Page 93 of This Vicious Hunger

I want so very badly to kiss Olea, to distract her as I did last night, to feel the pleasure of our crushed bodies. I want to taste her, to hold her, gentle and slow and holy. Instead, I place my tea on the side table and climb to my feet. I throw a few things into a bag: cloak, gloves, several empty vials, a bundle of rags.

“I knew you wouldn’t stay,” Olea says sadly.

“You know I can’t.”

She looks at me imploringly, her lips slightly parted in the seductive way she knows I like best. I force myself to look away, anywhere but at the painful, endless beauty in her face. I can’t stay—because if I stay, even for a moment more, then I will never, ever leave.

“Where are you going?”

I am a monster, forged by grief and transformed by science. This is my duty. More than grieving, more than hiding and learning and knowledge. I was made for this.

“I’m going to find your mother,” I swear solemnly. “You can stay here if you want. Guard the garden, and the catalogue, and the recipe. I will find her. I’ll make her help us. And then…”

And then?

Olea’s lip trembles but she is the calmest I have seen her in weeks, perhaps ever. She knows this is right the same as I do; it’s written in the curve of her shoulders, the resilient grip of her hands around her mug. We both know what must be done.

It must.

“And then I will stop her from spreading this, this…”This cure. This gift. This unholy offering.

The touch of Olea’s hand against my elbow is cold as marble. I finally look at her face, etched in the blue of sunset.

“This endless agony,” she says.