Free The One We Feed by Kristina Meister Page B

proportions of salt, turning his water into
saline.
    “Why don’t we
just ask if she has a hypodermic needle lying around and be done with it?” I
said, slumping into the booth.
    “Last thing I
need is to fight off hyper-syphilis, too,” he grumbled, cringing in apparent
agony.
    Sweat was
beading on his forehead. The napkins were both already soaked with chunks of
gore. I reached back and grabbed some more from the table behind ours. There
was nothing I could do, really. All he wanted was the steak.
    “I’m sorry,
Jinx. I didn’t mean for you to get hurt.”
    “It was my
idea. Shut up.”
    I did just
that. As he slurped at the water, spilling some of it down his front in the
rush, I watched him twitch and tremble, turn pale with the slowed effects of actual shock. As he licked his red fingers and continued his strange rehydration
ritual, I could not help but see Ursula, licking juices as they rolled down my
arm.
    Shut up.
    I pressed my
thumbs into my eyes. When I opened them, the waitress was standing there with
the tray, lobbing items at the boy as if he was offensive.
    “Still mooing.
You want me to round up a few virgins too?”
    He glared at
her. “Doubt you could find ‘em in this shit hole.”
    She crossed
her arms. I expected her to make a not-so-smart retort, but she seemed to be
reevaluating him. She surveyed the scattered wreckage of the salt and sugar,
took in the water pitcher, now half-empty, and peeked at Jinx’s stomach and the
mess of napkins, before her over-plucked eyebrows lifted yet again. Then she
looked at me, and I knew she understood.
    “You’re right.”
She untucked a rag from her apron and set it on the table. “We don’t wash the
tables, so it’s clean-ish. You want the first aid kit? It’s about the only
sterile thing in this place.”
    He snatched
the rag, stuffed it into the wound, and then ripped into the steak with a vigor
I’d never seen, even at the espresso bar down the street from the hotel. “Does
it have pixie dust in it?”
    “No, but I
could probably get some if you wanted it. About all there is to do here, and it’d
take the pain away.” She leaned on the table. As she did, I spotted the barbed-wire
tattoo on her upper arm.
    I pinched my
mouth down around my grin. “I think he meant the magical kind.”
    “Nope,” she
sighed. “Sorry. Don’t die, okay?”
    Jinx glanced
up, raw meat dangling out of his mouth. “Twyin no choo.”
    “Uh huh.” She
turned and sauntered back to the cash register, where she took up residence on
a stool and began to paint her nails neon pink. The phone remained on the hook,
though she clearly knew he’d been injured.
    “She really
knows how to earn a tip.”
    He ignored me.
The dripping flank with its metallic aura was far more interesting. He didn’t
even bother cutting it, just picked it up and ripped through its barely seared
crust with abandon. When he’d finished, he grabbed the fork and tucked into the
beans, then gulped down the soup as if still starving. By the time he reached
the biscuit, I was sure he had to be full, but he began sopping up the meat
juice and swallowing the pieces whole.
    It was
thoroughly off-putting. Like the doughnuts, it made me never want to eat again.
All I could see was the similarity between his gel-clot and the cow’s horrible
fate. Was that all we were made of, all we were, meat or meat-eating machines?
    “You want
another?”
    He tipped
back, still chewing, his face a shade of rosy pink and smeared with sauces. I
could feel the heat radiating off him as muscle burned and turned nutrients
into flesh in record time. He surprised me again with a contented smile.
    “Naw. I’m
good, but I wouldn’t turn down an ice cream sundae. Need some saturated fats.”
    “You got it,
but only because I love you.” I chuckled. I watched as he pulled the cloth away
from his abdomen and revealed a thin, white scar. “Well done.”
    “I’m getting
better at it,” he murmured. “First time it