Evie was saying something, of that, Jacob was certain. Her mouth was moving, her eyes were on him, but he couldn't hear a word over the roaring in his head. If his heart were still a living thing inside him, he knew it'd be racing. But it was still, painfully still – another reminder of the monster he was becoming.

Jacob took one step back. Another.

She was exchanging words with Henry now, her eyes wide and earnest where his were calm and clear and focused. Focused on protecting her – from Jacob.

He could still taste her on his teeth, on his lips, on his tongue. Warm and living and delicious. The few swallows blood he had managed to draw from her lurched uneasily in his stomach, and he had to swallow hard to resist purging himself right in front of them. He took another stumbling step back when Henry's gaze went from Evie, soft and concerned – to Jacob, hard and knowing. It felt like a knife in his gut, hot and twisting, and Jacob felt the air slam out of his lungs. He couldn't breathe.

Did he need to breathe?

"I—" He started, and then the heel of his retreating foot found nothing but air and the edge of the train. But he didn't realize it in time. His weight continued backward, slowly pitching his balance over until the world became a disjointed, slanted thing. He fell and the last thing he saw before his back hit the unforgiving railing of the bridge was Evie's eyes – wide and shocked.

There was a loud crunch, the roar of the train passing him by, and then his head hit stone with a sickening slap. The world flickered in and out from black as momentum pitched him over the edge, rolling his limp form until he was airborne once more. Wind at his back, between his fingers. Like a leap of faith, but softer – less controlled. Like falling asleep. His lashes fluttered as the sky drew further and further away. His vision went black.

A crack that sounded like the world being split in two, and then he was engulfed on all sides by darkness. Water rose to drag him down into its clutches like a lover, seizing him on all sides. Icy, brackish water penetrated his mouth, his throat. He gasped, and the river took him.

He could see the surface, lit lightly by the fading sun. He blinked, and suddenly it was further away.

He couldn't help but think of all the rowdy, seedy dockside pubs he'd been in and all the stories he had heard from sailors about how drowning was a kind death, a gentle death. He wondered if it was true. He closed his eyes. At least he couldn't hurt anyone else, now. At least Evie was safe.

He closed his eyes and drifted. He lost time. The world shorted out all around him, and then there was a hook and hands – grabbing him, hard and squeezing – pulling him up from the depths. He was hauled onto a ship deck, and no sooner was he upon it he was vomiting. Dark water splattered onto the deck before him, tinged pink with blood. Jacob shuddered and vomited again.

"Look'it what we have 'ere, boys," said a gruff, cruel voice – dark and mocking above him. "Thought I saw a Rook try to fly, I did. You boys were never any good at it, though."

A steel-toed boot slammed into his ribs, tossing Jacob to his side on the deck. He cried out, too tired, too distraught to care for his pride. He bared his teeth and curled around his ribs, only for his spine to complain instead. He squinted up through the pain at his rescuers-turned-attackers. Blighters, the lot of them. Six, it seemed. If he was lucky, maybe there were actually three and he was just seeing double. He doubted it. When was Jacob Frye ever lucky.

Never, it seemed these days.

"Maybe someone done clipped his wings!" Another jibed, his grin as ugly as his voice.

"A bit late for a swim, don't you think, boys?" And then there were hands in his hair, pulling him upright onto his knees. Jacob keened, his face wrecked as he struggled to keep up with his torturer. All around him, the men burst into cruel snickers. Jacob tried to clear the water from his eyes, tried to collect himself, but the world was a hazy mess and he was too exhausted to blink it away.

"Are we sure this is 'im?" One said, scrawny and oily. "Looks dumber than a box of rocks. Can't be 'im."

"You try falling off a fucking bridge," Jacob's daze turned into a soft snarl. His eyes fluttered, but he still managed to pass the man an exhausted smirk. "I'd be happy to help push you off it myself, if you need some help."

"You little prick!"

A fist in his gut. A boot. The hand in his hair let him go and he hit the deck like rotten potatoes.

"What do we do with 'im?"

"Starrick wants 'im dead."

"Then we should have left 'im in the fucking water!"

"Shut up, the lot of you. Yeah, Starrick wants 'im dead – but he also wants to be the one to do it. I say we take Frye to 'im. Maybe there'll be some coin in it for us."

"He's right, he is. I've heard the man mumbling about Frye all the time. Bet he'd be real grateful."

"Then it's settled," said the man nearest to him just before dropping a heavy foot in Jacob's lower back and pressing. "We take 'im to Starrick."

Jacob tried to push back against that boot, but his muscles burned beneath his sopping wet clothing and the heavy weight of hunger in his belly. That animalistic haze loomed in the back of his mind, ready to take over - but he resisted. Every breath that passed without his teeth in their skin felt like agony, white hot and seething, but he resisted. Tried to focus. He shook his head to clear it.

He couldn't let them take him, even if he had wished he died in the Thames' depths. Dying of his own choosing was one thing, but Starrick... He wouldn't give the monster the satisfaction. In fact, just hearing his name was like a bell clearing his mind, reminding him of the job he had left to do. Roth's little gift had so royally fucked up his head, he had forgotten why he had come to London in the first place.

To kill one Crawford Starrick. To put an end to his operations and his tyranny. To set the people free.

But he couldn't keep killing innocents. It was against the Creed. It was the only thing that made him different from monsters like Starrick or Attaway or Roth. He couldn't feed from the blood of the innocent.

Something clicked.

…What of the blood of the men he would've killed anyway? Starrick's blood? Roth's blood? Blighter blood?

Suddenly, Jacob's gums ached fiercely. The boot at his back pulled free, the removal of its weight a blessing, but Jacob waited. Despite the agony of holding back the baying beast inside him, he waited. Waited until the man reached down for him again with his cruel fingers. His patience paid off. When the man's throat was no more than scant inches from him, Jacob twisted lithely beneath him. Seizing the man's wrist in an iron-like grasp, Jacob yanked. The man lost his footing on the wet ship deck, his boots squeaking stupidly, and Jacob grinned like a madman – crazed with hunger and sudden, elating freedom – as he grabbed the man by the thin hair at the back of his neck and said, "You can try."

He let go of the creature inside him. It felt like relaxing muscles he hadn't known he'd been flexing for hours. His mind whited out, suddenly overwritten with a new and fearsome instinct that washed over him like a wave. He struck for the man's throat, and relished the horrified and panicked yelps it elicited from those who surrounded him. The man beneath his teeth – his still painfully blunt teeth – screamed, his throat vibrating against Jacob's gums as he dug in deeper, waiting until that familiar copper tang flooded his mouth.

It was a messy wound, smearing red all across Jacob's face, but he could hardly feel it. Each swallow of blood – warm and thick and filling – left him blissful in its wake. Not even the man's hands grasping and beating at his shoulders could faze him, not even as they slowed. Finally, he was filling the gnawing hole that his belly had become. Finally, he was sating his thirst. It was like running for miles and finally drinking water. Like a feast after days of fasting. His eyes rolled in his head as he pulled harder and harder from the swollen wound beneath his lips – the drink coming slower and thinner as the man bled dry.

And then he let him go, easing him down onto the deck slowly as Jacob rose. He should have looked pathetic clad only in loose, drenched trousers and his hair a wet and tangled mess atop his head. Instead, he looked like a demon incarnate – tall and strong and menacing. Although he was not taller than most the brutes on the ship, his presence towered over them, and he couldn't help but feel a thrill of pleasure in the power that inspired within him.

"M-monster!"

"Stay away!"

The men all scrambled, but there was nowhere to run in the middle of the River Thames.

The men that could swim jumped ship, and Jacob let them.

Those who remained would be enough to fill him.