"You weren't worried that I might kill you?" Esther asked.
"I hoped you wouldn't." AnnMarie said. "And if you did, then... oh well."
-‐------------------------------‐-------------------------
Esther LaGrange never stays in one place too long...
AnnMarie nodded, and the front of her teeth peaked out from her mouth as she softly bit her bottom lip.
"Okay, yeah. I guess that makes sense."
Esther opened the door.
"I'll see you in the morning."
Esther walked through the suffocating, muggy air for three hours, and by nightfall, she was finally a good enough distance away from AnnMarie's house to feel okay about finding someone to feed from.
She'd often heard people from cities commenting on small towns being quiet, but that actually wasn't the case. Here, out in the thick of the woods, it was actually fairly noisy.
The frogs croaked in a demonic chorus, and the bugs screamed out from the treetops signaling the close of the day. Somewhere in the distance, night birds called back and forth to each other, loudly and without fear.
People, on the other hand, were much harder to come by after the sun fell.
There wasn't much to do in towns like this after the late afternoon, and most people had turned in by now. The ones who hadn't would either be hunters or those out drinking.
Esther didn't like feeding off drunk people. It made her feel dizzy, and slightly nauseous, but sometimes it was her only option.
She was nearly out of the woods and into the town when she caught the scent of a person on the night air.
She followed it, a little ways out, and found someone.
Against a tree, there was a man. He was wearing a neon vest so bright that Esther could make out the fluorescent orange even in the dim light. He was sitting down, asleep, with a shotgun at his side.
She walked quietly up to him, and surveyed him carefully. His head was tilted to the side, just so. An easy target.
She held her breath for a moment, then crouched in front of him. He smelled like tobacco and sweat, and he looked tired.
In one move, she covered his mouth and bit into his neck. He tensed for a moment, but stilled quickly.
Esther was shocked.
The emotions were so strong.
AnnMarie had a tendency to suppress her emotions as much as possible, so the taste of them were always subtle, vague, but with most other people that wasn't the case. They felt things openly, deeply.
He tasted overwhelmingly of stress. Maybe about work, it seemed. The emotion was very clear, and it felt like an elastic band that had been pulled so tight it was about to snap.
She savored the moment, listening to the sound of the frogs, of the bugs, of the quiet slurping sounds of her own mouth. She ran her thumb over the side of the man's face, keeping him complacent.
"Hey! Hey! What the fu—"
Esther tore herself away, blood dripping down her chin, and turned around.
She found herself eye to eye with a second man.
His eyes wide with fear or maybe shock.
His fingers trembled the trigger of his shotgun.
She froze, not knowing what to do. She had never found herself in a situation like this before.
He pulled the trigger, and it made a terrible and loud boom, as shotguns do.
Pain, sudden and searing in her stomach, brought her mind back into action, and she turned and ran.
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