CHAPTER 2

"Drink!" Came a voice, rough as it was manic. There were fingers at his face; smushing it, shaking him, urging him to wake. "Jacob, drink!"

Jacob moaned and pulled away, face scrunching when something distinctly warm and wet smeared thickly against his mouth and cheek. Instinctively he tried to lick it away only to splutter fiercely, copper strong on his tongue. His stomach twisted, vomit clenching low at his throat.

"Now is not the time to fight me, darling," the voice said, oddly strangled as fingers pried more and more painfully at his face – as though trying to force open his jaw. Jacob attempted to open his eyes, but the fire was too bright, too searing, and the tears that followed stung. He coughed, smoke thick and cloying, and tasted blood anew. His blood.

"I can't pull you from this beam until you drink, Jacob," urged the voice. Jacob gasped for breath, suddenly aware of the dire situation. There was a hand at his side, clutching at the sharp end of a beam turned spear that started at his back and emerged at his front. Jacob tried to look down, but the hand stopped him – keeping his eyes on the peculiar, flaming red of the man's before him. His chest heaved for breath he couldn't catch; his heart raced.

"Damn it, Jacob."

And then a hand was at his nape, digging deep into the soft curls at the back of his head and yanking. Jacob gasped, a silent shout in his throat as another hand appeared over him – a thick and bloody gash at its wrist – and something trickled down his throat. He spluttered. Blood exploded from his mouth, but even more poured in; sliding down his throat, paving the way to his stomach.

The Alhambra roared around them, the third floor collapsing unto the second. The sound distracted the voice, and suddenly the hand and blood were gone. Jacob gasped and coughed and gagged, trying to expel as much of it as he could only for those hands to return; this time to his shoulders.

"Sorry, dear boy," the voice said and then he was pulled from the wreckage, his scream lost beneath the snarling inferno of the Alhambra.

Jacob came to slowly, long lashes fluttering against pale skin. Wherever he was, he was moving – and for a moment, he felt at home. Moving… he must be on the train. With his sister and Greenie and the Rooks. He felt uncomfortable enough to be on that god forsaken couch. Only… no, that didn't feel right. He hadn't been to the train for days now, instead sleeping at different taverns and inns that favored his Rooks. He tried to remember why, only for a sharp lance of pain to slice across his mind, opening the floodgates to every other pain he had yet noticed.

He was bleeding.

His side was on fire, wet and aching. He fumbled drunkenly to investigate it only for someone to grab his hands halfway there and pin them gently down. He struggled weakly against those hands, only to earn himself a chuckle from their owner.

"Mmhpft," Jacob murmured, vision swaying as he tried to focus. "No."

"Hush now, my dear," Rasped a familiar voice. "I've got you."

Fingers in his hair – long and soothing and familiar. But not Evie's… Evie wasn't very happy with him lately. Why...? He struggled to remember.

Roth.

Jacob winced – images of people being murdered on stage, the sound of screaming, and fire – so much fire. He cried out, grimacing when dried blood cracked painfully around his throat. His lungs burned inside his chest, his breathing raspy. He wheezed and felt he lost more air than he gained. The carriage they were riding in jerked violently, and Jacob couldn't help but shout again as the fire in his side became an inferno. His eyes burned fiercely, wet with pain; but Roth just shushed him again – soothing him with his hands. It was then that Jacob realized the awkwardness of their position; crammed into the back of a carriage with Roth pressed against the side door and Jacob messily curled as small as possible across the length of the seat – his head in Roth's lap.

"Evie," Jacob said, pleading – as though this were a dream, a nightmare, and somehow she could wake him.

"No, my dear," Roth said, moving his hand to cover Jacob's eyes and obscure his vision. "I've got you."

Something whispered in his mind that that was bad, very bad. But Jacob couldn't dwell on it long before he slipped into the darkness once again.

Jacob moaned, and in turn his throat ached fiercely. He opened his eyes slowly, images processing slowly as he took in the high ceiling and drapes above him. He was in a bed, he realized – soft linens gentle against the naked skin of his back. It was a lovely bed, except for the strange lump at his lower back… He craned his neck to see, skin protesting as dried blood pulled taut, and stared at the sight before him.

A dark head of hair at his navel and a strong arm curled around and beneath him – pulling his hips up from the bed ever so slightly. And a tongue, wide and hot, laving at a messy looking wound in his side. Jacob gasped, skin contracting beneath Roth's administrations, and attempted to jerk away. The reproachful nip he received for his efforts left him shuddering – those teeth, they were much too sharp to be normal.

"R-Roth?" Jacob stammered. "What-?"

Roth tilted his head to meet Jacob's gaze, his face a bloody smirk of pleasure and his eyes peculiarly bright in the darkness. He licked his lips slowly, as a lion might, and grinned with all his teeth. There was something distinctly discomforting about the shape of the man's canines – long and wide and dangerous. It set off warning bells in Jacob's head.

Smoke, a fire. His blade, caught between them. A bite, and then the fall.

"You're awake," Roth said, "Good. I was beginning to fear I imbibed too much, my dear."

Imbibed… had they been drinking? Jacob struggled to remember through the haze in his mind. No, they couldn't possibly have been drinking – unless the factory had been a dream and everything 'till now a nightmare. But when had he ever been so lucky.

"You're healing up quite nicely, though," Roth said, cold fingers suddenly at his side. Jacob flinched, then stilled as his eyes fell upon the flesh in question. The fall flickered through his mind again – plummeting from the rafters, impaled upon the dying carcass of the Alhambra… And yet his side looked nearly healed. Ugly, yes. The skin was inflamed and red and puckered – still wet and raw at its center. But the wound itself was nearly closed, and suddenly Jacob felt a panic seize his chest when he wondered just how long he had been out. God, Evie must think him dead!

"No, no, my dear," Roth chuckled eerily, as though reading Jacob's mind. Jacob couldn't help but stare at him with wide eyes, at a loss for clever words for the first time in ages. No doubt he looked like a fish, gaping as he was. "It is still the night of my would-be murder, you've lost no time at all."

"But," Jacob gasped, hating the way his hands shook as he leaned to investigate the mutilated flesh for himself – trying to ignore the fact that his skin still glimmered with Roth's saliva. "The fall. I was–"

"Impaled," Roth said, an odd sort of excitement in his face, "I know, darling. I pulled you off the beam myself."

God… had it gone clean through? How was he still alive?

"Let's just say that I've given you a…special gift."

A gift…?

Hands at his jaws, prying his mouth open. His head yanked back, a bloody gash and copper, so much copper. Jacob jerked forward, side pulling tautly and oozing weakly as he forced himself onto his elbow and dragged himself further up the bed, away from Roth – however minutely.

"What have you done?" Jacob demanded, hoping the question didn't sound as terrified as he felt.

Roth smiled, sharp pearly whites smeared with pink.

"I set you free, little bird."