d been with the combination of the long flight and time difference.

His body had kept waking him up at the time he would have usually have got up for school, only to discover that it was the middle of the night.

He’d lie awake in the darkness on the lumpy mattress, the strange rhythmic whistle of tree frogs outside his only companion.

Being awake now felt like that. Like he was out of time, out of place.

Like he was the only person who existed in the world.

As if everyone else had just up and left, and here he was, alone.

Panic clawed at his insides as he tried to free himself from the cuffs again, the sharp clang of metal drilling right into his head.

“Stop that.”

DJ looked up, seeing Lawrence at the open door. Some instinctual part of DJ tried to move towards him, seeking comfort from his creator. His gut twisted at the thought of receiving anything of the sort from a monster like Lawrence. As quickly as he’d leaned forward, he flinched back.

“Relax, boy. It’s just the sun coming up. Your body is telling you it’s time to sleep.”

Shaun hadn’t seemed to struggle so much when he’d been awake during the day. DJ said as much to Lawrence, who leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms.

“Shaun is far too human for his own good—always resisting the urge to hide from the sun. How unnatural,” Lawrence sneered. “It seems you, however, are more accepting of your nature.”

“I’m not,” DJ protested, even as he felt himself slipping into darkness.

“Embrace your nature and maybe I’ll keep you around after all. ”

“You won’t be here to try.”

Lawrence pushed off the doorframe. “Have a good day, DJ. Sleep well.”