His head was spinning with images. In front of him, in the cell, what he once called Rathburn lay like a bloody rag; beside him, Catherine was crumpled fist over foot, looking like she'd landed that way from a great height. Behind closed lids Grey saw blood. Everything black and those splinters of gold danced like fire and he tried to tell himself it was all wrong. He would have known. Wouldn't he? That the woman whose warm body he had sunk himself into like a pool of clear oil time and time again was actually one of them?
(This needs more texture/sensual description I think.)
* need to look up exact locations of arteries
** need to get exactly how long after death a body will stop bleeding.
Grey picked up a scalpel from one of the tables. He looked at the girl. Still she hadn't fucking moved. He knelt next to Catherine's body. Gently (would he be gentle now?) he lifted her head (should put in something about her hair - how it smells, feels...) and made an incision near her left cartoid artery.
(A think red line of blood ran down her neck and over...)
The blood welled a deep dark red. Satisfied, he cleaned the scalpel on his shirt. He considered his reflection in the blade, then before he had time to think, he made a quick cut across his left forearm. He cut deeper than he'd intended and the skin parted and ... red ... the blood was red. He didn't staunch the wound right away. He let the blood run down his arm until it had mingled with Catherine's. (Am assuming that by now he has Catherine's blood on his hands... but maybe I/we should make that clearer.)
He looked up and saw the girl watching him intently.
(She opened her mouth as if she was about to speak, then closed it again.)
She caught him with her eyes. (Need a good desc. of her eyes. Pools of ... Light in... Colour.)
His arm caught his attention, it was itching. A scan had started to form, bits of gold shimmering in the crusted blood. Further down his arm red mixed with black, gold, and silver. His grip tightened on the scalpel. He got up and stumbled towards the cell. (But I don't think he's going to cut her, or at least not much...)
Things were becoming a little blurry. He staggered, pressed his palm onto the cell wall, smearing his greasy handprint over the glass. He looked down. The wound in his arm was almost healed. Flesh had meshed with flesh in a spiderweb of gold. He felt drugged. Endorphins kicking in perhaps; a reaction to the pain, the shock. She was looking at him. She was looking at the scalpel. He had to know. Did she understand that? That he had a reason? He entered the cell. She watched him. Some kind of sounds were coming from her throat, her slightly open mouth. Soft sounds, like a bird cooing. There was no fear in her face. And no anger. He turned to her, fell to his knees, and everything went black.
* * *
He was in the living room of the small apartment they'd assigned him and Catherine (Clumsy, I know...). Dozens of images were spread over the coffee table and he kept arranging and rearranging them. There were photographs from the girl's initial examination; close ups of her hips, thigh, pelvis, breasts, stomach, lower back, and strangely, her left eye. Another set of photographs showed a series of scars, some were caused by a reaction to the vaccination, some he couldn't identity.
There were x-rays of her skull, spinal column and ribs and her left and right hands and wrists (note the venom glands). The video stills were taken from footage of her capture and her first couple of weeks at the complex. The collection team had not had an easy time with this one. The screen captures were from his own computer. There was something in these pictures that was just out of his reach. He kept running his hands over the glossy photographs, the coarse printouts. He felt as though they were some sort of palimpsest.
An insistent clicking sound made him look up. Catherine was in the doorway of the kitchen, a glass of red wine in her hand (and a knife behind her back.) She was drumming one perfect nail against the side of the glass, a sure sign that she was annoyed. He wondered how long she'd been watching him.
She frowned, one side of her mouth dipping just a bit lower than the other. He knew people with crooked smiles, she was the only person he'd ever known with a crooked frown.
"You're doing it again."
"Doing what?"
"Getting involved, concerned, whatever." She brought the glass to her lips. "I see the way you look at her."
"Oh? How long have you been fucking Rathburn? I don't care, although I'm surprised you can stomach it."
She threw the glass. "Bastard. You fucking bastard. At least he..."
Grey tried to jump up. He couldn't move. The girl was kneeling over him, leaning close. He could feel her breath on his cheek.
She said, "We need to get her out of you." (cut?)
He felt tense, wired. This close to (a possibly-dangerous) creature, Catherine fucking dead on the floor, cut, drained. Rathburn a few feet away. And all he could think about and feel was her breath, see the warmth in her eyes that he'd thought were so cold. They looked golden now. Everything about her shimmered with a glow, a heat. She was all sensation. She was what sensation would look like if you could piece it together and give it a name. Her hands were on his chest. Her actual hands. This wasn't distorted perception. This was real. He was at her mercy...
the end - for now