Beasthood (The Hidden Blood Series #1)

~Chapter 10 - Feast~

Tuesday May 10th, 6:27 p.m.
Jaz’s cell


She didn’t get up this time when the tray was placed on the floor. The door was hastily shut and it took her several minutes before she willed herself to move. Her head span as she sat up.
She was beyond exhausted. Her mouth was dry. She'd drunk from the taps of the sink in the tiny en suite to quench her thirst, but not since yesterday. She felt the faint niggle of her bladder wishing to be emptied but ignored it.
Her stomach ached with hunger and neglect.
It was the smell that enticed her to look; to lift herself up from the pillow with the last of her strength. She nearly wept when she saw what the cruel bastards had left for her.
A bloody, raw steak.
It looked like someone had hacked a cow apart and brought a slab of it for her. A trick. A game. They were mocking her. She cringed away from the bloody sight.
But the smell of it contradicted how she saw it.
It smelled… nice. Tasty even. Like the barbecue scent on a summer’s day. Her warped mind disgusted her and she forced the feeling out.
But then came a roar of ravenous hunger somewhere inside of her. It made her lurch and squirm in her sitting position. What’s wrong with me?
She took a deep breath but this only made the smell of meat lodge in her nose and throat. It was sensational. And she wanted it. Now the feeling didn’t just disgust her, it frightened her.
She wanted to jump to the other end of the bed by the headboard and force herself to sleep until they came and took it away. She prayed they’d take it away and never bring another back.
But she didn’t move away.
She was fused to her space halfway along the bed.
Against her will, her body moved closer; her legs sidestepping whilst she slid along her bum with her hands as support. They were set in a claw shape, feeling their way to the edge of the bed. She tried to fight it: to take back control of these unknown hands and body but curiosity and hunger took over. She reached the edge of the bed, swinging her legs round so she was facing the plate; the door in front, to her left.
The bloody, raw meat was tantalizing her; calling to her. She hated it and yearned for it all at once.
Stop, she ordered. What are you doing?!
So hungryyyyy, snarled a primal voice deep within her.
Don’t you dare! she screamed back.
But the primal hunger ignored her pleas and took over her body, forcing her rational voice deep within the crevices of her mind.
She unwillingly slid off the bed onto the floor, crawling on her hands and knees. The plate was inches from her fingers. She breathed in deep, sampling the scent like a connoisseur of raw meat. Before she had even processed the thought in her brain, she lowered her head until she was so close to the plate she could see all the detailed lines, veins and grooves in the red meat. She delicately slid out her tongue and licked the blood-soaked top of the meat.
The taste of it made her eyes close and her breath deepen with pleasure and satisfaction. It was like having all the tastiest of foods for the first time in months, in years.
She then snapped out of her trance, let her tongue roll down her chin and brushed her fingers against it with disgust and revulsion. She let out a distraught and sickened moan. “Oh my god. Yuk, yuk, yuk,” she groaned.
But it tasted so good.
She gazed back down at the plate.
It took three minutes for her self-control to break.
She snatched the meat from the plate holding the bloody steak in her hands and ripped a chunk out of it with her teeth. She moaned with equal measures of pleasure and repugnance. It was a horrible experience. She couldn’t stop herself and yet at the same time she just didn’t want to.
Within a minute she had eaten the entire steak. The furious hunger was satiated for now, but the rage that came with the hunger wasn’t over.
She stared at the empty plate in silence. There was still a pool of blood on the plate. She tried to recoil from it but the ravenous beast within her grabbed the plate and she licked it twice before her normal self broke through and fought back. She threw the plate hard against the door. It crashed against it with a loud smack and clattered to the floor, spraying it red. The plastic plate split in half from the impact.

*

At the other end of the hall, the door to the Surveillance Room swung open, knocking against the wall with a thud. Maria stormed out of the room followed by Driver.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded.
She swivelled round just outside his bedroom door to scowl at him. “This has got to stop!” she spat.
Alf loomed in the doorway.
Driver sidestepped once, angled so he could see both him and Maria in his peripheral vision. “Alf, go inside and shut the door,” Driver rumbled.

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