“Really?” I said in surprise, finally merging lanes so I could go around the accident. “What makes you say that?”
Gabriella seemed pensive. “When you bit me, I felt sleepy right away, like you’d injected me with a drug. And, I don’t mean lightheaded,” she clarified, glancing at me. “But actually sleepy. And I just feel like my overall sleepiness last night wasn’t normal. I sincerely felt drugged, and it was difficult to stay awake. So then, either the problem is that my bite doesn’t work, or it was something else that caused it to happen.”
I frowned. “So then, it was definitely the bite,” I clarified. “Not something like sex.”
“Right,” she agreed. “But if that’s the case, then we need to consider what was different. Obviously, the first difference was that it was you doing the biting, but was there anything else that was different?”
I considered that. “Well, the only thing I can think of is that my mouth was bloody from chewing on the cables.”
“Oh!” Gabriella said in surprise. “That’s right! So then, what if that’s it? What if it’s like a bloodborne pathogen? Or maybe just something special about your blood itself?”
“My blood,” I repeated hesitantly, trying to think it through.
“Yeah,” she continued. “I didn’t have blood in my mouth when I bit Serenity, and you might have basically injected me with your blood when you bit me.”
I sighed. “I mean, that would certainly make changing Avery easier. We’d just have to try to snag a syringe at the hospital, and inject my blood directly into her. Think we should try that first?”
Gabriella focused at the digital clock on the dash. “Maybe. Let’s wait and see what happens to Serenity before we do though. If she’s still not showing signs of changing when we get to the hospital, then we’ll go from there.”
I rubbed the back of my neck as I thought about that. “The only problem is, Serenity can’t hang around all day if she is going to end up changing. Because if she starts transforming, she won’t be able to control it. At least, not for the first hour or so. And I also don’t want to leave her by herself in case she ends up doing what you did.”
Gabriella frowned. “Yeah, that might be an issue for Avery too, either way. Which is really problematic, since she can’t leave the hospital if she’s paralyzed, yet also can’t exactly stay in the hospital alone while she’s changing.”
Fuck. She was right.
So then, what could we do?
“Maybe I can stay with her,” Gabriella continued. “Like, if the blood works and Avery falls asleep, then I’ll stay at the hospital as late as I need to, even overnight, in order to keep her from attacking anyone.”
I frowned at that, not thrilled by the idea.
Granted, I wasn’t sure there were alternatives. After all, it wouldn’t be a good idea for Serenity to stay, whether she was still normal or not, and I definitely couldn’t stay overnight. At least, I assumed I couldn’t, since I was a guy and clearly not her family.
Then again, being eighteen now might mean I could get away with it, maybe if I just claimed we were dating, but I felt like having Gabriella stay truly might be the best option.
“Think you can overpower her?” I wondered seriously.
Gabriella nodded. “Yeah, I think I’ll be fine. And honestly, when she wakes up, she might still be paralyzed. She might not be healed right away.”
“Well, your wound was already gone,” I countered.
“Oh,” she nodded. “Yeah, I guess that’s true.” She sighed. “So then, I’ll just have to keep a close eye on her and maybe slap her or something to wake her up. After all, it was you hurting my jaw that snapped me out of it.”
I grimace. “Sorry about that.”
She shook her head. “No, it’s fine, Kai. I’m glad you did.”
I nodded in acknowledgment.
“Okay,” she said firmly. “That’s what we’ll do. We can snag a syringe and inject her with your blood. Worst case, and her body will treat it like an infection, and she’ll get a little sick. Best case, and she starts feeling sleepy like I did.”
“And what if it doesn’t work?” I wondered
“Then it has to be your saliva instead, though I feel like that’s unlikely,” she replied. “But if that is the case, you can just inject her with that, rather than biting her.” She frowned. “You definitely shouldn’t bite her, if it can be avoided, since they’ll end up noticing that in the hospital. There’s not a lot of privacy there, especially for someone who is paralyzed. They’d likely see it even if you bit her someplace most wouldn’t look.”
Unexpectedly, what she was implying made my hair flash white. Here, I’d managed to stay looking normal throughout this whole conversation, and just like that, she pushed me over the edge.
“Kai!” she exclaimed. “Get your mind out of the gutter!”
“Well don’t say stuff like that!” I retorted, glancing around to make sure no one saw. “I get aroused just from you touching me, and here you are talking about me biting her someplace intimate!” Granted, I was more embarrassed than anything, rather than aroused. I then scoffed, lowering my voice, my hair beginning to shift back to its normal color. “I mean, there are only a handful of places where ‘most wouldn’t look,’ as you put it.”
She was immediately apologetic. “Sorry, I guess that wasn’t very careful of me.”
I sighed, taking a few seconds to calm down. “No, I’m sorry.” I sighed again. “And I wasn’t trying to think about that, but you talking about it made me visualize it.” I glanced over at her. “You know I have an extremely vivid imagination, right? And this is a girl I’ve sat next to for years.”
“Oh…” Gabriella paused. “Sorry, I didn’t realize that. Although, now that you mention it, I think that sounds reasonable, considering you have heightened senses.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I’ve seen her in enough tight clothing to know exactly what she would look like naked, never mind the sounds, smells, and everything else that bombards my senses. Like, before she started taking birth control a little over a year ago, I knew when she was on her period, could hear the difference between a pad and tampon, and could smell when she was just beginning and when she was toward the end. It was always a good smell to me, which I now realize is because I apparently need blood sometimes.” I paused. “And my memory seems to be stronger with my sense of smell and hearing in particular. Like, just thinking about Avery causes me to vividly recall her scent, as well as how her heart sounds when she’s flustered, and what her voice sounds like. Plus, we just saw her today, so I have a fresh image of her in my mind.”
“That makes sense,” Gabriella agreed.
“Not that I even need the recent exposure to her,” I continued. “Considering I’ve seen her almost every day for the last two years.” I sighed. “But my mind pieces it all together into a powerful representation of her. Like, if I think about touching her arm, I can almost feel it, as if it was real. And thinking about biting her makes it feel like her skin is already between my teeth, her taste already against my tongue…” I paused, glancing at her again. “Obviously, I have no idea what her skin actually tastes like, but I can assure you that my mind is very good at using her scent to come up with a pretty realistic taste in my mouth. And honestly, it’s probably an accurate taste too. Like, if I did bite her, then I probably wouldn’t be surprised by the real thing.”