Heartthrob

In the basement, a monitor flatlined.

Someone's fist slammed hard against the monitoring equipment therein; behind a many-locked door lay a nest more at home in an espionage film or a CIA black-site than the underbelly of a lavish, sanguine manse. Clad now in black leather driving gloves, the rest of her draped in iconic Tsang-executive finery such as an ebon-and-pinstripe-white suit and slacks, with the inner layer a striking scarlet as opposed to remaining black as the exterior, the mistress of the household took some moments to herself to observe the zeroed vitals. Biomonitoring was easy - Tsang's methods of bioengineering, if you could really call it that after you'd seen behind the curtain, allowed constant feeds and feedback on status.

The specimen's status now read like a patient who died on the slab. No heartrate to be found - likely because the heart itself had been ripped from the specimen's torso and consumed. Her quarry's heart, on a different monitor, was racing. Spikes in adrenaline and dopamine production were registering all across the chart, the stomach displaying the logical end to second-living consumption, the rest of the body... The woman couldn't help but smile at the current concentrations of blood, even through her rage.

That specimen had taken years to produce, not even considering the R&D that had gone into its production. An effort which slipped away like sand in an hourglass to the mind of a vampire, it was true, but just because she could live and wait forever didn't mean the UNAC could. Didn't mean her boss would. It would take at least another four to five to grow another, and the manpower required for such an endeavor? The constant monitoring? The testing? People were starting to ask questions at a street-level. Unrest was growing. She couldn't deny it forever.

None of them could. They needed results. And frankly, while the specimen had been killed messily - and she'd probably need to send out an urgent call to a 24/7 crisis cleanup crew - the other results had been excellent. Her own greed may have tainted the entire thing, as it always seemed to do, but still... The results? The biomonitor recordings of her quarry, the psychosomatic response as well as the somapsychotic? Thrilling. The target wasn't one in a trillion, it was true, but one in a billion was just as good. All they needed was some more genetic material.

Another smirk, and even a laugh. Not the kind of genetic material she had her many hounds retrieving for her dutifully, skulking the clubs and dungeons of Vitus, desperate enough for a payday they'd stoop to comical levels of degradation. And one of them had even picked up her target in the first place - made the vampire aware that what she'd been looking for was right underneath her boot the entire time. But no, a different type of sample was needed... One that was more and less intimate in equal measure.

She daydreamed about the acquisition for a moment or two more, before the biomonitor of her quarry lit up like a Christmas tree as a fear response was triggered. Fuck. Without the specimen's link, and without direct access, that little bitch with the sharp teeth would just rampage and flee and probably go find somewhere to cry. Plus there was no way that she had taken the bait and followed her impulse down, so now there was a Wayward loose in the house, too. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

So much for bringing her in easy.

-

Esper James remained in her little hunch, looming over a mostly-consumed feline corpse, blood dripping from her fingertips (which were more akin to claws, now - a strange little addition to her descent) and her chin, blonde hair splattered with sticky crimson essence. It tasted beautiful, like hot soup in a terrible blizzard or the sweetness of tobacco after a spate of withdrawal, but she knew how bad it must look. Esthrielle's reaction alone was enough to cause her to shiver as her adrenal glands desperately, weakly, exhaustedly squeezed themselves dry in response to a fresh Hell of fear.

"Est...! I-I-I... I... This f-fucked up, uh... F-Fucked up cat, thing, it... I think it was... Every time I've s-seen it, it's made me feel so unstable, so scared, so out of control of my own a-a-actions... I..." She stumbled through it as hastily as she could, even as her teeth and tongue fought her at every turn to form the words. Esthrielle grit her teeth and flexed her left arm - a seamless plate on her forearm retracted, and a slender silvered fighting knife slid out and into her hand. The plate returned to its previous position as Est readied herself.

"So what? You don't like cats, so you fucking ate this one? You decided you'd had enough of Judas's pet, so you fucking tore it to shreds?!" She assumed a defensive stance, ready for a scrap if EJ so much as fell towards her, but Esper James was only ready to cry and beg forgiveness. The ghoulette broke down sobbing as she saw the trust in Esthrielle's eyes flit away as so much dust before a firm breath, catching the light for a moment as it disappeared. Esthrielle had no sympathy at first, but the longer she watched, the heavier her blade-arm felt.

Eventually, the Wayward lowered her blade, and with the soft hiss of pneumatics, it was returned to where it had once been. She stepped forth, all of her instincts telling her not to get closer to this bloodthirsty, flesh-eating monster, but where her subconscious would normally have ruled her, her active mind forced its way past any preconceptions of what may happen. She thought back to that night in the industrial district, the last time she had been in this manse. She thought of how they had shared a kinship in the oppression they both were subjected to. Their helplessness in a world so cruel as to inflict such inescapable torment.

She thought of the gunshot, purposefully sent wide, but still close enough that it could be argued as a near-miss from shaky hands. And lastly, she thought of the fear and pain, the desperation and sorrow in EJ's eyes the night they had met. There was no way that this little girl, barely of the strength to stand, much less speak, would attack her. Would harm her. And so, Esthrielle forced her legs onwards, step after step, until the two were inches from one another. She knelt.

Almost immediately, Esper James pounced. Not to kill, nor to bite... but for an embrace, desperate for anything, any kind of affection at all in the depths of her instability. Esthrielle's arms were about her in a split-second, squeezing her tight with all the strength her synthetic limbs could muster, still weakened by Judas's touch but having regained some of her prior ability. The two tumbled back, falling to the floor with EJ landing atop Est, but neither one cared. Est didn't even register the sensation of EJ's blood-slick torso smearing itself against her own, the both of them now marred by vital fluids.

They laid like this for still, silent minutes, moments uncounted, nothing but a shared sense of resignation and the sound of sobbing to pierce the deafening absence of sound. Only when Est began to rise, movements hurried and insistent, did EJ open her eyelids and gaze upon her guardian. Est had re-produced her fighting knife, free hand ripping the door off of Judas's closet and snatching a pair of long, lavish robes, the easiest thing she saw to don quickly. One was given to Esper James; one was retained for herself.

"EJ. Get dressed. Now. Just this. We've gotta leave, now. I can hear footsteps on the ground floor - boots. We have about twenty seconds, at most, until they hit the top floor. We've gotta leave." Even as she was speaking, she threw the robe about herself - as midnight black as most of Judas's other attire, velveteen and plush. EJ's robe was crimson and silky, dainty and thin, and sheer enough that it wouldn't provide any modesty under scrutiny. Oh well. The ghoulette was frantic to do as she was told, the blood and flesh still ringing in her brain, giving her energy that her body didn't really have the resources to expend.

The boots were audible for EJ, too, she soon found. If she focused on it, focused on trying to hear them... Slowly but surely, the resonance of rubber bootheels against lacquered hardwood began to pound through her skull. It made her ears burn, made her eyes water with its intensity after only a few moments, so much so that she had to focus on something - anything else. She chose to focus on the way her body felt, against the now-cooled blood and the grey silken shroud she found herself wrapped in, the cloth quickly becoming wet and even somewhat slimy from the cooling fluids.

Every part of her felt new. Every single aspect of her physique was as if a veil had been lifted from her mind, and she was realizing she had a body for the first time in her entire life. It was like waking from a dream, or lifting your face from a pool of water, seeing with new eyes, feeling with new nerves. She had never heard of this kind of experience before, this kind of sensation - those who truly indulged in flesh and the gluttony of cannibalism never got a chance to speak out in advocacy of it. They often never even got trials.

So now, the normal stimulant-rush of blood ingestion was paired with the euphoria and revelation of feeling her own flesh anew, every inch of herself visualized in her mind, even those visceral tracts that humanity cannot, does not feel. It was hellish in a delightful way - to suddenly know herself to intimately, to be able to pinpoint anywhere she wanted and devote focus to it in a concerted, concentrated way. She sat like this, catatonic in her hyperfocus, for what felt like a mere second - but when she snapped to attention, Esthrielle had her thrown over a prosthetic shoulder, the grand window of Judas's bedroom smashed open from a kick.

EJ didn't even have time to gasp and brace herself before Est leapt out, carrying the ghoulette with her.

The frigidity of the winter air was unfelt between the two of them - EJ's body was broiling like a furnace from all the flesh and blood she had gorged herself upon, and Esthrielle's internals were built to withstand a variety of temperatures and environs. The robes helped, too, but only Est's was actually that warm. Bare feet hit the snowy ground and the hard-packed dirt beneath with a hiss, integrated shock-absorbers causing built-up steam to release from minute slots in Est's shins and shoulders into the freezing air.

Out front, Judas was speaking with a serious-looking man in Tsang corpsec armor plating. They were discussing EJ and Esthrielle, EJ could hear, even though they were at least twenty feet away. Judas's eyes flashed in recognition as she saw them drop to the ground, her hand raising up to direct the corpsec goon to their presence, but Esthrielle was sprinting even before the motion could complete. She hopped the fence as her manufactured strength was pushed into overdrive, and soon, the pair were fleeing the scene to the sound of gunfire from behind them.

A distant engine revved, and corpsec soldiers found themselves rushing back to their armored transport, but Est and EJ were already gone. Judas may live in the nice part of town, it was true, but that didn't mean there weren't back alleys to duck into and hide. The two women slipped behind an upscale bistro, hiding in the shadows of the building, ducking behind a dumpster. Est finally set EJ down, the pair given a moment to themselves, a moment to breathe and plan instead of simply flee.

Tsang corpsec was after them. Judas had betrayed them and tried to kill them, or imprison them, despite her promise. Purity probably hated her and thought that she had purposefully abandoned the pinkette and Kell. She wasn't gonna be going back in to work on Monday, if ever. Probably never. Her apartment, the apartment she had lived in for the last thirty years, was a crisp. She wasn't safe anywhere, it seemed, except in the decrepit depths of the industrial district.

EJ felt herself, not for the first time, yearning for the fiery kiss of the furnace; the sweet release of immolation that only a crematorium could bring. She wanted to be sedated, to be laid out on a metal sheet, to be thrown into a fire she'd never feel. She had heard that some high-scale crematories even offered additional end-of-unlife care, like drugs, or prostitutes, or last meals made-to-order. After all, what good did all that money do you once you are truly dead? May as well spend it having fun if you're gonna be dust anyways.

Suicidal ideations were momentarily swept aside as Esthrielle pulled the blonde to herself, another powerful embrace accompanied by whispered words of camaraderie. The heat of Est's breath against EJ's ear as she spoke sent a tingle up the ghoulette's spine, and she couldn't help but lean into the embrace as wholly as she could.

"EJ... God, shit's fucked, eh? Hahaha... We've gotta get back to Purity. And that other girl, whatshername. Kell? Kell. I'm... I'm sorry about everything that happened. I'm sorry that I couldn't protect you. That was my whole job, you know? My whole reason for coming with you. Protecting you. Instead, well... I couldn't do anything at all, just let it happen. I-I'm sorry." The words had barely left Est's mouth by time EJ's lips were upon her own, a kiss borne as much from care as it was from desire to shut her up and stop that line of thinking.

Est accepted it with a whine of surprise, but nothing approximating protest. The kiss lingered, but when it broke, EJ's expression was firm - determined, even. Far from the scared little girl she had been in the manse, Est's self-deprecation and shouldering of the blame having re-lit the fire of indignance within Esper James's chest with a renewed vigor.

"Shut up. As kindly as possible, shut the fuck up, Est. You didn't do anything wrong. You didn't do anything that you could've done better. Judas had the both of us by the fucking throat, and there wasn't... It wasn't up to you to save us or protect us from her. If anything, i-it was mine. And I failed you. But... But I don't want you to ever think like this again, ok?" Her brow had furrowed down intensely, and she was scowling up at the other woman with all the force and seriousness of a drill sergeant reprimanding a soldier.

Now was Est's turn to cry. Everything had been horrible - even if normally she would have actually liked to make love with the little blonde, the circumstances only raked up old trauma she thought she had repressed deeply enough to never be worried by it again. Even after all her augmentations, all her training, all her gifts, she had still been rendered helpless to a new cycle of abuse at the hands of a woman whose cruelty had only been matched by the jailors of Italia. She wished, for a moment, that she could call Luca. She wished that Luca could come get her, hold her, keep her and the blonde safe. She knew he could do it.

Luca could tear this whole fucking city down if he put his mind to it. Why had they sent her instead of him? She lamented his absence to the sound of tears, nodding meekly to EJ's words, her mind latching onto a desperate plea for her own protector to save her, just like he had before. She would vouch for EJ. She would ensure she could find peace back in Venezia... Something close to it, at least. Neither of them deserved this pain.

EJ's expression softened as she saw Esthrielle's tears, and she strengthened her embrace, giving the Wayward a firm squeeze. The both of them needed it, after all. In the distance, outside the alleyway, an armored corpsec transport sped down the road - but behind the dumpster, they were hidden from the street, and so they were safe. For the rest of tonight, they had nothing to fear - nothing foreseeable, at least. Nothing to drive them but going back home.

They'd do that in a moment, once they were good and ready - for now, they needed one another a few minutes more...