The first time Victor tasted hot blood in his mouth, it was his own. It flowed freely over his tongue from all the places that his father had torn out his teeth. It tasted of copper, and salt, and it drooled out over his lips even as he swallowed mouthfulls of it down. The hot blood seemed to writhe like a snake in his sat there like a heavy poison mingling with the bile of hatred that grew there day after day.
The second time Victor tasted blood in his mouth it was the blood of his father.