My eyes locked against hers in that moment… I felt a deep shiver take my soul as, for an instant, I felt the flicker of need between us, a need all consuming and all-powerful. I ached to reach out to her… but the stilled air of promise between us was shattered as Trey appeared at the end of the shower, his eyes cast over us both as he spoke, then his gaze leached across her pale scarred perfection… I caught Trey’s wink from the corner of my eye and felt the dark boil of rage flood through me… but her playful smile that she returned left me gasping inside.

That single simple gesture between them sparked something that churned deep inside me… I felt the emotions that had flown through me so openly had begun to close on themselves. Watching as she passed by, my eyes drawn to the seductive slink of her body… despite the hard edge that she possessed, she was still so achingly feminine. I followed her out and reached for a towel, slowly drying my skin of the glistening water… I looked across, and once more our eyes met, but the image of her smile to Trey still coursed through me and for a moment I analysed her… burning the image of her into my mind and wondering just what it was that coursed through her veins and made her glow with this air of invulnerability.

I reached for a pair of black jeans, feeling the material hug tightly as I pulled them over me… then a black vest top that sat snug against my chest, before reaching for my ID badge which I secured to my top… I made a move towards her and pointed to a door set at the far side…

…“These are my rooms, I want you to rest for a moment…I need to go speak to someone and order us some food…” I spoke as I opened the door and watched her slender figure as she walked through, a figure that strained against her fresh clothes so perfectly… I closed the door softly behind her, for a brief moment I yearned to follow her in… to spin her about, drive her hard against the wall and look deeply at her with the dark passionate intent that surged through me.

I turned back along the corridor and made my way to one of the side laboratories… the door slid open, I stepped through and instantly met with a pair of eyes looking up from a ream of data… he looked through wire rimmed glasses and as I entered the room a smile alighted his face…

“Celine, my dear… it is good to see that you are back in one piece…” his own eyes narrowed as I closed to him… his look shifting from one of being pleased to see me, to being one filled with concern… “Celine? Are you alright… you seem…” he let the words hang in the air…

“I shall be alright Martins…” I tried weakly to smile, but his returned expression proved the unconvincing nature of my attempt… “I have a… guest in my quarters, can you see to it that some food is bought down here to her…”

He replaced the papers, smile and rose… “Of course Celine…but what of you” his faint smile seemed almost imploring… deep within I knew he could sense this unease within me, but he knew not to push it and after a few moments of silence that hung between us he spoke… “They have just bought down the specimen you took but I haven’t had he chance to run any of the tests yet…”

I smiled softly… “It’s alright Martins, I shall take care of it…” as he left the smile leeched from my face. I turned to face the blood analyser that took up most of the space on the far wall… my steps to the machine seemed so eternally tentative as my fingers brushed against the wound on my forearm. I took a pinprick of blood from my finger and set the machine running… watching as the automated systems whirred into life. So many times had I watched this, but never with my own blood and as such I viewed the display screen with a greater interest than I ever had done before, as the results slowly revealed themselves… as the test completed, my eyes narrowed against the blinking display as I read it from the screen….

…I cannot remember just how long I had been sitting there but I lifted my head from my hands; my eyes taking in the fullness of my laboratory… its cold, sterile and passionless world that had enveloped me… shaped me… even bound me… I shivered almost imperceptibly as my memories shifted and the depths of my mind breached my consciousness… the steel sluice table that sat central to the room seemed to shift and glow with a malevolence as it became linked with some deep memory now freed within… of him standing over me, his hand pressed against my shoulder as the point of the needle wavered inches from me…

“Hold still Celine… this wont take a minute… please… hold still!!! Why won’t you do as you are told bitch… you fucking bitch… HOLD STILL!!!”

I pulled my gaze away, feeling the wetness of my eyes and the gentle roll of a tear down my cheek… it was then my eyes fell upon the syringe filled with the blood that I had taken from her as we struggled in the midst of the storm, the one that raged both outside and within… I walked to the steel bench and reached out for it, but my eye was drawn to the side. Lying there was a knife… my fingers took to it, feeling the chill that emanated from it… I picked it up, feeling its weighted handle and watching the electric light glint from its perfect edge… and then my eyes stilled when I caught sight of the reflection of myself within it…