Page 41 of Primal Hunger
“What’s the matter?” she asks in an undertone.
Space. I need space.
To consider the options and figure out what the hell I’m actually doing. One small decision and it has the capacity to change my entire future, and hers.
I can try to hunt for scraps of food to soothe my hunger pains just enough to get by and clear my head before I do something rash.
Surely she wouldn’t run. She has nowhere to go, no way out of this hell. There’s no way back to Earth until the next solstice, if she survives that long, but she already knows that.
Staying here is her only chance of survival.
“Stay here,” I demand, turning toward the door and stomping heavily across the hard floor. “Do not go outside unless you wish to enjoy a painful, slow death. I’ll be back.”
If she decides to disobey, so be it. That will make the decision for me.
I’ll devour her and enjoy every second of it, if something else doesn’t catch her first.
At least that way, I won’t have to deal with this insufferable sense of doubt. The questioning, wondering about the possibilities that have no right taking up residence in my mind.
With a final look back over my shoulder, I whip the curtain aside and step out, finally able to breathe normally again. On edge, my skin goes tight and the rest of me is hot and tense.
This human has turned me inside out and it began before she ever told me her name. Or used mine in return.
I follow a thin pathway leading away from the door before wading through the waist-high stream that disappears into the forest, my mind troubled with conflicting thoughts.
This isn’t going to end well for either of us, but I refuse to be the one that suffers most. I’ll return once I’ve taken the edge off my biting hunger with whatever measly scraps of food I’m able to find. Maybe by then I’ll be able to clear my head.
Then, I’ll be able to decide just how this mortal will live.
That is, if I let her live at all, when the prudent thing would be to end her and be done.
Chapter
Fifteen
Erin
Syros takes off on me.
One minute he’s moving his feet, again with a strange grace I wouldn’t have thought possible with his frame and height. And the next, he’s threatening me and taking off like he’s got an even worse nightmare poised to strike him down.
What did I do wrong?
Maybe it isn’t me, but something came over him when he looked at me.
The urge to run out the door and not look back is intense, consuming my entire body until I’m bouncing on the balls of myfeet. The song on the radio changes to something upbeat with a booming base, like a theme for my escape.
It urges me to take the chance because the risk may be worth the reward of freedom.
As much as I want to learn about Syros, my survival takes precedence.
I can’t write for my blog if I’m trapped.
Running would be so easy right now, especially considering there’s no locked door, only a thick curtain separating me from the outside world. No matter what kind of horrors exist in the abyss outside, I’d be able to put as much space between me and this house as possible.
The cost?
Higher than anything I’ve experienced in my life.
