The hunger transcended craving. It became a creature.

  It took up residence in the hollow space behind Frankie’s ribs, a breathing parasite with claws and teeth. The constant, gnawing agony, a physical pain in her stomach, and a screaming void in her mind overshadowed everything else.

  The incident with the homeless woman terrified her into self-imposed house arrest. Too dangerous to go outside. But inside, the hunger devoured her from within. Food still presented a repulsive concept. The thought of chewing, of swallowing solid matter, made her stomach roil. Water proved useless, a tasteless fluid that did nothing to quench the fire in her throat.

  Her body, starved of whatever it now needed to survive, broke down.

  Her movements grew slow and weak. A walk from her bedroom to the bathroom left her breathless, her limbs heavy and uncooperative. The vibrant, athletic girl who lived for the waves wasted away, replaced by a pale, shaking wraith who could barely sit up in bed. The monster inside her ate her alive.

  Ted could no longer stand it.

  He sat by her bedside, a grim, helpless sentinel, his face a mask of anguish. The Frankie he knew, the vibrant, laughing girl, the unshakable center of his world, faded away. She existed as a flickering candle, its flame about to go out.

  Dr. Harris’s words about “panic attacks” rang as a bitter, useless joke. This signified starvation, not anxiety.

  On the second day of his vigil, as he watched Frankie struggle just to lift her head from the pillow, something inside him snapped. His logic, his morality, his deep-seated instinct to follow the rules—it all shattered under the weight of his desperate, reckless loyalty.

  He could not fix her. He could not cure her. But he would not let her die.

  He made a choice.

  That night, he waited for the soft click of his mother’s bedroom door closing for the night. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic, guilty drumbeat. He crept into the kitchen, his movements silent and furtive. His mother’s purse sat on the counter. He reached inside, his fingers closing around the cool plastic of her keycard for the clinic.

  The act registered as a profound violation, a desecration. He betrayed his mother’s trust, stole from her, using the tools of her healing profession for something dark and twisted. But the image of Frankie’s pale, wasting face burned into his mind, eclipsing everything else.

  He slipped out of the house and into the night. The Norchester clinic stood dark and silent, a sleeping beast. The keycard in his hand felt heavy, like a stolen soul. He swiped it at the back entrance. The lock clicked open with a sound of deafening volume in the quiet street.

  He entered.

  Sterile and silent hallways greeted him, lit only by the faint, greenish glow of the emergency exit signs. The faint, medicinal scent of antiseptic stung his nostrils, a smell that clung to the recycled air. Every footstep echoed, bouncing off the polished linoleum floors and high ceilings. Every shadow leaped and twisted, thrown by the flickering fluorescent lights above. His breathing became a ragged roar in his ears, punctuated only by the distant, rhythmic beep of a life-support machine.

  He knew his destination. He had helped his mom restock the supply closets a dozen times. He navigated the silent, sleeping clinic like a ghost, his mind a whirlwind of guilt and purpose.

  He reached the refrigerated storage unit. His hand trembled as he swiped the card again. The heavy door hissed open, releasing a cloud of cold air that smelled of antiseptic and chilled plastic.

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  He found his quarry in a small, secure refrigerator labeled Universal Donor.

  Blood bags.

  They hung in neat rows, full of the dark, precious, life-giving fluid. He gazed at them, his stomach churning. A doctor’s son. He knew this fluid. For transfusions. For car crash victims. For saving lives.

  And he prepared to steal it. For what? To feed a monster?

  He almost turned back. The good, logical, rule-following part of his brain screamed at him to stop, to go home, to admit defeat.

  But then Frankie’s face returned to him. Weak. Dying.

  He reached in and took one. A bag of O-negative. Cold in his hand, the plastic slick and pliant, the dark liquid inside shifting with a sickening weight.

  He shoved it into his backpack and fled, a desecrater leaving a holy place, the guilt a cold, hard stone in his gut.

  He brought the blood to Frankie’s room. She huddled under her blankets, a pale, shivering ghost in the moonlight filtering through her window.

  The moment he stepped into the room, her head snapped up. Her eyes, wide and dark in the dim light, locked on his backpack.

  She smelled it.

  Even through the backpack, even through the thick plastic of the bag itself, the scent reached her.

  The scent meant life. Salvation. Everything. The creature inside her, the hungry, dying parasite, roared to life.

  “Ted?” she whispered, her voice a dry rasp. “What is that?”

  He offered no answer. He slowly unzipped his backpack and pulled out the blood bag. He held it up. It glistened in the moonlight, a dark, terrible jewel.

  Frankie’s gaze fixed upon it. No hesitation. No revulsion. The human part of her that might have screamed in horror lay buried, silenced by the overwhelming, all-powerful need.

  Her shame, her fear, her guilt—all of it washed away in the tidal wave of hunger.

  She scrambled out of bed, her movements no longer weak but fueled by a sudden, desperate strength. She snatched the bag from his hand, her fingers clumsy, tearing at the thick plastic port at the top.

  With a low, guttural, and not entirely human growl, she ripped it open with her teeth.

  And she drank.

  Not a pleasant experience. Not a refined sip. A desperate, animalistic rush to quell an agonizing need. She tilted her head back, squeezing the bag, gulping down the warm, metallic fluid like a starving wolf.

  The effect came instantly.

  A surge of pure, raw energy flooded her body, like pouring gasoline on a dying fire. The weakness vanished, replaced by strength. A vibrant warmth chased away the cold. The world, a dull, grey, painful blur moments before, snapped back into sharp, vivid focus. The pain in her head, the ache in her bones—all gone.

  The relief felt euphoric, a blinding, all-consuming rush that surged through every vein, every nerve ending. It was the most incredible sensation she had ever known, a perfect symphony of sensation. Colors exploded with an impossible vibrancy, each hue a living entity. Sounds sharpened, the faintest rustle of leaves, the distant thrum of traffic, each note a distinct melody in the grand orchestra of the world. It was as if she had been living in a dull, muted dream, and now, finally, she was truly awake, truly alive. This was power, this was transcendence, this was…everything.

  For a moment.

  Then, as the last of the liquid drained from the bag, a crushing, ice-cold wave of shame doused the euphoria.

  She looked at the empty, crumpled plastic bag in her trembling hands. At the dark red drops clinging to her lips.

  She had just drunk human blood.

  No longer just a victim of a curse. A willing participant. A feeder. A monster.

  A single, hot tear of pure self-loathing traced a path through the blood smeared on her cheek. She looked up at Ted, expecting disgust, fear.

  But his expression registered as worse.

  He returned her gaze with an expression of profound, soul-deep pity. He saw not a monster. He saw his best friend, and his heart broke.

  In that moment of shared, silent horror, his phone buzzed.

  He pulled it from his pocket, his movements stiff and robotic. He glanced at the screen. The color drained from his face.

  He held the phone out for Frankie to see.

  A text from his mom.

  Ted, have you seen my clinic keys? Also, weirdest thing, we’re missing a unit of blood from inventory. Any idea?