Author's Note: you know how it goes. When the story flows, it flows. Might as well work with it while it happens, right?

New POV this chapter.

Disclaimer: the one from last time still applies. I own the clothes on my back, about 50 pounds of school supplies, and not much else. Certainly not much of this, though I may just lay claim to our heroine.

Hunger.

Icy rain falls out of the night sky. There's no streetlights in this part of town, at least no working ones. The occasional headlight illuminates the silver sheets falling out of the sky, but no people. Folk in these neighborhoods know better than to let themselves be seen after dark and not just because I've been feeding in the shadows for the past week. Their skittish ways are long established from the look of things.

A trashcan rattles loudly somewhere behind me, its lid falling to the broken pavement. My ears pick up the splash. An unhappy cat yowls. A human curses under their breath.

Dinner.

A man, drunk, unlikely to blame his wretched condition on anything other than a routine overindulgence in beer when he wakes to find himself in the gutter.

Perfect.

I back up, phasing just enough to become part of the wall behind me. How he would smirk and leer to see me now, reduced to stalking barflies to sate my hunger. Well, life before with its tidy little packs of donated blood hardly prepared me for this. I had to learn the hard way how to not draw attention to my presence. There's a lot that society is prepared to overlook, but a vampire leaving its citizens alive isn't one of them.

Funny how that is. One could start to believe they prefer dealing with ghouls than dressing a neck that's simply been…gnawed…on.

But then again, the living sue the State for not protecting them better and ghouls don't leave much of a mess behind when all is said and done.

Or at least they don't when dealt with properly.

Well, I'll get the knack of it eventually.

"Daydreaming when you should be paying attention to your surroundings." The rogue thought has me ducking to avoid a blow that will never come. The movement leaves skin behind on the bricks. It stings. I think I would have preferred to have the thwap on the back of the head, but I'll probably never forget to keep my mind on phasing when I'm half-passed through a brick wall.

Heh. "Half-passed." That's almost like half –

-drip-

My woozy mind registers a difference in the sound. That one was me, not the rain. I've lost too much blood from the wound in my thigh. If only the drunk had been traveling with an equally drunken friend. Two men would have been enough. I don't know if I can keep myself from gorging on the one available and I'm running dangerously low on the pretty – pretty damn effective – silver bullets I swiped from HQ. I'd hate to use one to clean up after my meal.

Focus, Darcie. Feed and move on. The scent of the ancient blood spilling from my veins will call any predators within several city blocks to my side. I'm in no condition to fight. Never have been, I've learned.

"Ask your mother."

Damn him! How could that be all he ever had to say? I'm his! He's the one who had the final say in my upbringing. How could he have been so selfish, so concerned with creating emotional riptides in the undercurrents swamping the mansion when I was aching to be of some use to…

To him.

How could he have left me so defenseless?

I was never defenseless until I left. He was always there.

"Cats pounce!" Too late. The man has moved on. A door has opened. He's inside. Of course a closed door would never stop the great Alucard. Nothing stops the great Alucard.

So why hasn't he found me yet?

I'm bleeding out in the street and all I can worry about is why I have to fend for myself? What's wrong with that picture?

Luckily drunks are in anything but short supply. One…two…three… I consider waylaying a fourth man but can't work up the energy. It was too difficult breaking off from the others after little more than a pint. I wouldn't be able to stop again and…

And what?

Again the sneer and the leer and the mocking eyes. The probing tendrils rasping against my mind and my nerves, milking every last drop of angst. I can almost feel it now, can almost see the flashing lenses in my mind that just ask to be shattered…

…did that once. While they were on his face. He was impressed. For all the wrong reasons and I didn't sleep for a week out of fear of retaliation, but it was still good fun…

…and I'm not ready to kill. Better to sleep, heal a little, and be on the move as soon as dusk falls. The hunger will be worse then but I'll have more time. More time to hide the evidence of my meals if killing is no longer avoidable.

Oh god, if I kill a mortal I'll never be allowed to go back. The pain of it ripples through me, stronger than the pain in my leg. My body suppressed that long ago but it can't save me from the pain caused by the thought of being hunted by those I count as family.

Well. I suppose feeding deeply from any one "donor" is out of the question.

The small hostel where I've tucked myself away is dingy and cold…cinderblock you know. There's no windows and my roommates are all idealistic college students backpacking across Europe in the off-season to save their meager funds for all-nighters in clubs. My torn and bloody clothes are disposed of easily enough though my body aches with weariness by the time I collapse on my cot. Weariness and bruises. After several months of poor feeding my body is slow to heal.

Just be strong long enough to get well. I can't go home tired, starving, and wounded. He'd probably put me down for shaming him.

A small smile. A small lightening of my exhaustion.

Home…

Training – real training – holds no appeal because it would come with his unrelenting presence. I never realized until I ran away how closely he watched me. I still don't know what he wanted to see. Perhaps whatever he did see is the reason he always brushed off my requests to learn from him.

I never thought I'd disappointed him.