Page 67 of This Vicious Hunger

Chapter Forty-One

W hile Olea is sleeping, I sneak into the garden.

I figure I have perhaps an hour or two before she’s built up the energy to come looking for me, and by then I’ll be safely back in the tower—hopefully with a broken padlock to show for it.

I’m not sure what I’ll do after that; I haven’t got that far in my imaginings: step one is possibility .

I gather the biggest knives we have in the kitchen, though they are all dull now.

I have a pair of scissors too—not that I’m expecting much from them.

With every silent footstep I curse myself for not breaking the padlock when I had the chance.

It was sheer stupidity, negligence. I wanted so badly to believe Olea was right and Petaccia wouldn’t abandon us for the sake of discovery. I should have trusted my gut.

I head straight down to the gate with my weapons of choice, not stopping to check on the plants as I know Olea would like me to.

I’m not the gardener she is, and without her tender touch the plants have once again gone wild.

A horrible thought tickles my brain: What happens to the garden if Olea dies?

When I’ve had the thought before, it was from a scientific vantage. Now my concern is purely selfish. This place is our home—my home, now—and without the border of poisons to keep people away, would I lose even the sanctity of this space? Will I end up in chains worse than this gilded prison?

I push the notion away. It won’t happen. I simply won’t allow Olea to die. I’ve worked too hard for the scraps of this life regardless of whether it was what I wanted to begin with.

When I reach the gate I pause, stacking the knives and scissors against the wall so I can examine the padlock. I remember it being thick and heavy with a wide link chain. Perhaps if I can pry apart one of the links, that would do better than breaking the lock itself.

I stop. It takes a second for my exhausted brain to register that there is no lock.

There is no evidence that there has ever been a lock, although I know it’s true.

The gate rests closed on its latch, not even Olea’s original lock and key still present.

A latch. A simple goddamn latch is all that stands between me and outside.

I suck in a deep breath. There is a fresh hint of rain on the breeze. I let it fill me, palms pressed against the rusted metal. In, and out.

It makes no sense, but my first thought is Leonardo. Is it possible he’s been back and found a way to unlock the gate? This is followed by a rush of pain. I double over, gasping like a fish out of water. I nearly killed him and this man is so kind he has come back to help me anyway.

But no. It’s much more likely that the doctor unlocked it herself.

I swallow, wondering if in keeping our watch here amongst the weeds we somehow startled her—if she’d brought supplies but refused to leave them when she heard us.

This is something I could not bear, if in our efforts to protect ourselves we have doomed ourselves instead.

Fuck , I think. Fuck.

Faced with the missing padlock I stare at the gate for what seems an eternity. What now? I’d only planned to destroy it and take the evidence to Olea. I hear her pleas, a steady buzz in my ears like the hum of a fat little carpenter bee. Promise me you won’t go without me.

Can I bring myself to betray her trust if it has the potential to save her life?

I’m through the gate before I have the time to process what I’ve done. It has only been just over a month, but the world feels different since I last felt its unperfumed air on my face. Out here the air is brown and grey, not the lush green of the garden.

I stick to the wall, trailing along past my old rooms. They belong to a different time.

A different Thora. The only thing I miss is my book, but I’ve hardly thought of it since those first days of our passionate lovemaking, when I referred to it mentally a half dozen times a day.

As I pass the building and come out the other side I say a silent prayer—never truly able to abandon my old familiar grief.

I hope the next owner of the book, if I’m not able to retrieve it, has as much love for it as me.

I go slow, treading delicately in bare feet.

My movements are sluggish but steady enough.

I keep my hands held firmly at my sides, regretting my lack of forethought.

I should have brought a cloak, or gloves—though I’m not sure Olea has any—to protect anybody who might cross my path. Until I’m ready to…

The thought slows me further. I come to a stop at the edge of the campus square, hiding from the slanting moonlight that filters through the buildings, my back to the stone.

What the hell am I doing? I’m out here dressed in nothing but a silk nightgown with no plan and no tools. Olea was right. It is a fool’s errand.

My breath comes fast, lungs aching. It doesn’t matter , whispers my starving brain. Keep going. Something will come.

I don’t know if it’s fear or madness that drives me on. Perhaps both. Perhaps neither—perhaps it is some higher power, the Death that would not take me.

Whatever drives me, I walk with purpose.

Out of the campus and down, down into the village.

A few months ago this might have taken me an hour or two, but despite my exhaustion and the hollow coldness in my bones, I make the journey in much less time.

I’m sweating, and I become aware as I walk of the scent that follows me: it is the bitter, almost chemical aroma of Olea’s Aristolochia goldieana foliage, whose flowers almost never bloom.

It is seeping from my pores like sap. Like poison.

I keep to the trees where I can, and the hedgerows where I can’t. It is perhaps two or three hours until dawn and the village is shut up tight. I pass houses on the outskirts, little more than shacks on half-acre farms, that grow into villas with tangled olive trees out front.

If I can find a house with an outback larder or, better yet, an icebox, then I can grab my fill without alerting anybody to my presence. Failing that, perhaps I could carry a lamb—or small sheep, given the season. That would tide us over, wouldn’t it…?

But now that I am here I know it wouldn’t. Olea is right about that too. Meat, vegetables, milk—they are just prolonging the inevitable. I could eat and eat and it wouldn’t fill this longing inside me. Without the antidote we will wither, just as Leonardo did at my touch.

The trees grow sparser as I sneak into the main thoroughfare.

There is an inn at the end, just past the bakery where I bought the poplinock pastries for us both.

The memory brings a fresh pang. Exhaustion ripples through me.

My legs tremble with it now, each step jerky and unwilling. I’m going to get stranded here.

I need blood. I need it. How can I get it? The lights are dim in the inn windows. Everything must be locked up tight. I wonder if there are travellers who come this way, perhaps to visit St. Elianto for conferences. Could any of them be a suitable—

A suitable what?

I don’t even know what I’m thinking. Who in their right mind would give me their blood just because I asked?

It doesn’t matter that I don’t need much, just a small vial—maybe two.

I’m not sure how long the antidote would stay good when mixed, and we’ll likely need a fresh batch next time.

If there is a next time. Next time. This thought alone is enough to send me into another spiral.

I sneak to the side of the inn, trying to peer through the windows. They are shuttered on the inside.

I won’t find anything here. Not without taking it.

The sort of person who might willingly give me a vial of blood is probably also the sort of person I do not want to be around dressed only in a silk nightgown.

I rub my hands over my arms, suddenly afraid.

The feeling is so out of place, a type of fear I have not felt in the entire time I’ve spent in the garden with Olea, that it momentarily freezes me.

I could break in, I reason. Find one of the bedrooms, break in, and—and what? Not only am I physically weak, but is that something I could do even if I wanted to? I’ve hurt animals, but that was for science. I hurt Leonardo, but that was an accident. Do I have it in me to hurt a human on purpose?

The shutters in the bedroom at the back of the inn are not closed.

I don’t remember how I got here, sandwiched between two cypress trees, their lemony tendrils scratching at my skin.

The scent is driving me—that same scent I smelled on Leonardo.

It is the salty, smoky goodness of fresh bacon.

I inhale deeply, my forehead pressed to the stone sill just below the window so they don’t see me.

There are other scents too: the honey-flour of fresh bread; the tart ripple of blackberry jam; the sweet kiss of Franco meringue… My nostrils flare and I drink it in.

Maybe I could do it without hurting them, these unknown travellers in this hillside village inn.

If I sneak into the bedroom I could perhaps use the wilting power of my touch to stun them, or to bargain, playing on their fear.

It is better than bartering with the sort of people who might expect other things in exchange; if I surprise them, then I might get the blood for the antidote before they’re even aware of the danger I pose.

It isn’t a plan so much as a desperate wish. The voice in my head goads me. Yesss , it hisses. Go, go. Hungry. Go now while they sleep. Don’t you smell their dreams?

I clamber through the open window without a second thought.

The scents from within threaten to devour me.

My mouth waters, my stomach rumbling so loudly I’m surprised the inhabitants don’t hear me.

The room is pitch dark, no moonlight filtering through the trees.

Beneath the human scents, as temptingly delicate as they are, I smell the grime of the road, dusty luggage and trap-wheel grease, spilled ale and overdone pie crusts.

It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust, my body so weak I have to blink blearily several times before the room comes into focus.

The scents guide me, pulling me in. I let my hands loose from their spots at my sides, fingers twitching, the urge to scratch and tear barely held at bay as I rub my fingertips together in circles.

I’ll just find the person who smells like meringue.

They smell sugared and kindly. I cannot say why it is, but I know they will give me their blood if I ask.

The saliva in my mouth is thick, my nostrils flaring, sucking the smell deep into my lungs.

Yes, meringue will do it. Meringue will give me what I need.

I bare my teeth, oh, sharp enough I think to do the job. If I can just—

The figure closest to me opens her eyes.

I glance frantically about the room, taking in the scene.

A bear of a man—honey-flour—and his wife—tart blackberry jam—lying side by side, both deep in their cups and snoring well.

And at their feet in a trundle bed not much smaller than our bed back in the tower is the sweet, compliant Franco meringue.

A child.