Bailey's First Meal

"What is wrong with you now?" Stephen scoffed, looking down at Bailey who was crouched on the floor shaking. Next to her lay a young woman with long black hair wearing a skin tight navy blue tank top and dark skinny jeans. Tears streamed down her face smearing her mascara and blush together into a gooey mess. Darby had bound her hands and gagged her so she could not struggle or scream but her face held a look of sheer terror.
"Five minutes ago her eyes were shooting fire and she was ready to put my head through a wall to get some blood. And now look at her," Stephen said to Darby who was leaning casually against the wall licking drops of the young girl's blood off her slim white fingers.
"It's good blood too," Darby commented.
"Don't judge me," she snapped at Stephen who was fixing her with a sideways glare. "If you send me out to hunt you can't blame me for sampling the prey."
 "She was supposed to take the first bite," he growled, causing Darby to take a step back. "If we keep babying her she is never going to learn to do anything on her own."
 "Do you ever get tired of criticizing me?" Darby muttered. Stephen shrugged.
 "Not much else to do here," he admitted.
 "Can you two stop talking for a second please?" Bailey's choked emotional voice called up to them softly. "This is a really difficult thing for me to do and your fighting is making it worse."
 "You can do this. You have to do it," Darby told Bailey, squatting down next to her and gently rubbing her back. "If you want to live you have to feed. It will feel weird at first but then it will feel just as natural as eating a sandwich."
"I have a gluten allergy," Bailey squeaked, choking on a sob.
"Ok, kid snap out of it," Stephen demanded, pushing Darby out of the way. He grabbed Bailey by the hair and pulled her head back to look up at him.
"If you don't take a bite of this girl I will sink my teeth into her ivory neck and drain her. And you can watch her painful gruesome death as you slowly experience your own. Would you like that? Do you want my blood covered face to be the last thing you see?"
"No, definitely not," Bailey whimpered.
"Then feed, damn it," Stephen insisted, shoving Bailey's face against the young girl's neck. The transitioning vampire gasped as she inhaled the scent of blood dripping from Darby's sample bite. It was like a sweet perfume as it traveled up her nostrils and sent chills of pleasure down her spine. Every muscle in her body tensed and she felt an unfamiliar and overwhelming desire to sink her new fangs into the girl's skin and suck in as much of the sweet red liquid as she could handle.
 Before she knew what she was doing, Bailey's hands had swept the girl's hair aside, tilted her head and she was biting down as hard as she could into her neck. The warm succulent blood filled Bailey's mouth and flowed gently down her throat. She felt a fierce new energy running through her. Why had she been so hesitant to feed? Nothing in her entire human life had given her such a rush of adrenaline and pleasure.
 Just when she thought the sensation could not be anymore intense, it stopped. Bailey leaned back and looked down at the young woman's body. Her skin was pale and her lifeless green eyes stared straight forward.
"What happened?" the new vampire asked, turning to Darby and Stephen. They both stood against the wall staring down at her in shock, their mouths hanging open.
"You completely drained her is what happened," Stephen told her, the hint of a smile on his lips. "I have never seen a transitioning vampire devour their prey so quickly before."
"I want more blood," Bailey told him, wiping her mouth off with the back of her hand. "How many people did you bring me?" she asked Darby.
"I uh...just the one," the vampire said shrugging. "I didn't expect you to be this hungry."
"I'm ravenous," Bailey told her, hopping to her feet. "There must be more blood in here somewhere. I have heard screams during the night. What about those people?"
 Stephen and Darby exchanged troubled glances.
"That's not a good idea," Darby insisted, imaging Bailey's hungry energy turning to rage if she found her friend and neighbor imprisoned in their dungeon.
"Well what am I supposed to eat then?" Bailey wanted to know, shifting her weight nervously from side to side.
"I need more. I need more blood," she insisted, licking her lips and tapping her foot anxiously. "One of you has to take me hunting."
"That will have to be me," Darby said, resignedly raising her hand. "Stephen doesn't go hunting anymore."
"I am an old vampire now," Stephen said with a shrug. He hunched over slightly and smirked at Darby.
"Best to leave that sporty stuff to you young folks," he said, in his best impression of an old human man.
"Well the first rule of hunting is-" Darby stopped mid-sentence as she realized Bailey was no longer in the hallway.
"Did she really take off without me?" the vampire muttered in frustration. "And she didn't even clean up after her meal."
 Darby pushed the young woman's lifeless body up against the wall and made a mental note to dispose of it properly later.
"Of course not. She's filled with blood lust. You're going to have to stay on top of her so she doesn't eat the entire town."
"This was not supposed to be so much effort," Darby whined as she trudged slowly up the dark staircase that lead to the front room. She could see Bailey standing at the top, her eyes wide and her body shaking with hunger and excitement.
"What took you so long?" she called to Darby. "I told you I'm starving. I want to hunt. I want to bite. I want more blood. I'm ready. I'm ready to be a real vampire."