No Dogs Allowed

Beware of Feasts, For They Make Hunger

(ty for your time, it's much appreciated :) the little star is happy to see you)

(EDITED) (Note to readers: Some chapters ahead may not be in line with the new edits.)

[WARNING:

The following chapter contains brief scenes of gore. If this topic disturbs you, please refrain from reading further. Reader discretion advised.]

The last time I ate meat was at fifteen, in a Subway three miles out of Ninth Unit.

Ninth Unit was a city crawling with fae who didn't want to be found, either by family or feds. It was in the upper sanctum of California, right under the nose of San Francisco, called by Mercy "more ostentatious than Gatsby but more cryptic than Dickinson". It meant it had a lot to show, because it had a lot to hide.

I was shoved into a booth with a cup of water and a bed of napkins, my jacket tied around my shin. I was bleeding out just a bit on my shoulder where werewolf claws had dug too deep. (Fucking werewolves. Them and bloodsuckers could take a damn hike. Off a cliff. In Hell.) D had told me a sandwich ought to take my mind off it, and Mercy told me to get a grip. I couldn't grip shit. All the blood made my fingers slick.

When JJ returned with our sandwiches, he pushed one to me. I said, "I didn't order."

"Eat up, Ghost," Mercy urged, unwrapping hers. "You need the energy."

I sighed. I took the sandwich and unwrapped it.

"Meatball sub," she said. "Act like a real lycan for once, won't you?"

I peeled away the paper, which was damp with red. The scent that flew into me wasn't salt and herbs, but metal. I furrowed my brow. I figured it must've been the blood on my hands, on my shoulder, on all of our open wounds. I figured I was hallucinating.

I took a meatball off to peer closer at it. My nails tore it open. My nose couldn't shake the iron smell, the rotted air. I said, "What's this?"

"Don't you listen, Ghostie?" Mercy said. "I just told you."

My stomach churned. "What?"

"What's wrong?" she asked, and when I looked at her, a malicious, silver-toothed smile looked back. "You, of all people, should know."

I stared at the red meat, the granules and chunks.

I shoved the sandwich away so fast it that it fell off the table, collapsing in a sickening red splatter on the tile. I bolted for the bathroom, and yanked the faucet on so fast I nearly tore the handle off. The water splashed over my face, hands, arms, shoulders, I couldn't even care for the tap water taste in my mouth and the shiver it sent down my spine. Every cut burned as I scrubbed furiously at my skin as if to take it off my bones. Bone and flesh. Sinew and blood. My stomach roiled, and would've upheaved itself if there was anything in it to vomit.

When Mercy found me, she handed me a towel, and a knowing smile. "You're so dramatic, Ghost," she whispered. "It was only a little joke."

It was an indefinite haunting. Nia had tried to share a bowl of rice and braised beef with me after the incident, and I'd blacked out after a whiff of the stuff. Pastrami made me physically ill, and ground beef was enough to make me collapse, and salmon had me catching my breath. Sausage or kielbasa stripped me of my appetite. I'd suffered the consequences of it by foregoing a good deal of muscle and undergoing the occasional dizzy spell, but it was a hell of a lot better than the alternative.