Sajida wanted to listen to them. Truly she did. It was much warmer, after all, back in the castle. And she was keeping her back against a rain-slicked rock as the storm intensified and sheeted rain, making her feet constantly scramble for purchase.
But the hunger...oh the hunger. It was like nothing the poor fisherwoman had ever felt. Her blood, such as there was remaining, curdled into an acidic sludge that stung all throughout her circulation. Her stomach threatened to devour her from the inside out. And it had only taken a single blink for her body to decide to leap through the window and scramble down the cliff at impossible speeds.
Alice had been closer, but Sajidaβs mind got one tiny say by restraining herself from attacking the Imperial soldier who had risked so much to protect her. But as for the rest of the invaders...no, the
monsters who had broken her country long and made her parents live in fear before she was even born, the hunger wanted to drain them all, to wreak havoc on the world of mortals no matter the cost, no matter Sajidaβs internal pleas for mercy from her conscience, even for rapists and murderers such as them.
As soon as Alice spotted Sajida stuck on the cliff face, she launched a
spring-loaded grappling hook from inside the
left-handed gauntlet atop her armor, and then tied it around a tree to anchor herself as she belayed down to where the other woman was.
βHey, Sajida! You alright?β
The teenage Bamban girl trapped inside the feral vampire managed to nod, all the while gripping the rocks behind her with enough strength to crack them.
βThen come towards me. I promise Iβll get you to safety.β
βBut- but Iβll fall, Alice.β
βThen Iβll grab onto you. Nobody else will die today, I promise.β
Unless you try to bite me, Alice thought but kept inside her mind, as it was already hard enough to sidle her body along the narrow rocks while high winds whipped it, let alone contain her own angry voice that loudly demanded Alice to end Sajida as the soldier approached the vampire. The Darkness and the Shtragoi Curse acting as like-polarity magnets, pushing hard against each other.
But at last, Aliceβs stubborness prevailed, and she put her right arm around Sajidaβs waist before giving a tug on the cable to reel her back. As the cable pulled, however, the wind whipped underneath them both, causing them to flap in the breeze and scream for help, the tree the only thing keeping the both of them and their cable from flying off into the night.