My adorable Harley-kins needs something to keep her peppy. I ain't gonna dose her or anything. She's had more than enough recreational drugs, and I ain't sharing her worship with anything or anyone else. I am, however, gonna give her something else to think about.

I've watched people make knives before. There's a tempering stage knives go through after forging. The metal is hard but super brittle, not unlike my cupcake. To make the knife less likely to break, they bake it for hours or boil it in oil for hours at a lower temperature.

It's the hardness of the metal, you understand. If it is too hard, the first time you stab someone, it'll shatter. If it's too soft, it won't cut.

If I give her nothing but a good hard fucking and spare time, she's going to be a handful of shards. Too much time spent brooding and no chance to succeed, and she'll be useless.

Ditto for too much leiniency. I want a sharp Harley, a Harley that cuts to the bone.

I let her off the chain. She stood there, staring at me, mouth opening and closing like a guppy drowning in the air. And then I pointed to the stairs.

She shot out of the office door. I had to get to it quickly before she managed to get out of the warehouse. While she was trying to push past the mob hanging out in the warehouse, I told 'em about our new game: if they can catch her, they can molest her a little. If they let her out of the warehouse, someone's going to die, but she can run and hide as much as she likes. They can't do any permanent damage to her, but a few bruises between friends is just the price of being easy to catch.

It's good exercise, after all, and my Harley is getting a little soft around the edges. She screamed when she heard me say it, this time sounding like one of the hawks that nest in this neighborhood and fight the gulls over eating their young. It had anger, and despair, and hate, and overwhelming outrage-perfect. Exactly what she needs to survive.

I'll give her this: she ain't a slow learner. Before the idiots could stop gawking at me, she had twisted clear and put twenty feet between her body and most of them. I couldn't resist clapping for her. It's a real pleasure to shape someone so clever.

I'll let them have an hour or so, since she's probably sick from withdrawal. The fact that she won't drink from the bowl or eat the puppy chow will punish her just as much as being slow.

If she faints, I'm going to be just a little bit disappointed.

If she knocks one of the idiots out, I'm going to treat her to real food.

I don't know how to talk about today. Everything feels... well... like a distant dream. I'm a doctor. I know I'm hungry and suffering withdrawal, that I can't expect to be particularly alert, but I think it's really clear that I'm out of my depth here. I can't help but watch him. My fucking skin crawls when he's in the room, a terrible awareness of him that makes me want to rip it off so that I won't keep feeling him.

I recognize the feeling. I do. My training. I can't help but think it's useless, but I keep clinging to it. Being a doctor lets me step back a little, lets me get away from... from him. And it is useless, because I can't get away from him.

He took the chain off with the most terrible grin, and I could swear his teeth look longer than they should be and all too sharp. There's nothing kind in his smiles, just this overwhelming hunger and scorn. He balanced the chain in his hand like he was weighing it, watching me cower in far too few clothes.

I don't even know why I cower. There's no goddamn point in modesty and I'm pretty sure it arouses him that I... that I would cower.

And then he pointed to the door.

My heart exploded, pulse soaring. I thought maybe he'd changed his mind. Maybe he'd decided I wasn't worth it, and even though I don't have anywhere else to go, even though I can't imagine making it more than a few blocks before someone arrests me for public exposure, I had to try.

I jumped down the stairs, more falling than running on those ridiculous heels, before I heard his voice, before I felt the chain cut into me again, like I'd never be rid of it.

A nightmare. This isn't a dream, it's a fucking nightmare. The mob at the foot of the stairs all looked up, faithful dogs, a snarling pack of monsters.

I nearly fainted when he finished speaking. I didn't realize that blood could actually drain from your face, that it would sting and the world would surge up around me, my pulse hammering madly in my ears, faster than the blurred stamp of my heels on the concrete.

They howled, voices indistinct but for malice. I've only ever heard that sound in horror movies. I wish I was in a theater, that this was happening to anyone else. I dived behind a stack of boxes, searching for something, anything, the skin of my back shrieking to match the laughter as they ran after me. Nothing. There was nothing but the steel supports, but I could climb them.

I kicked those stupid shoes off in the face of the first climber. I got him good, too-right as he reached up, when he had the least skin in contact with the steel. He fell off, hit the concrete with a sound like my father's nail flicking a melon to see if it was ripe.

It made them pause, and it's the only reason they didn't pull me off while I was staring at him on the ground, a thin rivulet of blood snaking out from behind his matted hair as the list of his injuries hammered through my head, the sound doom must make.

I am a doctor. I swore to heal, to take no actions which injure or endanger others.

I killed that man.

When they surged back up, angry and spitting, I kept climbing. I climbed until I could wedge myself near the ceiling, fifty feet up in the air, and coiled my arms in the struts. They'd probably win, but I would be able to kick a few in the face and maybe knock them off.

I killed that man.

I've never shook that hard. I cut myself on the struts, but the sting called me back.

I killed that man. I killed him.

I don't know who I am any more.

I don't want to die.