Chapter 2: A Bite of Truth

It had been three days since Christian Grey had set off with every intention of killing the 33rd child. But something had changed inside him the moment she had stared back at him with those empty dark blue eyes.

She was striking, the way she stared into him, hunched in the corner of a bloodstained room, her opponent laid out on the other side, blood pooled around the large gash in her neck.

The Factory had turned her into this savage, dangerous creature. He new that the years of abuse there had tore her humanity from her. How could he be expected to end her life when he hadn't even been sure she had had a life?

He had chosen to give up his humanity. Where had her choice been?

They were now in the town of Claive, a small place nestled in the dense forests on the eastern side of Dundona. And in the middle of the night, Christian stood over her, watching her sleep soundly bathed in moonlight. She was a completely different person from the one he had first met.

He could kill her. It wouldn't take much to snap her neck with his enhanced strength. But he couldn't bring himself to do so. Nothing held him back; he had been freed long ago of what bound him to guilt and regret.

But when in front of Anastasia, he felt so naked. As if the man he once was, had returned. And that man was someone he despised more than anyone. Christian then noticed sweat beading on Anastasia's porcelain brow. Night terrors again. When he had asked her about them, she had simply responded, "That's how I've always slept. Is it not normal?"

Poor girl, he had thought then and did so again as he reached down to wipe her forehead with his hand. He noticed himself wanting to let his hand linger, trace the lines of her face, run his fingertips over her eyelids, her cheeks, her lips, and a moment of fear grabbed him. "This should not be happening," he muttered, swiftly removing his hand from Anastasia and heading for the door of the room. Christian needed to escape.

Outside the tiny hut they had rented from a farming couple, Christian stood, blue smoke rising from the tip of a cigarette. Because his body chemistry was enhanced, he got his energy from alchemically altered goods. The cigarettes he smoked were such goods, and emitted an eerie bluish smoke. The people of tradition on Dundona, feared anything mechanically or alchemically enhanced so Christian deliberately smoked at night where he could easily hide.

This night, unlike most of his recent nights, he was deep in thought. He needed to kill Anastasia but wasn't able to. Instead, he had decided to drag her into his mess, his war, where he was certain she'd get hurt.

His inner godhood had never been so conflicted. When he had truly been alive, he had used many women. He had bound their bodies to himself; them his beautiful obedient tools. He used them to get want he wanted and then threw them to the wayside, their pockets full of coin, their purposes fulfilled.

The women enjoyed their time with him all the same; the seduction, the fantasy, the adrenaline, the wrong they committed. But he had shed that persona many years ago. Why did his desire to completely dominate return when he met Anastasia? What was it about her that made him want to unmistakably make her his?

It was too late now. She had agreed to help him, had even shed tears for him. And he recalled how that night by the ocean, he had ached to taste her tears and then devour her entirety. "Damn," he exhaled, a puff of blue escaping into the darkness. He could feel himself getting erect. The cool night's air wasn't working the way he'd hoped.

"I don't love," he spat. "I fuck...I fuck... up everything," he added, a thick self depreciating venom clinging to his every word. Christian took one last puff on his cigarette before putting it out between his fingertips and heading back inside, where he had luckily thought to get his own room.

A crunching of twigs underfoot told of something in the forest. That something, reached down to grab Christian's cigarette, taking a few long sniffs of it under their nose, an eerie pearlescent smile on their face. The mysterious stranger took out a tiny circular device. A thin voice echoed from inside it.

"Well," the voice asked.

"He smokes. That' new. He used to be concerned with his health," the forest guest responded, rolling Grey's cigarette between her index finger and thumb. The voice at the other end of the device sighed in annoyance.

"Not that, Elena. Did he fall for her?"

Elena flicked the cigarette butt into a small thorny bush.

"Of course he did. The 33rd is still human and as much as he doesn't want to admit it, so is Christian Grey."

"That's good news. Return." The line suddenly cut out and then after a few seconds, static came humming through the channel.

"Yes, Doctor," she said begrudgingly, crushing the transmitter in between her palms.

Before leaving, she turned back towards the cottage that housed a sleeping Anastasia and a frustrated Christian. Elena's smile grew on her face. "Oh, Christian. If only you knew what actually went on at your upgrade operation."

She slipped a remote from her pocket.

"No, no, no, Elena. We mustn't make things too easy. Having him do our bidding? It's simply too boring."

With that, she shoved the remote back into her pocket and disappeared into the darkness.