Page 63 of This Vicious Hunger

“Can you do it?” I demand, a little louder. The fear is back and I know he can see it in my face. “Can you let me out? I don’t want to be here. I can’t…”

He lifts a hand to examine the lock on the gate. I know he’s exasperated—I can smell it on him. It is like impending rain, a blustery kind of scent. I like it. I want to taste it. He rattles the padlock, which is attached to a thick link chain.

“I don’t remember anything like this being here before,” he says, then shakes his head. “I told you, I need to get he-elp.”

The wobble in his voice surprises Leonardo more than it does me.

He swallows hard and glances down at his fingers.

They aren’t touching mine, aren’t even touching where my hands have been, but we are close: perhaps only centimetres apart.

I can smell the dinner wine on his breath.

I let out a huff. Petaccia doesn’t wear a mask around us, but I suppose she’s been microdosing herself a little, just a little, for years and years.

But she does wear gloves. Leo isn’t so lucky.

“Are you sure you don’t have any food?” I ask sweetly. “I’m just so incredibly fucking hungry.”

“Tho-ora,” he says. His voice changes. “What did you do?”

His panic cuts through the fog, but it is only a second, a brief second where I understand: he is wilting.

Like the hare. Only he doesn’t know it yet.

And then the scent of him slams into me like a brick; the weak flutter of his heart is the smoky fry of bacon, the rushing pallor of his skin is rich, salty whipped cheese on crusty bread.

My mouth waters. I snatch my arm farther through the gate, grasping for his jacket to pull him closer.

It happens in less than a second. My fingertips graze the back of his hand and something in me is unleashed, something I didn’t even know was there.

It is a monster. I fling my arm wildly through the gate, scratching and clawing, grasping for more of him.

Leonardo is in the dirt by the wall, panting and crying and trying to scramble away, but I’ve caught his trousers and I won’t let go. A dark scream tears through me.

“Thora!” The shout barely breaks my concentration. “Thora, let him go!”

It is Olea. I know it’s her. I don’t want her here. She’s right behind me, coming up fast. Her hands grasp my shoulders and try to pull. I send one elbow back and it connects sharply with her jaw, but she doesn’t stop.

“Thora, you’re killing him.”

“Olie, I’m hungry ,” I grind out. “He smells—he smells so good.”

“Fuck,” Olea grunts. She wraps her hands around me, her body slamming against mine as she hooks her arms around my waist and pulls. Hard.

“Let me go!” I yell. I try to punch again but it’s hard with one arm still through the gate.

Leo lies on the ground. He’s still crying.

He’s not dead yet. I can smell the fear in him, and, oh, it’s like sweet pistachio cream.

Nutty and delicious. I bet his blood would taste as good.

I lick my lips. “Just a taste,” I beg. “Please, just one.”

“ Thora. ” Olea lifts one arm up and chops her hand down at the crook of my elbow.

The pain ricochets through me and I cry out.

She uses the opportunity to finally yank my arm back through, releasing Leo’s trouser leg.

He stays on the ground, stunned and in pain, his heart slamming about inside his pathetic little chest. “Thora, you’re not yourself. Look at me. LOOK.”

Olea grips my face with her hand, digging her nails into my flesh.

I writhe but am forced to look at her. And when I do I see the pale oval of her face, bright like the moon, her eyes the colour of a chocolate torte with rich mint filling.

They shine with fear and unshed tears. Her lip is bloody from my punch, already healing, and the honeyed scent of her sings to me. It soothes me.

“ Breathe ,” she hisses.

I draw in a breath. Deep. Painful. My ribs are on fire. My belly is the pit of a fire, coal and ash and crumpled paper. Slowly the inferno dulls. I breathe again. Again.

“That’s it.”

“Leo,” I sob.

Olea, still holding my face, looks to the gate.

Leonardo is collecting himself slowly. His expression is that of a man who has just found out his sentence is death: he is greying, dark hollows already in his formerly olive cheeks, his eyes like dinner plates.

His brush with my hand has not, thank god, killed him. Yet.

“Can you move?” Olea demands. Leo nods. “Good,” she says. Then she thrusts me behind her, baring her sharp teeth as she rushes at him. “Then you should run.”

Leonardo doesn’t run. He stares at the two of us, the familiar touch of our bodies, the shine of our teeth. Matching moonlit gowns in the black garden. Poison in our veins—on his skin.

“What are you?” he breathes.

“Better you don’t find out.”

“But—”

“Leonardo,” I growl, infusing my voice with every bit of malice I can.

I don’t want this to happen, I don’t want our friendship to end like this, but—I nearly killed him.

I’d kill him again in less than a heartbeat without these walls to hold me.

“We don’t want you here. If you come to these walls again, one of us will kill you. Do you understand me?”

“Thora—”

Olea hisses, and the sound is guttural. Primal. Leonardo shrinks back, clutching his injured hand to his chest. I can already see the black marks stretching across his skin, and distantly, the sane part of me hopes they don’t get any bigger.

“Do you understand me?” I grind out. I show him my teeth again. “I’m going to give you ten seconds. Olea is right. If you value your life, you should run.”

Olea slams her body against the gate. There’s no hunger in it, not like when I did the same, but Leonardo doesn’t know that.

“RUN!”