“Daphne? It’s going to be okay,” Jordan said. She had her hands raised as if pacifying a wild beast. “Why don’t you lie down in the living room and I’ll make you some tea?”
She insults us then assumes we will forgive her after a promise of safety and food? The beast inside Daphne scoffed.
Daphne clawed towards the surface of her own mind. She only needed a moment to be able to apologize and leave. She remembered how to get to the park; it wasn’t that far.
Tana jumped back, her eyes wide with shock.
What had happened? Daphne took a mental check of herself, but couldn’t remember what, if anything, she had done or said. She couldn’t even understand Jordan’s words, though she caught the soothing tone of them.
Her darker nature growled, We are the strong one. Let her be the one to display her throat in surrender!
No… No, no, no! That kind of feral thinking had landed Candice in the hospital on Saturday. It was almost too late, she realized. The beast wanted blood.
Her skin began to crawl as though it wanted to be rid of her.
“I can’t let that happen,” Daphne whispered, her voice hoarse.
With one final push, Daphne seized control of heavy limbs. Her head split with blood-pumping anguish as the creature railed against her efforts, but she couldn’t let it win. Not with these people. They were family. They had put their lives on the line for her, whether they knew it or not.
Though, maybe now, her cousins knew it a bit better.
Daphne stumbled out of the apartment, onto the back porch, and down the rickety wooden staircase.
One labored footstep at a time, she made her strides wider and longer. At last, she ran across the main road towards the far end of the park.
For a moment, as she passed the playground equipment and an afternoon ball game, Daphne worried she’d made a mistake coming to the park. So many people could end up hurt if she didn’t either calm the hell down or find somewhere safe to let go.
A growl threatened to thunder in her throat.
She could no longer fight. She hardly wanted to. All Daphne could think about was putting as much distance between her and the Baines girls as fast as humanly possible. Or inhumanly, as was the case.
Two legs were all wrong for a quick escape.