Still fuming I speed marched my way to the smithy. It wasn’t speedy. Or much of a march. I lacked the coordination for a brisk and angry pace in this sun, especially with how drained I was. I was hungry. And tired. And hungry. And thoroughly, utterly fed up with this town’s bullshit. I needed out. I needed food. I needed both yesterday.

Instead of getting what I wanted I had to go and visit Uncle Tare. Because his wife wanted to thank me. Because this bloody place would not let me leave. Because even half-starved I was too much of a nice person to just walk away. But most of all because I had forgotten some of my medical supplies at his place.

When I got there the door of the house looked vaguely different. There was also no smithy adjacent to the building.

Right.

I cast an accusatory glare at the sun, then eyed the vague blob that was the building on the right. It felt equally as much the wrong building as this one, too far from the water. I was still convinced it was on this side of the street. That meant my destination had to be the dwelling on the left.

I tasted the air to confirm my suspicion. The stink of sickness came from the left. I set out once more. Still being mostly blind in this sunlight, I could not tell how many people had seen my mishap. In case someone had, I mentally willed them to move along and ignore what they just saw.

Nothing to see here. Vale is not blind.

Gery and Meg see this?

Please, please, please, let them have closed their door already…

At least the quality of the light was slowly changing, indicating we were getting much closer to sunset. Night couldn’t come soon enough. Days were miserable enough when I was well fed.

Still worrying and overthinking in the sun.

At least some things never change.

The house on the left turned out to be the correct one. I knocked. A gust of dried leaves preceded the appearance of Uncle Tare’s wife at the door. She held a bowl containing some kind of food sludge in hand. My hunger stirred once more.

Food. Everywhere.

They doing this on purpose?

I eyed the vague location of her neck. Face. Chewed my lips in a desperate attempt at distraction. The Pickles-woman burst out in a stream of gibberish that was probably understandable as words if only I could get her to slow down. The blubbery happiness in her tone, and her wild gesturing from me to the inside of her home, made it comprehensible anyway.

In between the overly excited avalanche of words I also caught at least three instances of Child. I ignored them. Complaining would only make this take even longer.

“Yes, I came to check up on your husband,” I blurted out the first chance I got.

And my gear. Only my gear.

She rushed inside, deposited her bowl on their little table, rushed back out, and almost forcibly pulled me inside by my hands. I extricated myself from her grip much sooner than was probably socially acceptable, but my hands were mine, and I was sick of everyone claiming them for themselves.

So should start claiming people’s necks, see what that does?

I viciously chewed my lip. That thought was the hunger talking and I was absolutely at the end of my tether. I needed more than nervous chewing to take my mind off food. In an attempt at distracting myself, I tried to recall the woman’s name. I was certain I had heard it somewhere, but now all I could come up with was that her blood probably tasted like pickled dried leaves.

Right. Distraction failed.

I chewed even harder, was ushered into the bedroom under more muttered banalities, and was forcefully deposited next to the bed. The man in it was, maybe not exactly conscious, but at least awake. He looked leagues better than how I had found him last night, so much healthier, more appetizing.

I scrunched up my face, trying to keep my thoughts on track, trying to reclaim at least a fragment of my attention. I needed that sliver of focus to check up on the man, so that I could pretend to compare his current state with how I’d left him in the morning. Yes, pretend to compare. Doing more than pretending was pointless as I had been far too out of it this morning to trust my recollections of back then.

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And more than anything, I needed to focus on locating my medical supplies. My eyes roved over every little nook and cranny. Eventually, I spotted the bag on the ground, near a corner of the bed. I collected it and then the wife looked at me expectantly.

My gaze drifted from her neck to her hands. She had fetched the bowl and was attempting to feed the slop to her husband, one spoonful at a time. I swallowed. It was the hunger, nothing more than the hunger. It made me focus on every single food-related thing in my surroundings. There was no giant food conspiracy. It was only the hunger.

“He’s better right?” the wife asked me. “He’s fine now?”

There was such expectation in her eyes, as if there was only one answer that could be given to her questions. I wanted to hurl insults at her, tell her that this was not how it worked, that humans were fragile and that he could die at any minute.

“He is fine,” I told her while casting a glance at the exit. He could develop a secondary infection, there could have been something we missed while treating him, or there might have been something we did wrong that would only manifest later tonight or tomorrow. He could look fine now and be dead the next instant, but I told her he was fine without even looking.

She blinked at me in confusion.

Glossing over this too fast?

Making it too apparent that I want out?

“Let me do a quick check,” I relented. Reya probably fussed all over her patients yet I had barely spared the man a glance.

I moved over to the other side of the bed and crouched down, put a hand on the man’s chest in a show of theatrics, and closed my eyes to focus my senses. His breathing was steady, heartbeat strong and stable, the oily feel of his blood was less murky, warmer, so much more edible.

Down. Down. Down.

Not food.

I bit a hole in my lip and drank greedily. Warm, sweet nectar slid down my throat. It was only a placebo, Metzus blood no replacement for Atlus. I knew that. Regardless, it was preventing me from sinking my fangs into something I would later regret.

I opened my eyes and tried to keep the hunger from showing on my face. “Fine. He is fine,” I breathed, eyeing his neck.

Feel free to think I magicked that or something.

So much hunger. Need to leave.

Can’t keep this up much longer.

“He is perfectly fine.” I patted the man’s arm and got up. “I will let Reya check up on the bandages. That is more her thing.”

Uncle Tare tried to focus his eyes on me, moved his lips as if to say something. I didn’t wait for it, wrenched my eyes away from his artery.

Need to leave. Leave. Leave!

The wife let me out under more muttered banalities, a “Could you please come and check again in the morning?” and a lot of “Oh thank you so very much!”

Yes, yes, yes, I lied. I’d check up on him as much as you’d like. I’d tell you every lie you wanted to hear. Just let me leave this accursed town behind for good. Then I was finally out the door. I was free to leave.

The sun wasn’t entirely gone yet, slowly searing me alive as it always did. The Pickled-dried-leaves had not yet closed the door behind me either. Instead, she was looking to the left, from where a spicy, zesty, lightly peppered meal was coming our way.

“You okay if I borrow Vale for a bit, Suri?” the approaching Pepper-blood not quite asked the wife. “I’ll come and take a look right after.”

Right. Of course. Of course they’re not done with me.

Reya tasted like a strange mix of worry, and pity, and anger, and all-out meddlesome interruption. With great reluctance, I forced my rising temper down. It wasn’t their fault. They weren’t deliberately doing this to spite me. They were worried. That was it. Worried. With this new outfit all they saw was a lonely, weak, and vulnerable little girl in need of protection.

Everything I’d done for them before was irrelevant because now the immediate threat was gone and so all they saw was a little, eleven year old girl, pretending to be an adult. It didn’t matter that I was 24. It no longer mattered what I did or how hard I tried. Somehow they’d even forgotten they’d accused me of being a vampire just yesterday night. I was always and forever the cute little girl.

“No, you may not borrow me,” I hissed at Reya as I lurched past her on the way to my horse. I didn’t care if the wife heard. I didn’t care if anyone heard. I was leaving.

“Haha, small misunderstanding. Be right back,” Reya grinned at Suri in an overly chipper tone. I had my back turned to her, yet with her fake cheer, I could easily picture her smiling and waving at the wife.

Nothing good could come from a bubbly Reya. Desperate to get away, I hurried. I was already on my horse by the time she joined up with me. Ignoring her, I directed Fern towards the treeline. It was near dusk so she wouldn’t follow me in there, I hoped. I pushed my horse to a short gallop so I’d get to the trees faster, and so that she wouldn’t be able to keep up.

Reya speed-walked after me, right into the forest anyway. “I thought we were going to have a chat before you left, Vale?” she shouted at my back.

I never agreed to that.

She kept following me, would not give up. I was, however, gaining distance from her. I would be out of sight and earshot soon, and then she wouldn’t be able to follow any longer.

And then she’d be alone in a dark forest, at dusk, last seen with the vampire.

Same as with Gery last night.

No matter how much I tried to tell myself that was her problem, not mine, it did not stick. The chance of something happening to her out here was ridiculously small. But if something did happen, then I’d be blamed for it. People knowing about me brought so many problems I hadn’t even expected. It was driving me almost as mad as the hunger.

“Are you running away, Vale?” I could still hear the teasing in her now far-off voice.

She know the kind of game she’s playing?

Her tone now, and even her tone yesterday when she told me were going to have a talk, hinted to me that maybe she did know. It suggested that her following me into a dark forest at dusk, all alone, might be a deliberate, premeditated act. If that were true, then maybe this woman was more dangerous to me than Limn or Onar.

I couldn’t allow for that kind of unknown, so I held in the reins, allowed her to catch up.