Chapter Text
It took Jennifer a while to process what had happened at first. Probably not as long as it should have, considering that by school the next morning she had bounced back, but an all-nighter was a lot for her. Losing sleep and laying there with a racing mind and swirling stomach wasn’t something she had dealt with since middle school.
She hadn’t realised what was going to happen when she had first bumped into Ahmet, limbs shaking and mind blurry.
There’s something strange in the way traumatic experiences can hit. Jennifer had never been good with her emotions, lashing out and expelling it all in a harsh torrent at anybody around her whenever something became too much to bear.
When her mom sent her to therapy at age fifteen, concerned about her sudden penchant for what she called, ‘mild acts of cruelty’, Jennifer had managed to end up refused service after only a handful of sessions. She didn’t see the point in trying to fix herself, since ‘cruelty’ wasn’t exactly the way she would’ve worded it. More like ‘brutal honesty’, though she toned it down after that and let her mom believe that she’d seen the error of her ways. Sitting in that office had been such a drag, and she didn’t want a repeat.
This time there wasn’t anybody around to berate. She’d been left, frozen and terrified in the woods, wind rushing against her blood-soaked clothes and sending chills rattling through her. She felt dead, she had been convinced that she was dead. It didn’t feel like her heart was beating and she was so unbelievably cold. And hungry. So, so very hungry.
It was a hunger unlike anything she had felt before, one that spurred her to her feet and had her walking along, steadier than her shredded stomach should’ve allowed. She didn’t really process that she shouldn’t have been able to move, she didn’t understand how wrong it all was. There were stab wounds splattered throughout her chest and guts, and her skin was still sore from where it had been held down too harshly; by all means that was not a body that should’ve been stumbling down a street with a complete ignorance to its wounds.
Yet Jennifer didn’t acknowledge them, didn’t even think of them once she’d left those woods. It was odd, because when Low Shoulder had been attacking her, they were all she could think of. How much it hurt and the slide of metal in and out, bringing with it a pain so dizzying that all she could do was scream. Then it had all gone numb, searing pain morphing into a familiar ache of hunger until it wasn’t familiar anymore, deeper and more painful than anything she had ever felt.
She found her way back to Needy. Of course she did, what other option was there but her?
Jennifer knew she must look a state. She’d practically been killed, after all. That was bound to leave a few marks. Red tights had merged with slowly drying blood, itchy and flaking. The stuff on her torso wasn’t drying though, still heavy and sodden. Staring at Needy, a distant thought told her that she wanted to acknowledge it all, to make some snarky comment and fix the expression on her face. But her body refused her.
She saw the way Needy’s face twitched in fear at the sight of Jennifer, and smiled. Then the hunger clawed its way up again and Jennifer felt very sudden, very real panic at the thought of hurting Needy. The feeling vanished almost as soon as it came, but the thought of harming her stayed just as horrifying. She couldn’t, not Needy.
The freezer door slammed open and she snatched a chicken with far too much force, meat embedding itself beneath her fingernails, slimy and half-frozen. It didn’t feel like it mattered as she ate, ravenous beyond belief and needing anything to satiate that seething hunger. The chicken did nothing, falling to the bottom of an empty pit in her stomach. Something mocking in her head likened it to that cursed waterfall she could still hear echoing in her ears, overlayed with the faint sound of her own screams.
Then everything blurred again and there was a black puddle on the floor, inklike, sharp and unnatural. Needy made some awful sound and moved closer, visibly fighting her own instinct to run. Crouching next to Jennifer she started to speak with a soft voice, so kind and so pitifully Needy that it made her sick.
A hand wrapped around her wrist and she watched as Needy froze, looking down then jolting back. She didn’t know what had caused the reaction, but she knew that she didn’t want Needy far.
Moments later she was pressed up against her in the hallway, feeling Needy shake between her and the wall, fearful whimpering in her ear. She was scared, she was scared and Jennifer couldn’t help but enjoy that. But she couldn’t hurt her.
She knew it would be good, so good, if she did. She had no doubt that whatever it was inside of her was desperate for something, desperate for Needy, but that thing felt dangerous. And sure, Jennifer could be a shitty friend at times, but that didn’t mean she wanted to see Needy hurt.
So her legs carried her out of the door and along the road until she bumped into someone else, limping along and visibly fucked up from the fire.
Standing in front of Ahmet on that road, she felt something click. She spoke, honestly impressed that she managed and equally as horrified by the fact that it barely felt like herself speaking. She asked him questions, and when he had answered just as she’d hoped, she had smiled and led him into the forests by the side of the road.
Her gums burnt, a shifting and grinding happening beneath the surface for a split second before her mouth was opening of its own volition, the corners tearing open with a truly disgusting noise. Blood spurted from the splits that had appeared, blood that soon became indistinguishable from Ahmet’s as she sunk her sharpened teeth into him.
He tasted just about how someone would expect another living person to taste. His blood was metallic, coating her tongue in thick, warm liquid and spilling down her front, worsening the mess that was already there. He tore apart easily, whatever her teeth had turned into seemed to be especially useful, ripping flesh into shreds like steak.
The thick layer of ash that had settled on his skin made her choke a little, a rancid taste on top of something otherwise concerningly appetising. He thrashed in her grip for all of twenty seconds before giving in and collapsing, half of his blood outside of his veins and the other half rapidly draining.
His body dropped to the floor of the forest, grass cushioning the sound, and she looked around briefly before giving in and following. On her knees in the cold night air, she plunged her hands into the cavern of his chest and kept devouring, insatiable and pleading for a sense of satisfaction.
When that satisfaction finally came, she pulled away and rose to her feet. Her teeth shifted again, mouth sealing shut until all that was left was the corpse in front of her and the blood covering her from head to toe. She felt full again.
She didn’t sleep that night, turning it over and over in her mind. Once the hunger had gone, she no longer struggled to think. That came with the downside of being aware of what she had done, something so taboo and rancid that she knew it should have left her ruined for weeks.
It only took her until the next morning to come to terms with it, and the night contained a single half-assed attempt to get the mess in her stomach to come back up. Dirty clothes were shoved into a trash bag and she showered thoroughly, watching tinted water flow down the drain, muddy from soil, smoke, and carnage alike. By the time she was sat next to Needy in class, she felt refreshed.
It wasn’t normal, how calm she was. But what was she supposed to do? Force herself to feel? Maybe she hadn’t been fixed by eating Ahmet, if this was how she was reacting. Maybe all those stab wounds had royally fucked her up, more than she’d thought.
That wasn’t the last time it happened, despite what vague hope she may have had. Once she was feeling truly awful, she’d figured it out already.
Craig was easy to lure, emotionally torn and malleable. It barely took her a conversation to get him to follow her into the woods, wildlife crowding around and waiting for her leftovers like she was some messed up Disney princess.
The body being found was distinctly not something she wanted to happen, but she’d blanked out the very real consequences for her actions, hoping that the trees and scavengers would be enough to clear her tracks. But Craig, the moron, had screamed loud enough to draw attention, and by the next day it was all anyone was talking about.
She went to see Roman again, no longer needing to eat but knowing that being in his good books would help if somehow the cops ended up on her trail. Sleeping with a cadet probably shouldn’t let her get away with murder, but it was a small town and the police department was full of pushovers. She’d never been so thankful for shitty law enforcement – and that was saying something.
Eating people became manageable. It was something she did, and something she had to do. Jennifer had always done what needed to be done, so why would this end up being any different?
The main problem was Needy. The way she started to be just so, so tempting.
She was around all too often, by her side even as the effect of eating Craig wore off. A girl got a papercut in one of her classes and it took her two minutes for Jennifer to realise she had been actually salivating, which was really gross. And when Needy had called her name to break her out of the trance she’d fallen into, the first thing on Jennifer’s mind was how good she smelt.
She couldn’t hurt Needy. She wouldn’t eat her, she refused.
So when Needy complimented Colin, she called him back and accepted his date request. Or rather, she adjusted his plans so that she wouldn’t have to sit through some dull film and could instead regain some colour in her cheeks.
If Needy seemed infatuated with him, then Jennifer could have him. They were best friends, that was how it worked. What was Needy’s was Jennifer’s and anything that damaged that was a problem to be solved.
It didn’t take long for her to decide to eat Chip, in the end. And really, with a name like that, he was practically asking for it, right?