Slowly, gently night unfurls its splendor
Grasp it, sense it, tremulous and tender
Turn your face away from the garish light of day
Turn your thoughts away from cold unfeeling light
Liz rolled over, groaning. The firmness of the mattress under her giving way to her movements, she slowly, dimly realized that she was no longer on the concrete of the warehouse floor. Everything in her body ached. Her blood felt as though it was boiling, and she tried to do a silent assessment of her person to decide if she had been violated or not. She remembered the men crowding around her, leering, touching, jeering and then…blank. Yet it didn't feel as though she had been raped. She rolled her head to the side, opening her eyes in the darkened room. It was nearly pitch black, with heavy draperies over the windows. The sheets were good quality, with the satiny feel of a high thread count. Wherever she was, they were expensive accommodations. And her neck ached like a sore tooth.
Groaning again she reached a tentative hand up to touch the tenderest spot. Wincing at the pain there, she grimaced at the two raised puncture wounds she felt.
"Lizzy, leave it," she started at Red's solemn voice cracking through the quiet like a report through a silent wood.
"Reddington," she breathed in reverence, "you found me in time…"
"No Lizzy," he intoned sadly. "I didn't get there soon enough."
It wasn't his fault she was hurt, she thought. He never failed to blame himself for her foibles, the product of her own impulsiveness.
"I'm so thirsty," she croaked.
There was a brief rustling near the bedside before a scarf-covered lamp clicked on. At the sudden light it almost appeared as though Reddington's eyes flashed amber like an animal in the night.
Dismissing it as a trick of the light on her unaccustomed eyes, Liz reached for the cup she saw on the night table. Red opened his mouth as if to speak when Liz gulped the drink, then grimaced slightly as she choked, gagged. The warm, viscous liquid was not the water she had been expecting. It was blood.