Feeding Time

Chapter Twenty

"Do you ever get tired of killing and feeding?", my mother asks me, watching me drink. "The guilt?"
I swallow and answer quietly, "I don't have a choice. It doesn't matter how it makes me feel, as long as I dont lose control of my body."
"That happens?"
I nod. "If I go too long without, you know." I gesture to the body behind me. "That's how Jake controlled me, giving me just enough so that I'd want more, so I'd do as he said to get more peace in my mind."
"Then I guess I need to work harder to find a medication, huh", she says, forcing a smile. "Then you won't have to."
"It doesn't matter", I say quietly. "Sooner or later, I will be found and put back in the asylum. They'll cage me up like an animal and never let me out."
"Morona was a serial killer", Samantha points out. "She had free range, right?"
"She killed eighteen before being caught. I've killed, what twenty seven? They could put me on death row!"
"Its against the law to put down a mentally ill individual", my mother tells me, taking my hand to squeeze my fingers. "You have nothing to worry about there, Theresa. I'll back you up."
"How? You've been considered dead for eleven years and suddenly your back, telling people about how your husband faked your death and held you captive and then next thing you know, you're forced to watch your insane daughter kill an innocent man? Nobody will call for that. The only thing I can do is accept my fate when it comes."
She remains silent as I let out my breath, slowly drinking some more of the blood, shuddering as the scarlet liquid goes down my throat.
"I'll see you later", I mutter finally. "I need some time to think."
I cap the thermos, setting it on the floor before turning and going back up to the main level of the house, leaving Samantha Moore staring at my back.
I might just have an idea.
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"Stand up and turn around with your hands behind your back", the FBI agent commands, pointing the gun at my forehead. "Just do it slowly, and we'll all be happy here, okay?"
I remain where I'm sitting in the cement, clutching the cell phone in my hand.
The phone I used to call the authorities, the phone I'm using to make sure Jake doesn't get me for a long time.
"I remember you, Agent Sol", I say finally, pulling the knife out of my back pocket, pushing back my sleeve, sighing as I catch sight of the scars lining my arms from six months ago.
It feels like six years ago.
"Just put the knife down, Miss Moore", the familiar man says as gently as he can. "Don't do anything you'll regret."
"It's too late for that", I sigh, digging the point into my skin, carving a line across my wrist. "This whole mess is more complicated than you know. You have no idea what's coming, and you have no idea what has happened."
"Well how about this: I'll take you back to the facility", Sol offers. "They'll make you feel better for a while, you'll take a nice long nap and in the morning you can talk all about what's going on. Does that sound good?"
I make another line, chuckling as the pain comes and with it my urge, strong enough to fill my thoughts with its evil, but weak enough to control it.
"I didn't come back to New York for the coffee", I say with a smile. Another line. "I came back to get better."
"I'm glad to here that." He extends his hand to me. "Now let's make that happen."