The blood from the paper thin cuts dripped down his binds, each droplet oozing down the rope led by the subtle pull of gravity. Ruby observed this, the vampire leaning against the wall of the 'interrogation' room used by the White Fang, one corner of her mouth curved upwards in a half smile.

She observed as he struggled madly against the ropes that pinned him to the metal chair, a series of groans escaping him every five minutes or so. A quick glance at the syringe placed innocently on the table beside her made Ruby smile. The sludge like liquid she had injected into him wasn't concentrated enough to kill him, but it would certainly break him in ways others wouldn't have dared to imagine.

Jack stared at nothing in particular with bloodshot eyes. Or at least, that was what he seemed to be doing to casual observers. The man himself was seeing something vastly different.

Through his eyes, it seemed that dark liquid began to seep through the cracks of the wall, the bulbous ooze forming towering faceless figures. They mulled about, seemingly unaware of his presence at first. Noises in the form of warbles and squelching sounds were exchanged, each blob tilting this way and that – the air thick like tar. Suffocating.

Their low warbles soon transformed into high pitched screams when they spotted him, and the sounds soon became something akin to shards of glass being shoved down his ears. He felt them bleeding. The weight of a thousand souls pounded on his chest, thrusting their invisible smoky tendrils into his breast and reached for his rapidly weakening heart, his legs soon beginning to shake.

His lower body went numb, his breaths becoming increasingly erratic. It was like all the oxygen in this personal hell had condensed into a tight bubble around his head, no bigger than the size of his cranium. The faceless piles of ooze soon turned beastlike, yet also strangely humanoid. They came for him, black teeth and canines and all. The last thing Jack registered, as he stared at these moaning creatures, was something slick and wet slipping down his thighs before going into another screaming fit.

Ruby wrinkled her nose at the sudden stench, becoming increasingly irritated at the sharp smells. It would have emptied her stomach had she been human. Her concoction was working as good as always. It had only been twenty minutes since the mixture of Grimm Blood and her own had been pumped into his veins.

A soft rap on the door caught her attention.

"Oh." Ruby blinked as the door opened by a crack, leaving her to stare into the face of one Roman Torchwick. "It's you."

He tried not to let his uneasiness show and suppressed the urge to take several steps backwards. The gentleman thief made an expression of distaste when the strong waft of urine made itself known to him, thanking the fact that the door was only slightly ajar. Ruby didn't bother to walk over, knowing that he could hear her just fine from his position.

"I need Neo for a heist. Everyone's busy with their own shit." He said wearily, pointedly glancing down at his bandaged thigh. The wound had healed up nicely, but there were still times where he would suddenly get sharp pangs of pain after he'd exerted himself. "I don't usually need help but…"

The 'no thanks to you' went unsaid, but the smirk on Ruby's face told him that she knew exactly what he was thinking. Stupid vampire, he thought sourly.

"If she doesn't object, neither will I." Ruby shrugged, running her tongue over her fangs. "Seeing as we've already executed our latest plans, Neo is free to do whatever she wishes. I trust that she won't be away for long, though?"

"Of course. I'm no newbie." He nodded, "There might be a few hiccups since we're going for one of the Schnee warehouses, but–"

The man cringed when he was cut off by an ear splitting scream. The vampire directed her gaze toward her prisoner, clicking her tongue when she saw that Jack was free from his binds and was now spasming on the floor in his own excrement. That scene did nothing to wet her appetite. She was still pretty full from the meal she had at the military base. She had gorged herself on blood before disposing of the bodies.

They were probably rotting at the bottom of the ocean as she spoke.

"I'll let you get back to that." Roman muttered, gently rubbing his wound. "Just keep your snack away from the break room."

She laughed sharply. Roman barely covered up his flinch before he sped away, eager to put distance between himself and the vampire.


In her own private room, Neo was having the time of her life. The little trip to Atlas had given her the opportunity to claim one of the prisoners as her own. As soon as they were back at the base, Ruby had tugged Penny away to perform maintenance which left Neo to her own devices. With a savage grin that could have curdled blood, she chose her victim among the shivering bodies tucked into cages on the bullhead and held the iron grip on his arm as his comrades were dragged away like bullies on a schoolyard.

Neo chose him. The man who'd shot at Ruby. Her Ruby.

He was resilient, that much Neo would admit. She couldn't remembered how much time had passed. Minutes? Hours? Days? But none of that mattered in the end, because the tri-coloured woman had broken him thoroughly, with cold cutting precision – each twist of her knife, each stab of hot, poisoned needles – were cruelly designed to prolong her fun, not shorten it.

If Neo could have made sounds, she would have thrown her head back and tittered as she watched the man dangle from the wires around his arms, the steel wires sunken so deep into his flesh that they became a part of him. The crusted stubs he'd once called his legs gleamed like bronze trophies under the harsh light of the room.

His eyes were now mismatched, one brown and the other red, courtesy of her trusty scalpel. The only similarity left was the look of utter blankness in them, devoid of any life or emotion. One could almost confuse him for a puppet, had a string of drool not hung from his scabbed lips and his chest not been rising up and down like choppy waves an angry sea.

Neo moaned breathily as she eased herself onto her bed, flinging the blood crusted gloves into the waste paper basket. The rest of the room had been cordoned off with imaginary lines, and while the area where the body hung was messy and chaotic, the rest of her room was neat and orderly. She spritzed something sweet smelling into the air and let her shoulders relax.

'Now that's what I call therapeutic.' She sighed, running a hand through her hair. With her victim knocking on the death's doors and the lack of attention from Ruby, Neo soon realized that she was bored. And she hated being bored.

Another thing she considered more precious than ice cream; was time. Hence, she had sworn to herself to only spend this finite commodity on things she deemed worthy or liked. Ruby had etched herself into that list. Permanently. Torture, of the physical and psychological kind, was also on that list.

Neo licked her lips and pondered. There was something else as well. The word soon began to emerge from the back of her mind, wrenching itself free from the mental block it was buried under. Her lips stretched to accommodate an excited smirk. Yes it was–

"Neo." Roman's voice floated through the door, dry and impatient "It's time for a heist. Grab your purse, and let's go."