Ch. 11: Bloodlust

After only a few minutes of waiting, Rosy got restless.

"He's wasting time." She decided.

"We need a carriage." Adrian reminded her.

"Maybe…" She trailed off for a moment, "but I can't just sit around here."

"You have been sitting here doing nothing all day. What's the big deal about a few more minutes" Adrian asked.

"Exactly. I've been doing nothing for over half a day. You have no idea what that does to me." Rosy leaned against the table for a moment before pushing off towards the door, "I'm going for a walk."

"Are you sure that's a wise idea?" Rosy answered him with an irritated, cold look. He made a snap decision. Adrian grabbed his cloak.

"What are you doing?" Rosy asked.

"Coming with you." He knew that she could take care of herself probably better if she was alone, but letting her go alone didn't feel right. Some part of Rosy must have understood his line of thinking, because she didn't fight him on it.

They walked in silence for a few blocks before turning off of a less than empty street into a dark alleyway. After a few moments, he sensed someone following them. He awkwardly tapped at Rosy's forearm to try to convince her to hurry up and try to avoid an encounter. She ignored him and slowed her pace. No matter how Adrian tried, she didn't seem to understand the idea of 'low profile,' so instead, she kept slowing down until a fist slammed into the side of Adrian's head. Disoriented, Adrian couldn't stop two thugs from grabbing him and jamming his arms behind his back. A third huge dude pushed past and slammed Rosy into the wall.

Adrian felt his biceps involuntarily twitch, even though he could tell that Rosy had lowered her head to keep her hood, and had maneuvered herself to where she had subtly kept her soft parts from hitting the wall mainly by catching herself with her shoulders, hands, and knees.

"Alright, we're going to take everything that you have, then we'll have some fun with the girl. The more you fight, the less likely that we'll let you live." The guy holding Rosy, the obvious leader, told them, flaunting his stupidity. Adrian's muscles twitched again, and not in response to the overwhelming smell of dog breath emanating from the idiot that Rosy was struggling to keep herself from seriously injuring. Instead, his twitch had been in response to the strong bloodlust that he could sense coming from her. Though his mind was completely calm in the strange, irrational knowledge, his body had seen enough of Rosy's personality to know and fear what she was about to do.

The guys that were mugging them were obviously much too small time to realize the incredible danger that they were in just by being near Rosy while she was in that intense state of mind, so one of them misconstrued Adrian's twitch.

"He wants to save his girl. How noble." One of the ones holding him told him his buddies. They laughed, finding it funny. Rosy's mood also seemed to lighten in the private joke that they shared.

"She's not my girl." And he knew that she had sensed that he had barely been able to stop himself from running for the kills.

"Aww. Does that mean that you're breaking up with me?" Rosy teased, letting the idiot push her into the wall a little further. Adrian felt the change in Rosy's mood the moment that she felt the force against her increase, in went from starting to lighten to intensely angry in an instant, though the bloodlust behind it barely changed at all. Impressively, Rosy still didn't attack right away. She managed to keep herself from showing any signs of attacking right up until the man touched her cloak to pull it away. As soon as he got ready to actually touch her, she flashed her arm, and in a flurry of motion ended up holding him in some sort of headlock, while a knife from her left wrist flashed by Adrian's head. He didn't need to look to know that one of the men who had been holding him was now dead. He felt a cold rush as he watched Rosy finish off the smelly dude that had held her against the wall moments ago and turn to the last one, allowing her hood to fall back on her head just enough to reveal her identity to the thug, who backed away, understandably and rightfully terrified.

"You know who I am. Your death will be slow and painful if you ever speak of this." She didn't bother stopping him from escaping. Her reputation would definitely guarantee his silence. Adrian took the knife out of the eye socket that Rosy had embedded it in and gave it back to her. That odd feeling that he had gotten upon the death of the smelly one did not leave Adrian as he watched Rosy satisfy her bloodlust, though he did throw up on the ground.

"Are you okay?" She asked.

"No, but I know that my whole country is counting on me to recover the Kingstone, and two deaths are nothing compared to what happens if we fail because I got squeamish. Or because you killed the wrong person." Adrian told her.

"So, the Wulfic scum was an acceptable kill?" She obviously didn't agree with that presumption.

"Could anything I have possibly done, including sacrificing my own life, have changed anything you just did?" She didn't answer. Once the bloodlust started guiding her actions, little, including her own desires, could change the outcome.

"Bastion will likely be back soon. We should hurry back before he gets there." She told him. She was right, despite the obvious necessity of their working together, it would be likely that he would choose to explain away any reason for leaving them. It would be dumb for anyone to willingly trust anyone with the capacity of Rosy, even if they had no other options. They went straight back to Bastion's warehouse, and waited there for a better part of an hour before Bastion finally made his way back and gathered their bags.

They piled it all into a carriage, along with a few boxes of fake product. They were piled into the carriage and on the move with Bastion driving before another word was uttered.

"Hey kid, what's your name?" Rosy had noticed the reason that Bastion had taken so much time, a child huddled in the corner as far away from the two strangers as possible given the confined space. From her green eyes and the black hair that spilled out of her hood, she was probably Bastion's daughter. She shied away from Rosy's question in fear.

"It's okay. I could never hurt an innocent child." Adrian idly wondered why she added the word 'innocent' to that. Her criteria for 'innocent' was probably pretty strict. 'Innocent' or not, the girl obviously was smart enough to be terrified of Rosy, and refused to so much as look at either of them, much less actually answer Rosy's questions. Instead of being hurt at the girl's reaction, Rosy flashed a genuine smile for the first time since Adrian had met her. 

"That's okay, I get it. You've probably heard of me, so I won't make you uncomfortable anymore. I'll just have to take my time and earn your trust myself." She sounded so genuine about it that it was hard to imagine her as the same vicious killer from the alley. For only the third time since meeting her, Adrian thought that he was seeing a glimpse of Rosy's real personality, beyond the veil that her vampirism and strict upbringing had created.