He cast a furtive look around for at least the tenth time. Around him, the dilapidated warehouse was still, silent, empty. He looked down again at the bound woman at his feet. She twisted uselessly, her hands tied behind her back, ankles bound. Gagged, she whimpered as frightened brown eyes gazed up at him. He could practically hear her pleas in his head. Please, don't hurt me. Just let me go … please.

He swallowed, swiped sweat off his brow and knelt next to her, taking up the needle. The woman squeaked in terror, wriggling away from him.

"This won't kill you," he told her, hearing the words and hardly believing they came from him. This was what his life had become - he was validating his actions now based on whether or not others would survive them.

But it had to be done. It had to.

"I just … I just need the blood is all. It'd be mine if it could be, I swear. I don't want to do this. I don't want to hurt you. But … it's important. If you knew what I know you'd understand. I'm sorry."

Before he could think any more, he grasped her by the soft flesh of her upper arm, and plunged the 7-gauge needle into her inner elbow. He didn't want to hurt her any more than necessary, and his purposes didn't specify the necessity of cutting her to drain the blood. This was kinder, he told himself, but couldn't believe it for a second anymore. He watched as the supple plastic tubing filled solid red, the collection bag at the end, originally intended for catheters but the only option for the volume he needed, start to swell.

The woman curled before him was crying, and he felt an inch from it himself.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to his victim's now deaf ears. "I'm so sorry."

He knew this was risky. The amount of blood he needed meant almost draining her dry. The almost was the only reason he could still do this. He had wondered, through a week of sleepless nights leading up to this moment, if he would still be kneeling here draining an innocent woman of her blood if his purposes had demanded completely. The thought made him sick.

He swallowed fear and self-hatred and confusion and pain, casting his eyes around the empty warehouse, as the woman's muffled sobs gradually slowed the closer she bled out toward unconsciousness. The warehouse hadn't been by accident. It was the only place he had found where he could be relatively safe to do the deed and it was close enough to the county hospital that when he called the ambulance, she would live long enough for them to find her. To save her. From him.

But he couldn't falter now. There were still more steps to be completed until he was ready. The thought both sickened him, and bizarrely gave him strength to go on, to keep doing these things. Because they had to be done, they had to. The end result was where his gaze was fixed.

She was silent at his feet, and he checked the pulse in her neck. It still beat sluggishly. But he was as prepared as anyone could be for something like this. He knew the volume that he could extract without killing her, balanced against the amount of blood he needed. It was a knife's edge. He dragged his bag toward him and found the plump bag of AB negative blood. It had been part of the reason it had to be her - he had to match the blood as closely as he could, and AB negative was rare. He glanced down at the blood bag and wished. He had tried - he had wasted weeks trying to find enough of the blood type in donations to serve his purposes, but it hadn't worked. He should have known it wouldn't be that easy, that innocent. This was a sacrifice, there was no denying it. The kind of act he was performing demanded nothing less. He hung the bag from the improvised pole and coat hanger, pulled the 7 gauge from her arm, tied off the puncture firmly but not enough to cut off whatever circulation she had left, and inserted the needle carefully into the other arm. He watched in reverse as the tubing ran red, replenishing rather than depleting her blood volume. He told himself she would live. He needed her to. But he needed her blood for one precious purpose, and he had done everything he could to compensate. He hadn't hurt her any more than he'd needed to to immobilize her and drain her blood. He had chosen this place so she would be found and cared for quickly. He had taken considerable trouble to find enough AB negative blood to replenish her as quickly as he could, improving her chances of survival. He was going to call the ambulance as soon as he was far enough away not to be caught. He wasn't a monster … he wasn't.

Carefully, gently, he taped the feeding IV to her skin, checked her pulse still beat, gathered the harvested blood bag safely into his backpack, and stood up.

It was now he had to leave her. Leave an innocent woman potentially to die, because of him. He looked down at her, and it almost consumed him. But he had done his best. He had done all he could for her. He had to turn away.

Pulling in a deep breath, he shouldered the backpack, and left the warehouse as quickly as he could without running and attracting attention.

Four blocks from the warehouse, he pulled his cellphone and dialled 911.

The operator picked up, and he tried not to sound shell-shocked and breathless.

"There's a woman, in the old warehouse, 353 on Jefferson, two blocks from the county hospital. She's lost a lot of blood and she's AB negative, please hurry. You have to save her - please."

He clicked the line dead, removed the sim card, and crushed it beneath his heel.

It was done - and so was he. He leaned his back into the shadowed safety of an abandoned storefront and closed his eyes. He saw what he always saw - his brother smiled at him, arms crossed over his strong chest, dark eyes dancing. His foot was propped up on a log, and behind him stretched the greenness of their childhood home on the farm. It was the exact replica of his favourite photo. It was his brother, balls to bones. He was the reason for all this ugliness. Had been for fourteen weeks, five days, four hours and 26 minutes. And it just hurt more the longer the clock ticked, the longer he knew the reality, the brutal, visceral truth.

He opened his eyes, dragged in a breath, and stumbled on. He couldn't be suspected, or caught. He had to do this. The woman's blood was heavy in his pack in more ways than one, the cooling heat of it still searing him. But she would live, she had to. It couldn't make him a murderer and live with himself long enough to get done all he needed. Beyond that eventuality, he didn't care for his own fate.

He had work to do. The next step awaited, and for his brother's sake and his own, he had to complete it, no matter the cost. No matter the cost …