"Haaaaaa."
The sound drags out of me, slow and heavy, like something old being pulled across stone. Hunger coils tighter in my gut with every breath I take. It's always there now. Not sharp, not frantic. Cold. Patient. The kind that waits instead of lunging.
The white meat on the other side of the glass twitches when they move. Heartbeats fluttering behind clean coats. I could split the room in seconds if I wanted to. I know the distance. I know the angles. I know how long it would take for the first scream to turn into silence.But I don't.
My patience, thin and stretched but unbroken, holds me still.They call this study. That makes me want to laugh. They don't study me. They test their own theories and blame me when they're wrong. Every conclusion they reach is a fault line they don't see until it opens beneath them.The light is their favorite lie.They think it controls me.They think brightness blinds me, weakens me, presses me into something manageable. They whisper about wavelengths and intensity and restraint protocols like they've discovered a secret.
Idiots.
The light doesn't calm me.
It sharpens me.When it's this bright, I don't waste energy on movement. I don't thrash. I don't roar. I listen. Every footstep, every breath behind the glass, every whisper they think I can't hear. The light strips the world down to sound and scent, and in that stripped-down space, my thoughts stretch longer. Clearer. Meaner.
That's how I hear it.The shift in the air.The pause that doesn't belong.My ears twitch before my head moves. Slowly, deliberately, my focus slides away from the wall and locks onto the door. Not the glass. The door.
Him.
My jaw tightens. Teeth grind together inside my mouth, hard enough that I feel the pressure hum through my skull. I don't bare them. I don't snarl. I don't give the room that satisfaction.I stare.I stare until the door opens.And there he is.Clean.Changed.Dressed in their colors, standing between them like he belongs there.
For a split second, something ugly twists in my chest. Not hunger. Not rage. Something tighter. Hotter. I grind my teeth again, harder this time, until I swear one might splinter. Still, I don't move. My body stays where it is, heavy and grounded, hooves planted, head low.He looks wrong like this.Not weak. Not afraid. Just… misplaced.
Like prey standing among predators and not understanding why it hasn't been torn apart yet.My eyes trace him without moving my head. The line of his shoulders. The steadiness in his stance. The way his breathing doesn't hitch when he sees me. That hasn't changed. It never does.That's the problem.
Fear is currency. Fear is flavor. Fear is the thing that makes meat worth taking. Every creature I've torn apart begged me with its body long before its mouth ever made a sound.
But him?
Nothing.Not then. Not now.And now I understand something I didn't before.
If I kill him… it ends.Not the hunger. The game.
There would be no tension left. No pull. No reason to wait. I would tear through everything until there was nothing but noise and silence and emptiness. I would lose myself in that emptiness, and nothing would ever feel sharp again.That thought unsettles me more than chains ever did.I don't want that.I need someone who does not fear me.Someone who stands still.Someone who makes me think.
My gaze doesn't leave him as he steps inside. The door seals behind him with a sound too final for comfort. The scientists stay back. They always do. They learned that part quickly.He's closer now.Close enough that I can smell him beneath the sterile rot of this place. Human. Alive. Real. His presence pulls at something in me that has nothing to do with hunger and everything to do with control.He looks at me.Not like they do.
Not through glass. Not through fear.Direct.My lips curl just enough for him to see the edges of my teeth. Not a threat. A promise. My chest expands with a slow breath, and when I let it out, the glass vibrates faintly. I hear the scientists flinch behind it.Good.He doesn't.That settles it.I won't kill him. Not now. Maybe not ever. Or maybe last.I don't know yet.
But I know this: ifhedies, whatever I become afterward won't be me anymore.
And for the first time since I crawled out of that broken tree and learned what screaming tastes like, that thought almost feels like fear.
(Almost.)