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Jamal heard her coming long before she appeared, his hearing focused on the noise she was making whilst his eyes remained lazily half-shut. However, as the sound got louder and seemed to be coming his way, the tiger had grown incredibly wary of the noise and latched on strongly to his stream of thought. He strank back into the fold of the branches and watched Em come into view. His first reaction was not of 'hey, I know her,' but rather an apprehensive 'trust no one' stance that suited Jamal's human side well enough for the moment so he didn't bother fighting back the instincts just yet.

It was when she fell that Jamal's voyeuristic wait-and-see approach was sideswiped away at the smell of blood that hit his nose forcefully and prickled the predator's curiousity and hunger. The black man crouched down on the branch as she started to crawl, a calculating predatory air surrounding him as the tiger mulled over the thought of this funny human thing being prey. So interested was the tiger that Jamal couldn't squeeze in and stop this urge from sweeping his mind, so when Em looked up and noticed him, the tiger grew irritated that his cover was blown.

A snarl crossed his broad features before he abruptly dropped down from his branch, landing in a squatted position with his gaze focus intently on her.

He growled in response, hardly batting an eye at her very direct question/statement, and flicked his whiskers back against his cheeks as a strong whiff of blood again caught his nose. The tiger wasn't sure what to make of it...the combination wasn't anything it recognized and Jamal's human side certainly didn't know what Emelyn smelt like. He hadn't even -addressed- her as a human being yet despite the fact Jamal was having an internal battle with his two sides. Dammit, he'd never let the tiger willingly have control like this again. If he -ate- her, or attempted even, he'd never be able to live with himself.

The tigerman slowly approached in a hunched/squatted crawl on all fours, eyes glittering with the cruel intelligence of a killer.

Jamal's icey glare focused on her moving legs as he failed to acknowledge her words, the movements creating currents in the air that were soaked through with blood scent. The tiger latched onto this smell, instinctively trying to sort out the health of it's intended prey as the man circled wide around her, a low growl rumbling in his chest. Her fear was tangible on the air now too, but it wasn't of principle importance right now.

Mentally, the human Jamal was struggingly fiercely to regain control, horrified at what might happen, but the blood and sight of a 'weak' prey item at the tiger's disposal only egged it on. He'd already almost killed one person in the past week and would rather not go for a second.

Despite this, his circling tightened with each step until he was nearly directly in front of her, jaws parted in a manic leer as he reached out a hand to roughly smear her blood onto the pad of a finger, then lifted it to his face.

Whatever ground Jamal's sanity had slipped out from underneath him as Em took to her feet and fled. The predator's immediate action was to pursue. Pursue with the intent to kill.

A bellow of outrage erupted from behind Em as she started to run and if she looked back, Jamal's form would be clearly visible behind her as he pelted after her, the manic glee still fresh in his eye. To the tiger, this wasn't a human...this was dinner and he wouldn't stop until her blood ran thickly between his jaws.

Jamal's human sanity was only a small voice in the back of the man's mind, pleaded and pulling desperately for strings of control to get a handle on the situation but the predator would have none of it.

He had gained on Emelyn easily, being a tall man with the endurance of a dedicated basketball player, and was literally snapping at her heels as they tore through the jungle. The tiger was growing weary of this chase, irritated that the injury hadn't been as substancial as he had guessed by the profuse scent on the air. The beast's intentions were quite clear.

The unretractable clawed fingers arched into deadly hooks as he sensed his target to be in reach and without warning, Jamal leapt forward with a sudden burst of speed, looking to sink his partially formed claws into her shoulders and drag her down. Should she fall, he would strike the fatal blow within moments and then feast, as was the right of a predator.

Jamal snarled bitterly as his claws failed to find the purchase he sought, instead feeling oozing blood and coiled strings of flesh beneath his claws, overshooting his target enough so that he stumbled and nearly tripped over her. Instead he had to circle back, which he did hastily, and found she hadn't moved from her fallen position. However, there was hesitation in his steps and his face wasn't quite as fixd in expression as it had been.

The scream had shaken him. Not the him as in the predator, but as Jamal the person. The man was terrified that he was going to render this woman into hamburger and the scream intensified this fear ten-fold as he fought again with renewed strength to unsaddle the instinctual urges of his unwelcome companion. For now, the tiger was still winning.

He stood over his 'prey, sharp eyes surveying the bed of half-formed quills apprehensively before he experimentally batted at the dark fibers, hissing when they pricked his soft palm and retracting it back immediately. The tiger was not accustomed to dealing with prickled meals and unfortunately these quills lay heavily on her vulnerable neck. He'd have to try a different method.

Jamal paced the length of her body, prodding with his clawed hands for soft, vulnerable spots until he became aware that her legs were not covered in these quills...they were haired oddly, but surely not in the same painful material. His intentions focused here as he dropped to all fours and circled around towards her lower body.

As he moved to attend to her legs, he was sorely disgruntled to find her drawing inward, encased in those wretched quills. The tiger was furious that his meal was so easily putting off his attempts and Jamal snapped at the air in frustration.

The tiger experimentally pawed and prodded at the sharp spines for long time, the only sound being Jamal's labored breathing, until finally he gave a hiss. It was then that the tiger lost interest, finding this meal to be too much trouble when the jungle reeked of prey, and that brief moment of carelessness on the predator's part allowed Jamal's humanity to swamp his brain and drive back the murderous urges.

A keening wail left his lips as soon as the tiger retreated and he crawled backwards in a loud shuffle of dead leaves and branches, his stomach clenching violently as he felt her drying blood on his hands and pieces of flesh beneath his nails.

"Oh GOD no. No no NO!," he cried out in a panic as he put as much distance between Em's fallen body and himself as he could, eventually backing into the knobby tree trunk. "Holy ********, god almighty, what'd I -DO-?!?!"

********. ******** ******** ******** rabidly dragged his blood-soaked hands across the earth, trying to rid them of the acrid scent and dark red that matched what came from the woman's back, sheer panic written on every muscle in his body. He didn't dare look in Em's direction yet; if he killed her, he knew he himself was done for. His life on the island was done.

"Oh god, oh god almighty," he muttered incoherently, hysteria thickening his voice so he choked on his words and tears stung his eyes.

He really -was- an animal.

No matter how much Antony or Awen or anyone else denied it, there was no other explaination. Jamal was a beast that deserved to be locked up. Freedom had only led to this...to a potentially dead woman lying broken upon the ground.