Rabbit Blood

Chapter 40 - Salutations

Leslie couldn't stay up forever. Finally, days later, sick from stress and caffeine, she gave up. Sleep hit her like a sledgehammer. She wasn't surprised to find the nightmares chasing her, waking her in a cold sweat at 4am. More unusually, though, there was a sharp pricking in her left thigh. As she moved, it bit deeper. A bug! She flailed in place, flinging off the covers and slapping her leg. Only when she turned on the bedside lamp did she see the culprit: a needle stuck in her flesh.

"The fuck?" Leslie muttered, peering at it. Oh. Of course. From the time she sewed new pockets in her clothes. She looked some more. The pain wasn't that bad, now she'd taken her bodyweight off it. Because it wasn't bad, a few moments of experimental flicking and tapping occurred, before she finally removed the needle. A tiny bead of blood swelled at the site.

Briefly, she wondered if it was normal, to aggravate a wound like that. Then she remembered she was in Hell, as a rabbit, with a shorn patch on her back, because a sadistic overlord wanted a view of the marks he made there. Nothing was normal anymore.

For several hours after her morning jog, Leslie kept the needle for jabbing herself with - discreetly, of course, in public areas. It took her mind off being tired, and she could handle the pain. The ease with which she handled it was so novel, so curious. It made her think that the worst part of Alastor's games wasn't the pain itself, but the anticipation of it.

By now, Alastor should have verbally invoked the car crash, as feared, and he hadn't done so... but he did commend her for enduring his play. This was relatively new. Leslie would hiss and moan, submitting to the sharpest points of him, and when he finally withdrew with shallow breath and blood-covered lips, Alastor forgot to be a cocky smartass. Then, and only then, he would shower praise upon her.

"Ah, how splendid," he said, trailing gloved fingers over his own teeth-marks. "I wish you could see... and you took it beautifully, dear. My brave little bunny."

Leslie knew what it was. Positive reinforcement. She'd all but encouraged him to use it in the past: "Less stick, more carrot". Insidious though it was, she tried to ignore the implications. For the moment, he was proud of her. Her tolerance for pain was improving.

Her tolerance for being surprised, however...

"Boo!"

"Argh!" Leslie jumped, halfway along the second-floor corridor as Alastor appeared before her. "Don't do that!" She shimmied around him, heading to her room.

"Shouldn't you be downstairs? Your class is in 20 minutes!"

"No, that's tomorrow."

"I don't think so!"

She stopped, rolling her eyes, and took out her phone to confirm the date... then frowned. He was right. Wednesday. Somehow, she'd lost track of time.

"Oh shit," she said. "Er... so that means I'm-"

"Twenty-eight, yes!" Alastor laughed at her confusion. "Chronologically, at least. Physically, you shall stay as you are until an exterminator stabs you to death!"

Leslie nodded. "You know, a simple 'happy birthday' would suffice."

He continued to laugh as he came close, to pat her on the head, and she smelled the cologne on his shirt cuff. It was nice. And they were alone in the corridor. Leslie sent him a soft, make-me-happy kind of face. Two winks was all she needed.

"Don't get your hopes up," Alastor responded. "It isn't that time yet. But I did get you something!"

"Oh, thanks. You didn't have to." A pause. "What was... uh, what?"