Thump-thump. Thump-thump…
The rain came down thin and drizzly as streetlights shimmered against the wet asphalt. A man rounded the corner as fast as his legs could carry him – feet splashing, breathing heavy, and pulse pounding. Jared pursued the man, having chosen him for his more-than-ill intentions toward a woman who was walking home from the bar. She was slightly tipsy and completely unaware of the pervert who followed her.
The man felt the attention of someone on him – someone strong enough to overpower his predatory focus on the pretty woman. When he turned and saw Jared fast approaching, a look of horror crossed his features. He’d bolted down an alley, hoping to lose his pursuer, but Jared was still right behind the man.
Thunder rumbled above like an angry god, its roar consuming the alley. A lactic burn ripped through Jared’s muscles as he sprinted, very quickly gaining ground. He clocked the environmental risks: broken glass, puddles hiding potholes, and slick brick walls. His mind briefly drifted to the woman. Had she made it to her destination safe? Did she even noticed that she was being followed.
The perv turned another corner at a breakneck pace, only to collide face-first into a chain-link fence. A dead end. He turned around, eyes frantic and nose bleeding from the metal cutting through his skin. Jared inhaled deeply, his green eyes grew darker by the moment as he marched toward the cornered man. The man’s breathing came, more shallow and fast than before.
Jared’s lip curled into a sneer. “You sick bastard.”
Without any warning, Jared lunged forward, grasping the man by the throat with one hand and pulling back the man’s shirt collar with the other. Jared licked his lips as he saw the creep’s artery pulsing, quick and hot. He bit down, fags plunging into flesh.
The man cried out and began to struggle. Jared pulled back from the man’s neck, yanking him away from the chain-link fence. He twisted them both to slam him up against the brick wall of the alley. He cocked his arm back and punched the man, whose head snapped to the side so hard that his neck cracked and his mouth and nose bled. Jared snarled at the man and punched again, this time in the man’s gut. Blood spurted from the man’s mouth as his body tried to fold, but Jared held him fast against the wall.
“Shut up,” Jared snarled.
He didn’t want to listen to the man screaming while he fed – and he didn’t want anyone to find them. Jared struck the man across the other cheek, making the damage even. The man’s eyes rolled back. His hands tried to grab onto any part of Jared, only partially succeeding in grasping the arm that held him up. Jared slammed the man into the wall, cracks spread out around him and his grip on Jared’s arm went slack.
Leaning forward, Jared went back to the man’s neck. Re-puncturing the skin, he drank deeply, the warm liquid sensation coursing through his teeth. He could feel the heat of it rushing into the rest of his body. He warmed from the inside out as the man’s squirms began to quickly grow weaker. The pulse under Jared’s teeth steadily slowed. He didn’t care. Not when he needed to feed and someone had to intervene. He’d pull back soon. He began to loosen his grip. Just ten beats longer. I’ve got this—
Thump-thump-thump. Thump. Thump…
The pulse suddenly dipped, becoming irregular. The man shook in Jared’s hands as if he was having a seizure. Jared pulled back. “No, no, no! Shit!” This wasn’t the first time this happened, and he knew he’d gone too far – taken too much, again. He’d meant to stop. He knew what was coming. After the seizure the man would go still, too still. “Dammit,” he swore under his breath as he watched the man’s twitching on the ground slowly cease.
Thump…
Jared sighed under his breath, “Fuck.” This was the fifth time restraint hadn’t been enough. The air grew heavy in that way only a dead body can. Tasting iron on his tongue, he swallowed. The alley stayed silent. No reckoning. No answer. Just another body. His panic began to rise. It’s just a matter of time before I can’t tell where the line is anymore.
He knelt down, checking for the man’s pulse but knowing he wouldn’t find it. All he found was quickly cooling skin. He didn’t know how long he knelt there, waiting for something to come – sirens, footsteps, shouting. They didn’t. Only silence, long and empty as the alley he knelt in.
I need to clean this up, make sure there’s no way to trace it back to us. He bunched his hand inside his wet jacket sleeve and began to wipe at the man’s neck where he’d bitten, trying to wipe away any DNA that could’ve been left behind. I went too far. The line wasn’t don’t hurt him. The line was don’t kill him.
“You’re measuring,” a man’s voice, gentle but matter-of-fact, echoed in the rain.
Jared’s head whipped around. Is someone here? Someone saw?! He searched the shadows of the alley, seeing nothing. The rain stung his eyes as he turned in a slow circle, alley empty but for the body at his feet. Jared looked at his hands, almost expecting blood but only seeing rain. It dripped under the collar of his jacket and shirt, cold and leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake. Silence except for the steady sound of rainfall.
Measuring what? Jared stopped his turning and searched with his eyes alone.
“The margin.” The voice paused, and then continued, “You intervened correctly.”
Jared made a noise that at any other time could’ve been mistaken for a choked laugh, exhaling heavily through his nose. I killed him.
“Yes,” the voice confirmed, though it wasn’t like he had needed it confirmed. He’d felt it, the moment when he’d gone too far. But by then, it was too late to do anything different.
That wasn’t the plan, he thought back to the voice, hoping that he wasn’t going insane.
“No, it wasn’t. But he wasn’t innocent.” It landed exactly where the guilt had been trying to hide.
He was going to hurt someone.
“Yes. And you stopped that.”
That’s right, he had stopped it. He thought back to the woman who the creep had been following, hoping that she made it home alright. His eyes focused once more on the body on the ground and he stiffened. I wasn’t supposed to end him.
The man’s voice answered, “You exceeded containment. That is different from indulgence.”
Jared thought about it, half-agreeing with the stranger’s voice in his head. He knelt by the corpse once more, thinking that if he was hearing voices, maybe he had missed the man’s pulse. He pushed his fingers to the side of the body’s throat, already turning colder with the rain. He sighed, rubbing a hand over his face and squeezing his eyes shut. Dani’s going to—
“Dani is not here,” the voice interrupted. He hadn’t said it cruelly, rather taking a factual tone. “And this decision wasn’t about her rules.”
Jared bristled. What did this voice know anyway? The rules they’d set up together… okay, the rules she had set up and he’d agreed to, were what had kept them safe this whole time. The sting felt almost real. You don’t get to say that.
Placatingly, the voice assured, “I am not taking them from you. I am distinguishing them.”
Silence held for minutes as Jared tried to sift through the rules, seeing if there was anywhere he had actually broken them. They had agreed to leave innocent people alone and only feed off of those with ill intent. Luckily, being able to read minds seemed to have become a power of his, but even before he had turned he was extremely intuitive.
Of course, one had to be intuitive growing up in the household he did. Parents that were always miserable and would take it out on each other and on young Jared. The only light in his life had been his cousin, Ellie. She was the one good thing in his childhood, and he loved her more than anything.
The woman walking home – all vulnerable women, really – reminded him of her. He hadn’t been able to stop her death at the hands of her boyfriend, and even vengeance had been taken away when the bastard had been killed in custody. He looked down, water streaming around the body as it lay there. He wasn’t the same man though.
If I start deciding who deserves—
“You didn’t decide,” the voice interrupted sharply, making Jared’s thoughts stop completely. “You responded. There’s a difference.”
He continued staring at the body, but his back straightened. That was right, he had been responding to a situation, just like he would’ve done at the club. He chose his behavior.
“Yes. You merely chose the intervention. The outcome exceeded the attempt this time.” The voice felt like a hand on Jared’s shoulder when the voice continued, “That does not make you reckless. That makes you early.”
Jared felt his head shaking again. So what – this is just… acceptable?
“No.” Sharp, clean. “It is contained.”
The word settled in his mind. What does that mean? When people “contained” things, that meant something was being put into a Tupperware or a box. Contained? What was being held? What was he holding? What does that mean?
“It means this does not become a story about what you are. It remains an event.”
An event? But he did it, relaxing his body as he tried to let what happened remain an event and not a defining trait. But he didn’t’ stand, not yet. We’d said no innocents.
“And you honored that,” the voice answered. After a pause, it went on, “You did not honor restraint. That can be corrected.”
Jared tensed. Any correction he’d had in the past had come out forcefully through a mouth or a fist. Monster, that is what I’m turning into. I’m not letting this turn me into a—
“Then don’t.” The short phrase was spoken firm and had a grounding effect. “But don’t lie to yourself either. You are capable of more force than you planned. That does not make you a monster. It makes you dangerous without structure.” The voice paused, letting his words settle. “Structure. Containment. Lines that hold when the moment goes wrong.”
Jared swallowed. He never felt this type of anxious certainty before, but the things the man were saying made sense. Looking around with his eyes only, body staying still, he thought back, And you’re… what?
“A steward.” The word felt old and heavy with meaning. “I keep the spill from spreading.”
Silence held for a moment. You’re saying this won’t happen again? Jared began to feel hopeful that maybe whoever this was could help him.
With blunt honesty, the voice replied, “No. I’m saying next time it won’t surprise you.” Softening a fraction, he continued, “Clean up. Leave. Tell Dani the truth you can tell her. Not everything needs to be carried by the same hands.”
Jared looked down at the body on the ground. Putting his hands under the shoulders, he hoisted the body into a sitting position against the alley wall. There, now he just looks like a passed out drunk.
The voice began to recede. “When the noise starts – the part where you replay the second you crossed – I will be there.”
Looking into the man’s dead face, Jared again thought of the woman, bringing Ellie to mind again. He had to do this. For her. For all the women like her. He turned, leaving the alley behind. He didn’t look back once at the man he killed. The rain thinned, and his breathing became more even with each passing second. For the first time in forever, the city no longer felt completely unmanageable. Now, it finally felt like there was a line to hold. Fewer options. Fewer excuses.
