Shadowkissed (A Hemlock Grove fan fiction)

the bitch is back . . . sort of.

She watches the suited man come up the steps. For a moment her heart had raced when she’d heard a car idling in the driveway; she'd thought—irrationally, perhaps—that it might be him, finally coming to accept his destiny and maybe even allow her to help guide him through it. But then she remembered that her existence was supposed to be kept a secret and saw Pryce coming around the winding front walk of the new Hemlock Acres Rehabilitation center—population of one, currently—and the happiness deflated in an instant.

The door to the greenhouse creaks open, and Johann slips inside. He is a small, compact man with a stern face, and a crisp demeanor—exactly what she had first needed when deciding who would run the White Tower. He obeys orders without question and knows when to keep secrets and when to let them slip every so often. He’s been helping her sate the cravings for years.

“Johann,” she says, pasting a smile on her face. “No rehabilitation for me today. I'm too exhausted, and you know how I get when I feel tired.”

The British accent is gone, replaced with something vaguely French. It’s funny how the brain does things like that, Pryce muses to himself. Why couldn’t her brain have made her an exceptionally better person? “I thought I would drop by to let you in on some of the new developments.”

She nods, barely. “And my son?” she prods, because she knows that if she doesn’t push for the information, Johann will never tell.

He sighs. “Roman is . . . incorrigible. He doesn’t listen, he does what he wants, he pries into my as if he means to get me into trouble for what I’m doing. He fed on one of our new department heads.”

“Fed,” she repeats. “As in . . .”

“As in sucked the life out of her, drained her until there was nothing left but bone and dried flesh.” Johann rubs his face tiredly. “I don't know how he's sating the cravings, but it isn't working. We're running out of time."

She insists, “He’s just hungry.”

But Johann seems unconvinced. “You were just hungry, and you never killed any of my employees. Roman is out of control. He’s like a wild animal, bloodthirsty and crazed, and he’s going to get us all killed."

She comes to stand by the window. The flowers that haven't been taken out from the heat are slowly dying out as the cold settles in. With a flick of her wrist and a cold glare she snaps, “So take control.”

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Tuesday morning comes much too soon. If Roman could, he would eradicate the day completely. He wonders if it would be too self-righteous to try.

Fortunately, today he’s been relieved from his duty of overseeing the experiments—at least, the experiments Johann is allowing Roman to see. He knows there’s more working behind the scenes than he can even comprehend, has seen the millions of dollars going to “Miscellaneous” in the inventories and intends to find out exactly where so much of his money is going. Unfortunately, however, his new task is to watch this month’s surgery videos and decide which are efficient enough to go up on the Institute’s website. It’s boring as hell and Roman is almost falling asleep until they stick the stethoscope into the patient and focus the camera on their beating heart, which pumps and gushes with blood. He can’t peel his eyes away from the beautiful red liquid. It pours everywhere, and he just imagines it running through his hair and down his face, between his fingers, bathing him in it—

A knock on the door snaps him back to reality, but the burning still lies at the back of his throat, impossible to reach. He slams his finger on the pause button and the key cracks beneath the pressure. “What?” he snarls in a gravelly voice, shaken by the cravings.