The rabbit's stomping sent a rhythm through the earth that painted a picture inside my head clear, immediate, as if someone had switched on a lantern in the dark. Each thud sketched out its surroundings: a tangle of roots, a low scrub of ferns, the slick sheen of damp leaves. When the stomping stopped, the lantern blinked out; the image evaporated. The rabbit had stopped.
A crazy idea flickered across my mind then. If a rabbit's stomp could build a picture in me, what else could I make appear? That thought curled away to be gnawed on later. For now, I needed the rabbit.
I had to force Vamp Speed to work. It took five tries this time, an improvement over the countless fumblings of my first attempts, though I couldn't have told you how many times I'd failed before. When it finally clicked, I moved like a shadow stitched to the wind: jumping roots, veering around low branches, occasionally crashing through a brittle branch because finesse still lagged behind speed. To a human eye I would have been nothing but a black blur.
Every so often I had to stop, breathe, and call the image back into focus. The stomps returned, the scene rebuilt in my head, and I could pinpoint the rabbit's location. Closing the distance was easy. When I was close enough, I let my feet whisper across the leaf litter to avoid sound, landed behind the creature, and seized it before it could bolt. It scrambled, claws frantically raking my palms, but my grip was iron. I felt a tug of pity for the small animal, but I had no illusions this was necessary. This would be my first conscious feeding.
I promised mercy. I snapped its neck cleanly; it was over in an instant. No suffering. Holding the limp body, a terrible certainty slid into me: there was no going back after this. The spiral had already begun. My mouth parted and, like an animal answering its own nature, my fangs pricked free an itchy, inevitable pain. I pressed them to the rabbit's furry neck.
The fur was unpleasant in my mouth, coarse and foreign, but then the first warm rush hit my tongue and everything else peeled away. Ecstasy wiped my thoughts clean. It felt as if I'd been drinking mud my whole life and had finally tasted water. The sweetness crashed through me, expansive and unreal. I kept drinking until there was nothing left to take.
Holding the dead creature, the truth landed: now I understood why vampires were called monsters. Even in the afterglow of that sweetness a ridiculous thought nudged me and made me laugh. Why don't vampires get diabetes? It was absurd, but it was honest.
If animal blood felt like this, what would human blood be like? Higher sweetness? A different shade entirely? My mind darted between curiosity and alarm. The taste had opened a door I might never close. A headache thrummed behind my eyes from the rush of possibilities and the weight of what I would have to do to survive in the future.
I decided against using Vamp Speed to return to the jeep. Better to trudge back and give myself time to think, to feel the forest settle around me. Walking through the dark undergrowth, my confidence sagged under a thin veneer of unease. The crickets fell suspiciously quiet. A sour, unfamiliar scent hung in the air. Someone was here, and they were not me. The presence pricked at my skin; I felt hunted. Anger rose, hot and animal. I readied myself to sprint.
As I coiled to run, the bushes to my right snapped and a white blur launched itself at me. It tore me off my feet and pinned me to the earth, jaws snapping for my head. I shoved both hands between its teeth, feeling the battering force as it tried to clamp down. Its claws dug into my sides; pain flared. I couldn't hold the position forever. With vampire strength framing my decisions, I clamped one hand under its jaw to keep it open and slammed my other fist into the side of its skull. It reeled, claws shredding skin as it scrambled free.
We sprang to our feet. We faced each other like two predators assessing a wound. My eyes burned red; its were a startling, animal green. The wolf was enormous, the largest I'd ever seen and a memory the other vampire had offered floated up: there were other races. Werewolves. I had barely been a vampire for days and already the world was unspooling into new, dangerous threads. My luck had to be cursed.
The wolf circled, muscles rolling beneath its fur, searching for an opening. Without warning it lunged for my throat. I dove aside, the air closing where my skin had been a heartbeat before. It crashed down and snapped at me again. I intercepted its next strike with a frustrated punch to the side of its head. The hit sounded wrong, like striking a tree; the wolf staggered, shook its head to clear the stars.
"We don't have to fight," I said, hands raised in a placating gesture, trying to buy time so I could vamp away. It only growled a low, unamused sound and charged.
There was no choice. Either I fought or I died. Its speed was terrifying; I couldn't rely on Vamp Speed to bail me out every time, not when it sometimes refused to engage. I launched myself at it, catching it midair and tackling it to the ground. It lashed out with claws that carved air and then flesh; a paw slammed into my side and hurled me through a tangle of ferns. Pain flared, then dulled under adrenaline. A powerful jaw closed on my ankle and hauled me airborne, slamming me down into the thicket. I groaned, every limb protesting.
As it lunged again, I rolled aside, and the movement bought me a sliver of advantage. I struck its head, forcing it to retreat. My blows landed, and I felt each one bite into dense muscle but they were not enough. If this thing kept coming, I would need more than hands. I needed a weapon.
Breathing hard, tasting iron and leaf and the lingering sweetness of the rabbit, I squared my shoulders. The wolf advanced, eyes never leaving my face. The forest held its breath around us, leaves trembling. In that charged silence I understood the shape my life was taking: bruised, hungry, and dangerously awake.
I backed slowly, circling to keep distance, fists raised, every nerve taut. The fight was far from over.