The Blood That Binds - Chapter 2

The raccoon bought me time. Not much, but enough that the heartbeats beyond the cemetery walls had stopped sounding like dinner bells.

I could think again. Mostly. Which brought me back to the original problem. Blood. Human blood, specifically, preferably without a human attached to it.

A blood bank.

There had to be one nearby. New Orleans hadn't changed so much that hospitals stopped needing blood. At least, I hoped not. Judging by everything else I'd seen tonight, humans might have figured out how to manufacture the stuff while I'd been sleeping.

Wouldn't that be convenient. I headed for the cemetery exit. The moment I stepped beneath the lights near the road, I caught my reflection in the darkened window of a parked car and stopped.

"Oh."

Dirt streaked my face. My dark hair had become an impressive combination of tangles, leaves, and grave soil. There was still blood smeared near the corner of my mouth, and my clothes looked like they'd spent however long I'd been underground right along with me. Because they had. I rubbed at the dirt on my cheek, smearing it.

"Better."

It was not better. I couldn't walk into a hospital looking like this. Well, technically I could. Hospitals probably saw worse. But walking in looking like I'd recently been murdered seemed an unnecessary invitation for questions, and I wasn't currently strong enough to make an entire building forget the answers.

Clean clothes first. Then blood. Then Cor. Simple.

A few blocks later, I found salvation glowing beneath a faded sign. A laundromat. Open all night, apparently. Finally, something useful had survived humanity's descent into glowing rectangles and ugly cars.

I stepped inside.

Warm air smelling of detergent rolled over me. Machines lined the walls, though they were considerably larger and shinier than the ones I remembered. Several churned lazily behind round glass doors.

No attendant.

One man sat near the far wall with his head tipped back and his mouth open, sound asleep beneath a television mounted in the corner.

Perfect.

I moved between the machines. Most were empty, but I found a dryer turning slowly near the back. Jeans. Black shirt. A sweatshirt. Underthings I had absolutely no intention of stealing from another woman.

I had limits.

I glanced down at myself.

The bra I'd been buried in had apparently spent the last however-the-fuck-long decomposing along with everything else. One strap was hanging on through sheer determination, and the lace had ceased performing any recognizable function.

I looked back into the dryer.

"Goddammit."

There were limits.

Apparently mine were negotiable.

I opened the dryer, and warmth spilled over my hands. The jeans looked close enough to my size. The black shirt would do. The bra...

I checked the size.

Close enough.

"But I'm leaving the panties, dammit."

I'm not an animal.

I paused. The raccoon didn't count. "Different circumstances."

The sleeping man snored loudly.

"Exactly."

I pulled all three out.

Now I needed somewhere to wash years of cemetery off me. The restroom wasn't luxurious, but there was a sink, hand soup, and a lock on the door.

Good enough. I stripped off my ruined shirt and stepped up to the sink. No handles. I frowned and leaned closer, checking behind the faucet. Nothing.

"What the hell?"

I reached beneath the spout, searching for something I'd missed. Water burst over my hand. I jerked back. It stopped. I stared at the faucet.

Slowly, I waved my hand beneath it again. Water flowed. I pulled it away. Stopped. Another wave. Water.

"Oh, for lands’ sake."

Apparently turning a handle had become too much work for everyone while I was gone. I got to washing anyway.

It took several rounds before the water stopped running brown. Dirt came from places dirt had no business being. I scrubbed beneath my nails, cleaned the blood from my mouth, and did what I could with my hair using cheap soap and paper towels.

Eventually, I looked up. My reflection stared back at me. Same face. That shouldn't have bothered me, but it did. The city outside had changed enough that I couldn't recognize the cars. I hadn't changed at all.

Same dark, round eyes, so deep a brown they looked black unless the light caught them just right. Jacques used to call me his dark-eyed angel. The fact I liked it then made my lip twist. My hair wasn't much lighter, black tangled with strands of deep brown, though at the moment it was difficult to tell where hair ended and cemetery began.

Same nose. Same brows. Same uneven mouth, my upper lip a little fuller than the bottom, both naturally set in a pout that had gotten me accused of sulking more times than I could count.

Damp waves clung around the same pale face I'd been wearing since 1905 at just twenty-one. I'd been twenty-one years old when Jacques decided this was the face I'd wear forever. At the time, forever had sounded terribly romantic.

Youth had a way of making stupidity sound profound.

I leaned closer. Not a line, not a wrinkle. Not one goddamn indication that time had passed at all. Twenty-one on the outside. Old enough on the inside to know better.

Just me. But cleaner. Mostly.

Not the first time I'd seen it covered in grave dirt though. I wasn't particularly interested in making it a tradition. I pulled on the borrowed clothes. The jeans fit well enough. The shirt was a little tight, but I'd survived worse. My boots would have to stay.

When I stepped back into the laundromat, the man was still asleep.

Good.

I gathered my filthy clothes. Then stopped. The dryer sat open. Someone would come back for those clothes. Someone who'd paid to wash them. Someone who presumably needed them.

I sighed. "Fine."

My hand went to the ring on my right hand before stopping.

No.

I had other jewelry. I checked myself.

Or I should have. Whatever I'd been wearing when Jacques put me underground had apparently been selected with irritating practicality. No earrings. No necklace. Nothing tucked into my pockets. Just the ring. I stared at it.

A narrow band of gold hugged my finger, dull from years of wear. Nothing particularly remarkable about it. No enormous stone. No famous jeweler's mark.

Cor's match. She had bought them years ago, which had surprised the hell out of me at the time. Coralene didn't spend money thoughtlessly. Too many years of stretching too little across too many mouths had carved practicality into her bones long before I ever met her.

So when she'd come home one evening with a small box tucked into her hand and a grin she was trying very hard not to let become an all-out smile, I'd known immediately something was different.

Hold out your hand and close your eyes.

I'd eyed the box before looking back at her. What's this?

Wouldn't you like to know.

Coralene.

Juliette. That smile finally broke free.

I squeezed my eyes shut dramatically and held out my hand.

Inside the box were two narrow gold bands, each engraved with a tiny fleur-de-lis nestled between delicate curls of scrollwork.

I looked from the rings to her.

I saw these and thought of us. Her smile faltered just enough to betray her. Don't make it a thing.

Oh, I was absolutely going to make it a thing.

My Cor's gone sentimental on me.

And now I'm reconsidering the whole purchase.

Too late. I laughed and held my hand out farther before she could take it back.

She slipped the ring onto my finger, and I’d worn it ever since.

My thumb rubbed across the band. There had to be something else I could leave. I checked my pockets again.

Dirt. Very helpful. I looked toward the sleeping man. Then toward the door. I could simply leave. Three pieces of clothing. Hardly the crime of the century. I'd done worse things for worse reasons. My hand closed around the ring.

"Fuck."

I pulled it off. The absence registered immediately.

A pale strip of skin circled my finger where the gold had rested for decades.

I hated it. I hated the bare feeling. I hated putting the ring on top of the dryer. And I particularly hated that whoever owned these clothes was about to receive payment worth considerably more than the jeans, shirt, and bra combined.

I stared at it for another second.

Then picked it back up, slipping it onto my finger. There had to be another way. I took one step toward the door. Stopped. Looked down at the clothes I was wearing.

"Oh, for lands’ sake."

Back to the dryer. I removed the ring again. Set it down. This time I made myself release it.

"I'll come back."

The promise sounded ridiculous in an empty laundromat. I said it anyway.

"I'll get you back."

Because I would. I'd get blood. I'd find Cor. I'd figure out what Jacques had done. And somewhere in between all of that, I'd return to this miserable little laundromat and retrieve my ring.

Simple. I turned away before I could change my mind a third time. The night air felt cooler against my clean skin when I stepped outside. Better. Not good, but better.

Now I needed a hospital. A woman stood a short distance away beneath one of the streetlights, tapping at her glowing rectangle. I approached carefully.

Her heartbeat registered immediately. Strong. Steady. Tempting. But it stayed in the background this time. Thank you, raccoon.

"Excuse me."

She looked up. Her eyes traveled over me. At least she didn't look alarmed. Progress.

"Do you know where the nearest hospital is?"

"East Jeff."

I waited. She waited.

"Which is...?"

"Oh." She pointed. "East Jefferson. It's a couple miles that way."

A couple miles. Easy enough. "Thank you."

"You want me to pull it up?"

"Pull what up?"

"Directions."

"I know which direction."

She stared at me and I stared back. Apparently, I'd answered incorrectly.

She lifted the rectangle. "On Maps?"

"Whose maps?"

Her eyebrows drew together.

"I'm fine."

"You sure?"

"Frequently."

That didn't seem to reassure her. I smiled and walked away. Two miles wasn't far. Not for me. At full strength, it would barely qualify as an inconvenience. Tonight, however, I discovered halfway through the first mile that the raccoon had restored considerably more confidence than stamina.

I slowed.

My legs weren't weak exactly. They simply weren't mine yet. Speed tugged at something hollow inside me each time I used it, burning through the little nourishment I'd managed to put back.

Fine. I'd walk. The hospital wasn't going anywhere. Hopefully. Then the breeze shifted.

Blood. Human.

My steps faltered.

Somewhere nearby, someone had cut themselves. Nothing serious. I could tell that much from the amount. Didn't matter. My throat tightened. I kept walking and the hunger followed.

Not desperate anymore. That was almost worse. Desperation could be dismissed as madness. This was quieter. Almost patient. A voice beneath everything else reminding me that the raccoon hadn't been enough.

That somewhere ahead were bags of exactly what I needed. Cold. Stored. Pulse-free.

Safe.

I focused on that. The hospital came into view eventually, glowing against the night. I stopped on the sidewalk across from the main entrance. People moved steadily in and out. Patients. Visitors. Nurses. Doctors. Dozens of heartbeats pulsed in my ears.

I swallowed. This had seemed like a much better idea from several blocks away. Still, somewhere beyond all those wonderfully inconvenient pulses was what I needed.

I crossed the street and walked inside.

The familiar smell hit me first. Antiseptic. Bleach. Sweat. Sickness. And beneath all of it—Blood. My entire body tightened.

Not one source. Dozens. A freshly dressed wound somewhere nearby. Vials drawn and waiting for tests. Something older lingering beneath the antiseptic. And farther away, faint enough that I might have missed it on any other night, the cold metallic promise of what I'd come for.

My fangs pressed against my lower lip.

"Behave," I muttered.

The raccoon had bought me time. Standing inside a hospital made me wonder exactly how much. My lower lip quivered slightly, and I pushed the top against the bottom.

I approached the welcome desk with caution. A young woman in black scrubs sat behind it, talking into a headset while her fingers moved quickly across a keyboard.

"Yes, ma'am. If you're coming through the emergency department, they'll check you in there." A pause. "No, you don't need to call ahead."

I waited and her eyes flicked toward me then flicked back. Then returned. I resisted the urge to look down at myself. The borrowed jeans fit. The shirt was clean. My hair was damp, but reasonably free of soil. The boots were perhaps harder to explain.

She finished her call.

"Sorry about that miss." She gave me a polite smile. "Are you checking in?"

"God, no."

Her eyebrows rose.

"No. Sorry." I tried again. "I'm looking for someone."

"Okay. Patient or staff?"

"Staff."

"What's their name?"

Shit.

"I don't remember."

The polite smile changed slightly. Not gone. Just working harder. "You don't know their name?"

"It's been a very long night." That, at least, required no acting.

"Do you know what department they work in?"

"Blood bank."

There. Perfectly normal. People knew people who worked in blood banks. Surely.

"You mean Transfusion Services?"

"If that's what you're calling it these days."

Her expression shifted.

I smiled. She didn't. That appeared to be the wrong thing to say.

"Are you family?"

"Of the employee?"

"Yes."

"No."

"Friend?"

"Let's go with that."

She studied me. I was beginning to miss the raccoon. At least he'd asked fewer questions. The woman reached for something beside the keyboard. A tiny red line marked the skin near her thumbnail. My attention locked onto it. Hardly a cut. Barely enough blood to bead.

I smelled it anyway. My throat tightened anyway.

Eyes. I looked at her face.

"Do you have an ID?"

I almost laughed. Instead, I blinked. "Not presently."

"Okay..." The word stretched. She was definitely beginning to think I was insane.

Fair.

"You can't access Transfusion Services without authorization."

"I don't need access." A lie. "I only need to speak with someone who works there."

"I can try calling the department. Who should I say is asking?"

Another excellent question. "Juliette."

"Last name?"

Dufour, some old part of me answered. I hesitated. Not because I'd forgotten it. Because I suddenly had no idea whether using it was wise.

The name on my identification said St. Germain, but how long had I been gone? Who thought I was dead? Who knew I wasn't? And who might hear that Juliette had walked into a New Orleans hospital asking questions?

"Just Juliette."

The receptionist's fingers stopped above the keyboard. "Ma'am—"

"I've changed my mind."

She blinked. "About...?"

"Calling them. Thanks for your help." I said as I stepped away from the desk.

"Wait, do you need—"

"No."

I turned before she could produce another question I didn't have an answer for. That had been remarkably unhelpful. Except—Transfusion Services. I had a name. Now I just needed a door. And someone who could open it.

I wandered away from the welcome desk with all the confidence of someone who knew exactly where she was going. Confidence had gotten me remarkably far in life. Farther than good judgment, certainly.

The hospital was busier than I'd expected for this hour. Nurses moved between rooms. A man in blue scrubs pushed an empty wheelchair past me. Somewhere nearby, a machine beeped with irritating regularity.

I kept my eyes forward. I was sated enough that I no longer wanted to throw the nearest person against a wall and drain them dry. Progress. But my throat was still burning. Less progress. Signs hung from the ceiling at each intersection. Most of the words meant nothing useful to me.

Imaging.

Laboratory.

Surgery.

Intensive Care.

I followed Laboratory because blood had to go somewhere after they took it, right? That was as good a place to start as any. The farther I walked, the fewer visitors I encountered. White walls gave way to corridors lined with closed doors. Employees moved with purpose, barely glancing at me.

Good.

People rarely questioned someone who looked like they belonged. Unfortunately, I looked like someone who'd stolen her clothes from a laundromat and washed her hair in a sink. Which was considerably less convincing.

A nurse approached from the opposite direction. I lowered my gaze and kept walking. She passed without stopping.

Maybe I was being too hard on myself. I rounded the next corner and found a set of double doors.

AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

Excellent. I reached for the handle. Locked. Less excellent. A small black box sat beside the door, a red light glowing at its center. I stared at it. No keyhole. No keypad. Nothing. Footsteps sounded behind me and a man in green scrubs approached without so much as looking at me. I moved aside. A little card hung from a clip near his waist. He pressed it against the black box.

Beep. The light turned green, the lock clicked, and he pushed through. I caught the door before it closed.

"There we are."

The man glanced back and I smiled. Nothing to see here, everything’s fine. He hesitated, then kept walking. Still got it. Barely.

Slipping inside, I let the door close behind me. This corridor was quieter. And colder. I followed the scent which wasn't difficult. Stored blood smelled different from blood still moving through a body. Fainter. Flatter. Cold enough that most nights I wouldn't have bothered noticing it unless I was looking.

Tonight, I could have followed it blind.

A woman stepped out of a room ahead of me. White coat, clipboard, badge. I turned toward a bulletin board and pretended to find an announcement about handwashing absolutely fascinating. Her footsteps approached, then passed. I waited. Then moved, encountering another door. Another red light.

"Of course."

I tried the handle anyway. Locked. Through the narrow window, I could see refrigerators and the tiny hair on my arms raised up.

There you are.

I glanced down the empty corridor. I could break the door. Even half-starved, I was fairly certain I could rip the handle right off. That would most likely attract attention and probably alarms.

Not ideal.

I needed someone with one of those cards. So, I waited. It took less than a minute. A young man came around the corner carrying a plastic tray filled with vials. Blue scrubs. Badge clipped to his chest.

Perfect.

"Excuse me." I stepped into his path.

He slowed. "Can I help you?"

"I certainly hope so."

His eyes moved over me, suspicion arriving quickly. I couldn't blame him.

"Are you lost?"

"Terribly." I did my best to look doe-eyed and helpless.

"Visitors aren't supposed to be back here."

"I was gathering that."

"How did you get in?" He glanced toward the doors behind me.

"Luck, really." His expression said he didn't believe in luck. Neither did I, particularly. "I need you to open that door."

"What?" His eyebrows rose.

There were easier ways to do this. Normally, I would've smiled, caught his eye, nudged his thoughts just enough to make my request feel like his own idea.

Normally.

I reached for the familiar pull inside myself. It answered. Weakly. The hunger stirred with it. A warning I ignored as much as I could.

I held his gaze. "You were going to open that door for me."

The tension around his eyes softened. "I was..."

Pain stabbed behind mine. Sharp. Sudden. I nearly lost the connection.

"Wait." The young man's brow furrowed.

Shit.

I pushed harder. Not much, but enough my hand trembled at my side. "You were going to open the door."

"I was going to open the door." His expression slackened.

"There we are."

He turned. Pressed his badge against the reader.

Beep.

Green. The lock released. I followed him inside. Refrigerators lined the wall with rows of neatly labeled bags sitting behind glass. Human blood. My entire body went still.

The young man turned toward me. "What did you—"

"Go."

He blinked as I felt the command catch. I could feel I was dangerously close to losing it. "Go back to whatever you were doing. You never saw me."

The last part cost me. Pain exploded behind my eyes. Something warm slipped over my upper lip. The young man stared. Then his gaze unfocused.

"I never saw you."

"Exactly."

He walked out, the door clicked shut behind him. The room tilted. I reached for the counter and missed. My shoulder struck the corner of the refrigerator hard enough to rattle the glass before my knees gave out beneath me. I caught the edge of the counter on the way down and hung there, half crouched, half collapsed against the cabinets. Couldn't have moved if I'd wanted to.

My forehead dropped against my arm. Blood dripped from my nose onto the floor between my feet. One drop. Then another.

"Fuck."

Even that came out weak. I wiped beneath my nose. Red smeared across the back of my hand.

"Fantastic." I licked it away without thinking. Then looked at the refrigerators. My fangs fully descended without permission and saliva pooled beneath my tongue. Every bag inside called to something primitive in me.

Not like a heartbeat. Nothing could imitate that. But it was enough.

Close. I was so fucking close. I opened it with concerted effort, my arm having to bend at an odd angle. Cold air spilled over me. My hand closed around the first bag I could reach. I tried to straighten. Didn't happen. Fine. I sank back against the counter and fumbled with the bag. There had to be a proper way to open the damn thing. Some seal. A port. Something. My fingers wouldn't cooperate long enough to find it.

"To hell with this."

I sank my fangs through the plastic. Blood flooded my mouth. Cold. Human. I groaned. There was nothing dignified about what happened next. I drank like I'd never learned how.

Blood escaped around my fangs and ran over my lips, down my chin. I clutched the bag in both hands, squeezing without meaning to, sending another cold rush into my mouth and spilling more down the front of my stolen shirt.

The difference was immediate. The raccoon had been nourishment in the loosest possible sense of the word. This was human. Even cold and lifeless, my body recognized it instantly. Strength spread through me with every swallow. The ache in my throat eased. The hollow place inside my stomach began to close.

My body had taken over.

Every swallow seemed to reach someplace deeper than my stomach. The trembling in my hands calmed. Then the black creeping along the edges of my vision receded. I sucked harder. The bag collapsed between my hands. Empty. I stared at it. Still not enough.

I reached into the fridge.

The second bag was easier. I tore into it with my teeth and drank. Slower. Not because I wanted to. Because somewhere between the first swallow and the last, Juls had started coming back. By the time the second bag emptied, I could hear the room again.

The refrigerator humming. Footsteps passing somewhere beyond the door. My own breathing. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. It came away red. So did my chin. My shirt. There was blood on the counter. Blood on the floor.

I looked down at myself. Thirty minutes ago, I'd stolen clean clothes specifically so I wouldn't look like I'd crawled out of a grave. Now I looked like I'd murdered someone in a hospital supply closet.

"Great."

By the third bag, the room had settled into itself. No more overwhelming scents. No more listening to every heartbeat beyond the walls. I could hear them if I chose. I no longer had to. I stared at the empty bag in my hand.

Better. Much better. Not full. Not even close. My body wanted another. And another after that. I looked through the glass.

There was plenty.

I could feel the hunger calculating. Three more. Five. Ten. No one could stop me. My hand reached toward the fridge. Then stopped.

Those bags belonged to people. Not yet, perhaps. But eventually. Some poor bastard bleeding out on a table wasn't going to care that I'd been having a difficult evening.

"Three's enough."

My body disagreed with a loud, wet gurgle. I looked down at my stomach. "Take it up with the complaint department."

Giving my belly a pat, I turned away from the fridge and disposed of the empty bags as best I could. There was no hiding that inventory was missing. That was a problem for someone else, later. Right now, there was only one thing I cared about.

Cor.

I closed my eyes. The connection should have been easier now. Not perfect. I still wasn't fully restored. But there was blood in me. Human blood. Enough to strengthen my senses. I reached.

Coralene.

Nothing. My eyes opened. No. I closed them again, reaching deeper. Past the lingering hunger. Past the noise of the hospital. Past every living thing around me. I searched for the thread that had connected us for decades.

Cor?

Nothing answered. The cold blood sitting in my stomach suddenly felt like ice.

"No."

Distance. It could be distance. Or whatever Jacques had done to me. Or—No. I wasn't doing that. Cor was alive, is alive. I'd know if she wasn't… I’d know. The certainty sounded considerably less convincing the second time around.

I waited until the corridor outside the lab was clear before slipping through the door.

Thanks to my meal, I felt like myself now. Mostly. A few doors down, I found an employee restroom and ducked inside. The woman in the mirror looked considerably worse than the one I'd cleaned up at the laundromat.

Blood smeared my mouth and chin. More streaked one cheek where I must've wiped at it with a dirty hand. My hands were red nearly to the wrists, with spatters reaching halfway up my forearms.

I turned on the faucet. Water flowed obediently beneath my hands. At least this one and I understood each other.

I scrubbed until the water ran clear, then attacked my face. It took several rounds of soap and wet paper towels before I stopped looking like I'd recently eaten someone.

Technically, I hadn't. That felt worth noting. My shirt was another matter. I tugged at the fabric. Blood darkened most of the front, with a particularly incriminating streak disappearing toward my waistband.

No amount of water was fixing that. I needed another shirt. Preferably one that didn't belong to another unsuspecting woman. I stepped back into the corridor.

There had to be a supply closet somewhere. Hospitals had uniforms, scrubs. I'd seen enough people wearing them tonight to know that much.

I turned a corner. And nearly walked directly into a man in a white coat.

He stopped.

I stopped.

His eyes dropped immediately to my shirt.

Shit.

"Are you alright?" His tone instantly showed he thought I was the prey, not the predator. I could use that.

"Fine."

He looked at the blood again. Clearly fine required further explanation. I let my shoulders relax. Then looked up at him. He was perhaps forty. Handsome enough. Dark hair beginning to gray near the temples. Tired eyes that became considerably less tired when they met mine.

There it was. I didn't push. Didn't need to. I simply let the thing inside me loosen. Appeal was different from command. Softer. Less invasive. I wasn't putting thoughts into his head or taking choices away. I was simply becoming very difficult to say no to. His posture changed. Just slightly. I lowered my lashes.

"Actually, you might be able to help me."

"Sure."

Eagerness. Good.

"I'm a nurse."

His eyes flicked toward my clothes.

"Off duty," I added.

"Ah."

"I was out tonight when some idiot decided to settle an argument with a knife."

His expression sharpened. "You witnessed a stabbing?"

"Worse. I stopped to help."

I gestured toward the shirt.

"Ambulance brought him here. I came with them."

"Is he alright?"

"Alive when they took him back."

There. Concern satisfied.

"I came looking for somewhere to clean myself up, but I can't seem to find where you keep the spare scrubs."

"You came all the way back here?"

"I got turned around." His eyes lingered on mine. "I've had a very strange night."

That, at least, was entirely true.

"I can show you." A smile tugged at his mouth.

"You're a lifesaver."

If only he knew. He led me farther down the corridor. I followed, resisting the temptation to smile. This was easier. No pain behind my eyes. No blood running from my nose. No fighting to hold someone's mind together long enough to make them obey.

The human blood hadn't restored me completely. But this? I'd been doing this long before I had fangs. He stopped outside the supply room and swiped his badge.

"Here."

Shelves lined the walls. Towels. Blankets. Boxes. Stacks of folded scrubs. Beautiful.

He stepped inside with me.

"What size?"

"Small."

He pulled a folded set from one of the shelves and handed it over.

"Thank you."

"No problem. There's a bathroom just—"

I pulled my shirt over my head and he stopped talking. I tossed the bloody thing onto the counter. Silence. I glanced at him and grabbed a towel, wiping off my chest. His eyes had made the mistake of dropping to my bra. Then snapped quickly back to my face.

I raised an eyebrow. "You alright, Doctor?"

"Y-Yeah." His ears reddened.

Oh. That was adorable.

"I just meant there's a bathroom down the hall."

"I've already seen enough bathrooms tonight."

I unfolded the scrub top and pulled it over my head. The fabric settled around me. Clean. Finally. Again. I gathered my hair out of the collar. He was still standing there.

"Well, thanks?"

"No. I—" His mouth closed. Opened again.

I waited.

He smiled, suddenly looking far less like a physician and considerably more like a man trying to decide whether he was about to embarrass himself.

"Are… you seeing anyone?"

For a moment, I just stared at him. Then I laughed. I couldn't help it. Of all the questions I'd expected tonight, that hadn't made the list. His smile widened.

"I'll take that as a maybe."

"You shouldn't."

"So that's a no?"

"I didn't say that either."

He leaned one shoulder against the shelving.

"Then what are you saying?"

I stepped past him.

"I'm saying if we happen to meet again under circumstances where I'm not covered in someone else's blood, you can ask me then."

"And what are the odds of that?"

I looked back over my shoulder. "Honey, you wouldn't believe the kind of night I'm having."

His laugh followed me into the corridor.

"Wait—I didn't get your name."

"Probably for the best." I kept walking.

"Mine's Daniel." He called.

I lifted a hand without turning around.

"Nice to meet you, Daniel." Then I rounded the corner. The smile stayed with me for another few steps. It felt strange. Normal.

For the first time since waking, someone had looked at me without seeing a corpse, a lunatic, a starving predator, or whatever Jacques had apparently decided I was before putting me in the ground.

Just a woman. A woman a doctor wanted to take out. Years ago, I might have taken him up on it. Five. Or ten. Or however fucking long it'd been. The thought killed the smile.

Cor.

I reached for her. Still nothing. My steps slowed. I tried again. Now that human blood moved through me, the connection should've been there. Faint if she was far away. Muted if something interfered. But there.

Coralene?

Silence.

The hospital corridor suddenly felt colder. I’d told myself the raccoon hadn't been enough. I'd been too weak. Too empty. Too close to starvation. But now?

I flexed my fingers. Strength answered. Not all of it. But enough. More than enough to feel my own progeny.

"Where are you?" No answer. I swallowed, my throat feeling tight.