Toni. It had to be her. She was here to save the day, to take care of me. He couldn’t hide his motion down the stairs, she would hear him coming long before she would see the massive target lumbering forward with the taser. She would shoot him down before he had any chance to react.

I screamed, louder and longer than I thought I could and the gunshot came sooner than I could have hoped, the second soon after, quickly followed by the third, leaving only silence after the echo died. I listened hard, listened long, let myself relax, taking deep breaths though my nose. The last of his fresh scent had gone, leaving only the odour I tried to ignore. Was there another mixed in with the musk? Could I smell Toni, the memory of how she would taste in the forefront of my mind, the scent to which all others compare and fall short? No, I couldn’t make her out, couldn’t find her in the blankness of the palette.

Then it came. Not the smell, but the noise, I heard the hum, the motion of the masses beyond the walls. They’d followed the sound, sought the cause of the loud noise, but would stay to get at what created that glorious smell. There was movement in the house too, controlled, not frantic, the scrape of heavy furniture, at a guess. At first I pictured Toni hauling heavy cabinets across the room, moving solid wood to block the door she’d just smashed open, but why wasn’t she racing to find me? Why couldn’t I taste her on my lips? The hunger was great enough, the chasm in my belly bottomless, my need singing out for her. Maybe it wasn’t Toni after all and the nightmare was about to start over, but with a smirk, I pitied whoever else would come into the room.

I tested the bounds, pulling hard against the strain, trying to judge if I let go, let the beast inside grow at its will, could I pull free? Would I be submitting myself to the creature I wouldn’t be able to turn off when I needed?

No, I told myself. I must fight on and concentrated back on the noise. I could hear definite footsteps coming from the hallway. The steps were so light compared to what had come before, so calm and relaxed. I caught the first scent, the glorious smell, the intoxication. It was Toni standing there in the doorway; hers was the slender figure I could just make out in the last ebbs of the light through the windows, but why was she at the end of the bed not saying a word?

“Toni,” I said without question, but she didn’t respond. “Toni,” I said. “Let me out please,” I pleaded. The figure moved with a grace only confirming what I knew, but with an unhurried pace I couldn’t understand, why wasn’t she rushing to free me? Instead as she grew near, I felt her fingers on my ankle, tracing with a light touch against my skin, the electricity stronger than the taser’s punch. My nerves were on fire as her taste sparked the inside of my nose, energy coursing between my legs. I raised my hips up and down as she slowly travelled her fingers as a guide, getting closer and closer to my knickers and where I was desperate for her touch.

She raised her hand as she was about to arrive, my body aching, hips bucking to find her touch again, but she’d gone and I couldn’t make out her form, only knowing she was there in the shadow, her smell nearly solid in my mouth. The light shot on and I squeezed my eyes closed, the lamp moved toward the ceiling and I opened to see Toni looking me up and down, a playful grin on her face.

“Let me out,” I said with a stranger’s low tone to my voice.

She shook her head, the smile gone in an instant.

“I think you better stay there for a while longer,” she said, but when she didn’t raise her eyebrows, didn’t give a childish giggle, my face screwed up and I shook my head. I didn’t want her to take away my senses on fire, to take what I had, what I could feel. I bucked and I pleaded as her fist came down to my stomach, the syringe of the red liquid curled in her fingers as I snapped my teeth towards her hand.

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Reading out of sequence, here’s the rest of Season Two.

Not read Season One? Here it is.