THIRTY-TWO | BLOODLUST

"See, I never understood why she didn't just hook up with the guy before the last ten minutes of the movie." Darine mumbles around mouthful of popcorn, eyes glues to the screen where the two main characters are finally professing their love to each other. I smirk.

"Suspense." I deadpan. "Drama. It keeps the audience interested for the other hour..." I pull some of the ropey candies from the packaging, gnawing on the end. They're unexpectedly good for regular candy. Both sweet and sour and chewy. I'm just relieved we've made it through the week without any incidents.

I managed to get through the last few days without a single weird thing happening. I'm starting to get used to the normalcy that's become my life. The routine is boring, but a good kind of boring. Even the cold has stopped increasing. I haven't tried shifting since last week and the vampiric change hasn't over shadowed me since either. The weird jumpy time thing hasn't been bothering me much either. All of which is cause for celebration in my book.

"Seriously, though," Darine sighs and tears her gaze away from the tv. We're in her room, dressed in our respective pajamas, lounging on the sofa in the corner of the room. For a bedroom, this place is really big. As large as the kitchen combined with my own room in my current home, simply furnished in matching white furniture, walls peppered with posters. It's the kind of room you see in movies of normal teenage humans. "That guy is *hot*, and if I were in her shoes..." She sighs dreamily and returns her gaze to the screen.

"And Yuri's *not* hot?" I decide to have a little fun at her expense. Darine's shoulders stiffen, though she doesn't look at me. "You can't tell me you don't like him." I add when she doesn't immediately reply.

"I like him...as a friend." She says slowly, reaching for the bowl of popcorn again. She's still avoiding my eyes, looking from the movie to the popcorn bowl and back.

"Bullshit." I smirk, kicking my feet at the air. Darine's eyes snap over to my face, her mouth agape, face the picture of innocence.

"I-I do." She splutters and I lean over, pulling a handful of popcorn into my mouth, chewing with my smirk still in place. "I-I mean, he's nice and all but-"

"But not your kind of nice?" I ask, waggling my eyebrows at her. She pulls throw pillow to her chest, scrunching her knees up as she squeezes the pillow to her tightly, instantly becoming more thoughtful.

"No...not really. I like nice guys. Like Trevor. Sweet. Dependable-"

"Boring." I supply, swallowing my food. Her face turns bright red, eyes darting down to the pillow.

"Trevor isn't boring!" Her voice goes up an octave, giving her away.

"He is compared to Yuri." I murmur in a sing-song tone.

"Yuri is-is," She swallows, tightening her hold around the pillow, chewing her bottom lip as she searches for the words.

"A flirt." I try to supply, not sure how else to best describe the mountain-man.

"No." She mutters, frowning a little. "At least not with me." She sounds disappointed. "I dunno, he just doesn't seem to like me that way." The rosy hue has faded from her skin and she just looks a sad now.

"Have you tried to ask?" I hedge slowly, wondering how she could not know. From where I stand, the two seem more than just a casual acquaintance, more than friends, but... I mean it's not like I've ever seen Yuri flirt with her, so there's that, now that I think about it. And Yuri seems to flirt rather openly from what I've seen. Huh.

"Ask? Are you insane?" Darine rolls her eyes, uncurling and chucking the pillow in my direction. I bat the thing away without any issue, my reflexes slightly more lagged than they were a month ago, but fast enough that the fluffy rectangle never touches my face. "I'm not..."

"Confrontational?" I supply, arching an eyebrow at my friend. Darine nods, bottom lip stuck out slightly in a disgruntled pout.

"How did you and Zane-?"

"He's confrontational." I smirk dryly, cutting her off from naming mine and Blue's relationship. A little wave of discomfort gnaws at my chest at the thought of how distant Blue's been lately. I've been trying to ignore it, really, I have, but I see him every day. It hasn't been easy to put him out of my head. "He's direct."

"Hey, it's gonna be okay," Darine reaches over and squeezes my hand comfortingly. "Whatever's going on with him will pass and you two will be back to your usual married-couple-banter routine-"

"We do not-" I object, feeling heat race to my cheeks. I shake off her hand and she laughs.

"Mhm." Darine gives me a knowing smile and turns back to the last few minutes of the movie. I sigh and grumble to myself before reaching for another handful of popcorn. In the back f my mind, I really hope she's right. We spend the rest of the night fully focused on the next few movies, genres ranging from trashy romance to horrific horror to amazing action, laughing and screaming until the sun comes up.

As far as normality goes, I wouldn't mind a life where I can have a friend like Darine to emotionally lean on.

- - -

I'm getting used to working at Lia's. There's a kind of grounding feeling I get when I'm around other supernaturals I've never noticed before. A sense of community even though I'm not part of their Pack. By now, a few regulars like Grandma Sophie have learned my name and ask about my day when they come in. I've never really had that before. That level of care from others.

The dependable routine is nice too. Mom and I work together on weekends, Alpha Azure dropping from time to time to make sure we're not overwhelmed, then taking over around eight at night. The pay is good too. A steady income at the end of the week comes into my account. It's not a lot, but I feel a sense of pride from earning the money when I see it on the printout I get from the ATM.

Hale's made it a point to come by for dinner most nights, helping Mom prepare the food while I finish whatever homework I have. Their happy voices float in through the open door, and if I sit on the edge of my cot, I can secretly watch the two interact.

And don't get me wrong, I love seeing Mom so happy and relaxed, but something keeps gnawing at me when I watch them. The vision that's supposed to be coming to pass. The one where my father dies by my cousin's hand. If the visions are following chronological order like Blue and I think they are, that one's next.

I chew the inside of my cheek, casting a glance over to where Mom and Hale are chatting in the kitchen. *He's going to die*. I'm not sure how that makes me feel. On one hand, any death, to me, is a tragedy, related to me or not. On the other, he is my biological father. The man my mother loved. A man who's been silently protecting me my whole life - whether I realized it or not. But he's also a blood-sucker. A monster. Like me. A part of me.

There's a spike that threatens to pierce my heart when I relive that moment of the vision. Hale's neck being snapped, Craven grinning behind him... And my father never getting back up. I rub absently at the odd pain in my chest, a little concerned that I can feel remorse towards this man I barely know. But it's there. Maybe it's the lingering emotions from my childhood memories that stir this kind of familial bond towards him.

*Not all visions are set in stone*. Mom's words float back through my mind from that one conversation we'd had when I first told her about the visions.

Maybe I should tell them about the visions, warn them. But how would that help? Wouldn't they just be anxious? It's not like I know when it's going to happen.

My mind starts going to the edges of the vision, ignoring the main parts and trying to recall the details about when it was. How the air felt. What time of the day. Where we were. The area in the vision isn't familiar to me. We were outside, in an urban area, but not in town. Not any place I've been - yet. My head starts hurting with all the thinking I'm doing - the trying to piece everything together.

And even then...I don't recall any sensation of the air on my skin. Thinking back, all I remember is a sort of nothingness. A shiver runs down my spine as I link what's been happening to that. It's going to be soon then. Maybe a week if we're lucky. I massage my temples, closing my eyes.

If Blue and I were on speaking terms, I'd ask him about the place. He's the only one who may know where we were in the vision. I find it rather ironic how we've gotten to this point. I grimace, not liking the wave of mixed emotions that surges up in me. *Ugh*. I need to clear my head.

"I'm going to take a walk," I tell my parents, ducking out the back door before either can protest. My breath puffs out in thick clouds of white, the only way I know it should be cold out here. But since I can't distinguish between the now normal chill inside, I decide it doesn't really matter right now. So I jog away from the lights of the house, staying in human form. Lately, it's become even more difficult to shift.

My senses have started becoming heightened, but not in the same way they are when I'm in Wolven form. It's different. Sharper, more like a sensory overload at times. I notice too many things at once, and it's really starting to grate on my nerves. And don't even get me started on that itching under my gums. I feel like a teething pup. Really, it's enough to drive anyone insane.

Without warning, the red curtain falls over my vision. I stop dead, surprised at the sudden shift in my vision. Like a switch being thrown. One second I'm just jogging along and the next everything's just a mass of different shades of red. I shake my head, then freeze, taking in other senses. Like that insistent itching. It's gone.

Not dulled. Not intermittent. But gone. I reach up, my fingers moving with an odd sort of grace up to my face. The fluidity shocks me. I'm not graceful by any means. I'm more likely to trip over my own feet than dance in any sort of proper fashion. But the movement isn't like a dancer's grace. It's more like the way a feral cat moves, silent, deadly.

My fingers graze over my lips, feeling the twin points just dimpling my bottom lip. I know I should be disgusted by them, those vampire fangs, but all I feel is calm. Relaxed, yet, not. There's a nimbleness and energy I can feel humming inside me. And then, I breathe.

Without even realizing it, I had been holding my breath, not feeling any need to drag in oxygen.

But when I breathe, the peace is broken. My lungs are suddenly aflame, throat and teeth feeling like they're about to be torn from my body. *Thu-thump*. The sound is a catalyst for more heat. *Th-thump. Th-thump*. Some part of me knows I should try to run away from the noise that seems to be getting closer by the second, but my limbs move without my permission. Towards the beat. *Th-thump-th-thump-th-thump*.

The wilderness blurs around me until I'm no longer in the woods, but in some sort of industrialized area. When I pause, the thumping beats are louder, pounding their steady cadence against my eardrums. I grit my teeth, baring them without meaning to as the deafening sound continues. I have the sudden urge to stop it.

Moving on autopilot, my body becomes more fluid, pressing into the shadows of large buildings as the sun sinks. The red all around me seems to grow even brighter, casting glows where I know none should exist. With each breath I take, the pain within becomes worse.

It's all just too much. I know I need to stop it. And something in me knows exactly how.

The beats in my head grow louder as I reach a parking lot between two of the large metal buildings. A man is shuffling over to a singular car, arguing on his phone with someone. I can hear the conversation clearly, but the words flow in one ear and out the other. I don't care about what they're talking about, not the words they exchange or the angry tones they're taking. All I care about is that drumming from the man's body. A sound emanating from his chest.

Angry veins stand out on his neck, pulsing invitingly. My already watering mouth aches all more fiercely as I get closer, abandoning the shadows for a more direct approach as time seems to slow. Rolling to an almost complete stop, I pause beside the now silent man, his heart nearly silent-

*What the hell am I doing?*

The moment the siren-song of the human's heart is gone, common sense crashes down on me, shoving the bloody filter from my eyes just as I leer over the man from behind. I scurry back, my feet nearly tripping over themselves as the icy cold I've been experiencing drenches me to the bone. The man whirls around, squinting in the darkness. I hold my breath, relieved it's so dark that any human wouldn't be able to see five feet in front of them.

I run from the human, trying to get as far from him as possible - from him and the temptation for something that sickens me. Each breath I drag in now is clean, driving the cold in deeper, sure, but I'm grateful for it all the same. My head's clearer when I finally stop, gaspin in deep lungfuls of salty, icy air. My huffing breaths my only company.

Vollying waves of disgust, anger, and nausea roll through me violently, my near-loss of control slamming into me like blows in between earth-shattering guilt. I know what I would have done - what I was literally a heartbeat away from doing to that man.

I was going to kill him, drink his blood, rip out his heart.

It plays in my mind like an old black and white film - only it's in disgusting shades of red. Frank. Cold. Calculating. They're clear instructions, a plan I hadn't been aware of at the time, but unfolding before me now that I've gained some control.

First, I'd have grabbed his throat, gripped just hard enough to keep him still until I could burry my fangs into those jumping veins. The overwhelming nectar would fill my mouth, gushing like a geyser and quenching the ache and burn within. Then, I'd launch the other hand through his chest, capturing the beating thing there and destroying it. He would have no use for it then. I'd rip out once I'd drained every drop from his veins, squeeze the remining juice from the muscle-

I collapse, falling to my knees and only just able to catch myself from face planting into the cement as my body heaves. Nothing comes up but bile as my stomach rolls. A mix of dry-heaving and shaking sobs take their turn assaulting me as the bloody movie plays over and over in my head - faster and faster- I scream.