“The purse. Open it,” growls Derek, making a poor attempt at seeming menacing as he brandishes his knife at the Kine woman.

She isn’t paying attention to his voice though, so much as the glint of metal in his hand and the pounding of fear in her ears. The blood, pumping adrenaline at the fright of a man manifesting from the very shadows. How had she not noticed his approach? She had always been so careful of her surroundings when walking alone at night.

“Now!” Derek shouted, more frustrated. Though he grimaces at the volume of his own voice on the night air. He wants this to be quiet and fast. He isn’t after the woman’s money, but he has to make it seem that way, just for the moment. Just a simple mugging on Sacramento’s streets, nothing unusual here.

She follows his command now, taking the sling off her shoulder and thrusting it forward at him. “Okay, okay, just take it,” she pleads, her own frustration and fear mingling and preventing her from taking any action other than obedience. Best to just listen to the mean man with the knife. The man whose face is obscured by a hoodie and shadow.

“Dump it out on the ground,” he says, raising the knife in what ought to be a threatening manner.

She does so, overturning the purse and watching her possessions go scattering onto the cement. Thinking that this is the part where the mean man lets her leave while he picks through the contents.

Only he’s not there anymore.

She looks around, confused, a glimmer of hope rising through the beating of pumping blood that leaves her head dizzy. It’s cut down as two cold fangs pierce suddenly into the flesh of her neck from behind. And then the dizziness overtakes her and her body goes limp.

What was once hers is now his, the flushed skin, the sound of beating in his ears as he makes it part of him for that moment. The Blood, fresh and full of life. Fulfilling that need almost makes it worth the wait. Yet it’s over as soon as it came and he has to wrench himself from her, careful to lick the wound clean as he finishes.

He cradles her head in his lap, just for the moment. And he whines in low moan, the frustration building in him again. He squeezes his own skull, the knife blade turned out away from his face, eyes shut tight as his expression contorts unnaturally.

This same thing every night, this stupid stupid thirst and this stupid world he’d been brought into. And this stupid woman for letting him get so close. It’s all building towards something. Something beyond his control, making him feel helpless. Helpless as his Sire made him feel when he left to seek out that quiet slumber.