Page 49 of Raw

“Eat, sweet girl. You need it.”

His hand left me, and he turned to grab the container with the organs in it, holding it out for me to take.

“Here, I’ll cut you a piece, but you need to eat it.”

I held the container in my lap as he grabbed the liver, then he reached for the knife in the side pocket of his pants to cut a piece.

I watched him, and as no more words came out of me, I let him hold that piece of liver close to my mouth.

The smell of it didn’t bother me much, but knowing it was raw did.

Shit…what’s he doing to me?

My gaze dropped to the piece he was holding between his fingers, and to not make him angry, I bit down on it, letting the taste of it fill my mouth.

“You’ll get used to it. Mama would tell you the same thing. To eat things like this when you’re losing that much blood.”

He was probably right, and so I chewed on it, not thinking too much about what I was eating.

“Good girl,” he praised, cutting another piece for me. “It’s Christmas soon, and I’m sure Mama will prepare a nice meal with things you love and can’t find in the wilderness. But out here…this is what you get. No reason to fight it, sweet girl.”

15

My period was lasting longer than usual, and I had joked to myself about all the raw meat Fennec made me eat being the reason why I was losing even more blood.

I did feel stronger and healthier though, knowing that all that meat gave my body what it needed.

The pain hadn’t left but it wasn’t as strong as the first few days, but constantly having to change pads was starting to annoy me.

I was about to head down the ladder to go grab a fresh pad out of Papa’s cabin when Fennec climbed up with a frown on his face.

“You should be sleeping by now,” he told me.

It wasn’t late, and although I had gone to bed earlier than usual this evening, I couldn’t imagine it being past midnight.

“I need to go change,” I told him, pulling my knees up against my chest.

It was getting colder each day, and winter was slowly taking over fall’s place.

“Lay back,” he ordered, moving closer as he pulled the curtain we hung up over the opening so the cold air wouldn’t hit us directly at night.

“But I have to change or else my pants will get all dirty and bloody.”

He didn’t reply.

Instead, he moved over me, making me stretch out my legs again before he sat down on my belly.

“Fen…I don’t want the blankets to get dirty.”

“Don’t worry about that,” was his answer, and when I realized what he was doing, I sighed.

“I haven’t sleepwalked ever since that first time. You don’t have to keep tying me.”

“But you would’ve if you weren’t tied, Vespyr. Trust me. You woke me multiple times in the past few days.”

“I did?”

He laughed and nodded while he tied the rope around my wrist. “Good thing I’m such a light sleeper or else you’d be somewhere out there, lost.”

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