novelraw Chapter 365: Lunch Break
Chapter 365: Lunch Break
The Saint was still running.
This had been the fifth ’ambush’ since the Saint Eaters had left, and each time, it was like hitting a rock with an egg.
Complete with the gooey blood and flesh left on the ground when the dead were finally dragged away.
It was a waste of perfectly good food, if you asked her. But no one ever did. It was almost like the guys had forgotten the fact that she couldn’t live on chocolate and jerky and whatever else she brought out of her space.
Sera watched almost absently through the cracked windshield as the Saint became nothing more than a small, dark shape cutting through the dust.
She had been trying to suppress her hunger, her need to consume, but the panic coming off this man was bright enough to smell.
The rest of his biker gang... or whatever they considered themselves to be, were down already.
Or maybe they were just pretending to be. The gunfire had turned sporadic, fewer rounds, more screaming.
Luci growled low in the cargo hold, his tail thumping against the panel.
She had been feeding him... the bones and defrosted steaks of bears, caribou, and seal... anything that she had in her space. But like her, that didn’t seem to solve his hunger.
Like her, Luci was a predator that wanted to hunt.
"Yeah," she murmured, her eyes continuing to track the man getting away. "I smell that sweet meat too."
Zubair’s voice crackled over the comm, jolting Sera out of her thoughts. "South flank clear."
Another voice quickly joined his... Lachlan, ragged and laughing. "Correction. Mostly clear."
Elias said something clinical and unimportant about ammunition count. Alexei didn’t say anything at all.
Sera’s stomach turned over for the hundredth time in the past few hours, heavy and sharp. Her creature pressed against her ribs, restless after too many fights spent locked in ’safety’ of the Hummer.
He’s running. He’s scared. And we’re starving.
A body, who had landed on the hood, finally slid off, leaving a thick red smear of both old and new blood.
That decided it.
Sera opened the door.
Heat hit her immediately, carrying the smell of oil, gunpowder, and iron. Luci barked once — short, annoyed — as if telling her not to waste time talking about it.
She didn’t.
Her boots hit the ground, and the dust settled around her in small, obedient curls. The air buzzed with the sound of flies already gathering.
She looked at the Saint who was still running and felt her creature stretch, pleased at the idea of being able to actually hunt something.
Go, it directed.
And Sera didn’t argue.
One second, she was standing by the Hummer. The next, the space between her and the man was gone.
Movement came easier now that she had fully accepted the creature inside of her. Her muscles knew how to obey the hunger before her mind did. She could feel her creature so close to her skin that it was like it was holding her in its arms, pushing her forward.
The Saint heard her too late. He looked back and stumbled, the panic spilling out of him in a scream that cut short when she hit him.
They went down together in a roll that sent gravel flying. His knife caught her shoulder, digging into her flesh, but she didn’t feel it.
He tried to crawl away, to get just a bit of distance.
But she caught his ankle and dragged him back toward her.
"Don’t stop," she said, almost gently. "The panic and the fear make you taste so much better. Almost better than chocolate, if you can believe that."
He flipped onto his back, swinging his knife wildly, and for half a heartbeat, she almost admired him.
Fear made them fast, sometimes. It made the flavor better.
Her jaw ached.
The creature inside her uncoiled completely, and her teeth shifted under her skin. The hinges of her jaw flexed farther than they should have.
But it didn’t hurt.
She bit into him at the base of the neck — deep enough to stop the sounds from escaping him, but not his thoughts. The heat of his flesh and muscles hit her tongue, and the world narrowed to one point of brightness.
The Saint spasmed once. Then again. Then not at all.
When she tore back, her mouth was red, and the air smelled different — cleaner, sharper. The ache in her stomach settled for a single moment before rushing forward again.
When Sera went in for another bite, her creature hummed in lazy satisfaction.
Better. You remember. You are not pretending anymore. Human food is no good for us. We need to eat to be strong. Only the strong survive in this world.
She swallowed and smiled faintly. "No," she agreed as she went back to eating. "I’m done pretending. I’m done fitting into boxes that I don’t belong in."
Footsteps sounded behind her and for a brief moment, Sera froze, ready to defend her meal.
Alexei continued forward, his steps slow and deliberate.
He stopped three meters away, eyes pale, skin flushed from the fight. His voice, when it came, was quiet. "You look happy..." he said, his voice drifting off. "Content."
"I am," Sera replied with a shrug before reaching with her claws hand into the man’s stomach. Pulling out his intestines, she savored the warmth coming off the organs.
Alexei stepped closer, crouched beside the body. He studied the wound like it was a blueprint, then looked at her. "Does it taste good?" he asked, his head cocked to the side as she ate what was in her hand like sausages. "The human meat?"
"It does," she assured him.
He nodded once — his decision clearly made.
He reached down and dragged the next Saint closer by the arm.
Sera looked over for a brief moment and the man tried to scream. With a quick slash Alexei’s knife ended the sound.
"It tastes better when they are scared," she advised him as she watched Alexei rip out the man’s throat with his own teeth. "Don’t kill them first... it changes the texture and the taste."
Alexei couldn’t look away as Sera wrinkled her nose. "Fresh is best."
Nodding his head, Alexei continued to eat.
It was messy, but that didn’t matter.
When he looked up again, there was frost on his jawline and calm in his eyes.
Sera watched him with mild interest, like she was seeing a memory re-enacted. "Now you understand."
Behind them, the others were watching. Lachlan first — blood still wet on his arms, eyes wild but human. Elias beside him, knuckles split and already healing. Zubair in the back, still and unreadable.
Lachlan tilted his head, grin twitching. "So, this is what dinner looks like now?"
Sera glanced at him. "If you’re lucky."
Elias’s voice was tight. "We don’t know if it’s safe. There have been numerous studies done on the negative effects of cannibalism on the human brain. I suggest that if this is the way you want to eat, we find a better source. Maybe pigs. They are fairly close to human."
Alexei laughed, low and cold as he wiped the dripping blood off his chin with the back of his hand. "You’re still pretending there are rules."
Elias’s hands curled into fists. The skin split, healed, split again. His creature pressed against the inside of his ribs like a trapped heartbeat. He was shaking with the effort to stay still.
Zubair’s tone stayed even. "You think this makes you more than them? More than the stupid zombies?"
Sera wiped a line of blood from her mouth with her thumb. "No. It makes us honest. Or are you not listening to that voice inside of your head?"
Lachlan snorted. "Hell, I’ll drink to that."
And then he was gone from the group — blurring forward with a laugh that turned into a growl halfway through.
The nearest Saint didn’t have time to turn. Lachlan hit him like a wave, teeth finding shoulder, hand gripping tight enough to crack ribs.
Elias swore, stepped forward, stopped.
Zubair didn’t move. He just watched.
The noise was wet and raw, a sound that didn’t belong to anything human.
When Lachlan finally straightened, he was grinning wide and red-mouthed. "Guess we’re past rationing."
Sera licked her teeth clean. "We were never rationing. You just thought you had to."
Elias’s breath came harsh now. "You’re all insane."
Alexei looked at him, his face completely blank. "Maybe. Or maybe we just stopped pretending we weren’t built for this."
Sera walked past them toward the Hummer again. The sunlight didn’t change. The air didn’t move. But something in the world shifted — a quiet acceptance settling over everything that had just happened.
Luci barked once, his tail thudding against metal, still stuck in the cargo area of the Hummer.
Sera opened the door and looked back at the men. Alexei calm, Lachlan giddy, Zubair collected, Elias trembling under the weight of his own restraint.
"Eat or don’t," she said. "But stop lying to yourselves. You have been wasting food for so long... it’s been driving me crazy."