-- Vivian POV, New Fairhagen --

  A long while she just was. There were no other thoughts, just existence. Then she tried to remember. What had happened? She had been at the sports club, she had been showering. Why did she feel so strange?

  Another memory arrived. She had experienced this before. This was waking up after being shot with a stun gun. Lessons learned from her past, do not move, keep the eyes closed until very sure the effect has worn off. Too well she remembered a murderous migraine as result of such mistakes.

  The ground below her felt hard and cold. But she could stay like this for another while certainly.

  Tom had a stun gun, Frank and Trisha too. Had one of them shot her? No, Tom was gone. Frank ... no, she had been showering in the women's shower, why should he go in and shoot her? And Trisha had been at work.

  Her fur began to itch. It felt damp. Was she still in the shower?

  She listened. There was a faint electric hum in the air, something almost any place in a building had. She tried to smell the air. Not the shower, too dry, not the change room at the sports club. There was always a hint of sweat in the air in the change room. Here, the air smelled like plastic or chemicals, and the few echoes that she could hear seemed to tell of a much smaller room.

  Don't open your eyes yet, don't move. She reminded herself. But her fur itched more and more.

  She opened her eyes a tiny little bit, just to close them right away again when the pain stung through her head. Too early. Luckily the pain faded as quickly as it had arrived. How much longer?

  On the fourth attempt to open her eyes the pain stayed away. Don't move the head yet! From her position she couldn't see much. A dirty, dusty floor, concrete coated with some layer of plastic to be easy to clean. And hadn't been cleaned for a long time. There was an equally dirty wall to see, and her sports bag. Why was she in this room? And where was this place?

  Very carefully she tried to push herself up, wary not to trigger the migraine. Sitting up all in slow motion. A small room, maybe two by three meters. Illuminated by a single light panel in the ceiling. There was a door with a control panel. And she was naked.

  She reached for her sports bag, still moving all slowly and opened it. Her clothes were in the bag, towels too. At least something. She pulled a towel from the bag and began to rub her legs. Damp fur was annoying. Wet was alright, dry was alright, the in between was a nuisance.

  With less damp fur and a feeling little better, she managed to slip into her bikini, picked up her bag and walked to the door. "Locked", the indicator told her, and the panel presented her a number pad to enter a code.

  12345 didn't work. That would have been too easy. 0000 didn't work either. She tried a few more numbers which all were declined and with frustration she hit the door a few times with her hands and feet, "Can someone hear me?"

  To her surprise the door slid open to reveal a gruff looking man with a gun pointing at her, "Step back! Back, I said!" He was shouting at her and in her surprise she took a few steps back. That guy pointed a gun at her!

  She lifted her hands, "Calm down, man. I'm not going to bite you."

  He pointed deeper into the room, "To the back wall. Sit down!"

  "Alright, alright!", she walked backwards till she felt the wall and slid down to sit.

  "Good beast", the man nodded and hit the control panel with two fingers to close the door behind him, the gun trained at her all the time. He was wearing blue jeans, a white shirt and a black vest, all seemed to have seen better times and could use a wash.

  "Beast?" She barely could believe that.

  "Yeah, a pretty wild beast you are. Strong, fast and deadly", he nodded to her, still standing right in front of the door.

  "I'm not a beast!" She protested.

  "You'll be. How about a little murder to get started?" He grinned at her, gun still trained at her chest.

  "Murder?" She stared at the man, hands still held near her shoulders.

  He moved the gun about a little, "Yeah, we've got someone for you to warm up. How do you feel, beast?"

  "I am not a beast!" She shouted at him.

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  "You are. Answer my question. Still feeling dozy from the stun?" He waved the gun a little again.

  "I've felt better before", there was anger in her voice.

  "Yeah, guess", he hit the door with a heel, "Hey, I think she's ready. Come and take her", before he stepped aside from the door, gun pointing at her.

  The door opened and two more men stepped in one after the other. The bouncer type. A stature like a fridge, clad in well tailored black suits. Both of them, and quite the contrast to his shabby clothes.

  "Hey!" She stood up and held her hands protectively in front of her.

  The man with the gun gave the other two a nod, "Take her", and then let her know, "No one will do you any harm. Just making sure you behave well. No bitey the comrades."

  Without any particular expression they stepped forward, each of them took her at the wrist, forced her arms to her back and she was held in a sort of double arm lock, forced to look downwards.

  "Hey, that hurts!" She screamed in protest.

  "You'll survive beast. Time for you to see your master", the one with the gun informed her.

  "Master?" They had bowed her forward, she barely could look up to him.

  "Move her", the man with the gun ordered and she felt pushed towards the door, down a corridor and then they came to a stop in front of another door. The man with the gun entered a code and she was pushed inside the room. The smell of sweat hung in the air, anger and fear.

  There was Tom, tied to a chair with two more suit clad mobsters left and right of him.

  "Vivian!" He shouted in surprise.

  "Tom!" She struggled against the hold.

  "See beast, your master is waiting for you. How do you feel about some revenge?" The gruff one with the gun asked her.

  "Revenge?" She was held in an iron grip, forced to look downwards again.

  "Yeah. He played you pretty badly, don't you think?" The man with the gun asked again.

  "Tom was good to me", she replied.

  The man nodded with a seemingly impressed expression, "He trained you well. Seems you need some more incentive."

  He gestured at one of the two who were standing besides Tom. The man pulled a knife from his belt and set it to Tom's throat. "No, man, kill me but don't do that shit to her!", she heard Tom shouting.

  She stared. Blood ran from a cut along Tom's throat. She whimpered, "Tom."

  They brought her closer to Tom, pressed her head down towards the cut, "Can you smell your masters blood, beast?"

  Blood! She felt the urge rising in her to taste the blood, bite and kill the wounded prey. She began to struggle against the two who held her, not willing to actually bite, "No! Blood. Tom!"

  "Leave her out of this, man! She's innocent", that was Tom's voice.

  Something was pressed against her neck and she felt an injection, "Good bye Tom. Welcome beast."

  She just felt rage and smelled blood when they gave her arms free.

  ----

  She sat in a corner of her cell. The memories tormented her. The blood. So much blood. There was just one hope, that her first bite had already killed Tom. She didn't remember if he had screamed. Eventually the two brutes had torn her from Tom's mangled body. They knew how to hold her and stay safe from her fangs and claws. They had dragged her back to the cell and she eventually must have passed out for a while, or had a sort of blackout. The next thing she knew was her laying on the floor and she had crawled into a corner which felt safer than the open space.

  She remembered the two police officers who had picked her up in front of Tom's apartment. How scared they had been. That she had told them she wasn't this dangerous.

  They had known better.

  Tom was dead, and she had killed him. If only the police had kept her. Trisha had meant well to get her out of jail. But now these guys. She still didn't understand why they wanted Tom dead. And even less why they made her do it. Whatever that injection had been, it had completely wiped her thinking and left her to the mercy her instincts. Blood and rage. Sadly it had not wiped not her memories.

  Quite certainly mind capture had taken Tom and he was in storage now like she had been so many years. But even if so, the last things he remembered were how her fangs and claws had dug into his flesh. She had no idea if she would ever see him again. No idea if she even wanted to see him again. Or if he wanted to see her. She had no idea if he had a body insurance and would receive a new body fairly soon again, or if he had to wait for decades, centuries even like her to find a sponsor.

  She looked up from the floor for a moment. Her cell was empty except for a ragged blanket. She still seemed to smell blood in the air. And the blanket had not been there when she had woken up in here the first time.

  Beast.

  She clutched her legs and pulled her knees to her chest, remembering the word and closed her eyes again. That was her now, if she liked it or not.

  "Hey beast, man up", she heard someone speaking.

  She looked up. One of the mobsters, she didn't remember her name. She had not even noticed that the door had been opened and someone had come in.

  "Guess the first kill is the hardest. Better get used to it", the woman let her know.

  She just looked. In the hands of the woman was a bowl, filled with chunks of meat, some with bone. She didn't want to eat, but that thought vanished from her mind once the bowl was held more closely to her and she smelled the meat.

  It was delicious. The meat was juicy, the bones crunchy. And she actually felt better afterwards.

  Someone patted her head, "Good beast." Right, there was another person nearby. Too often she forgot everything about eating.

  She sighed a little hiss, "What will happen to me now?"

  "You work for us. We'll keep you safe. The police wants you for murder, so don't get stupid ideas and think you can report us to the police. They'll take you first", the woman told her.

  The woman was squatting just in front of her. Now she was trapped in the corner.

  She handed the bowl back to the woman, "May I have some water?"

  "I'll bring you water. More food too, because you'll not be able to eat for some days." The woman took the bowl and left her cell, just to return with a jug of water and another bowl of meat.

  "Eat, drink and sleep. You'll need the strength. Boss says you need a more beastly voice. So eat and drink while you still can."

  She barely heard the words. So often she had felt hungry after finishing her daily portion, and now she got more.