CHUPACABRA

Chapter Eight: Fangs

"We'll make this as sterile as possible," Dr. Zapata says, waving one of the air purifying fans over Forty-Five's outstretched arm. She flinches and shows the points of her teeth but otherwise remains still. "We were lucky that Thirty-Seven didn't get an infection from your bite, but we don't want to take that chance in a controlled environment."

Forty feels ridiculous wearing the LED jaw gear as she sits in the chair next to Forty-Five's bed. She can't tell what color the light is that emanates from the mouth piece, but she knows it's there to kill the bacteria in her mouth. It's vaguely warm and humming with electricity, and between the thickness of the silicone against her lip and the digging of the metal expander at her jaw, she wants to bite clear through the thing and leave it in two pieces on the floor. However, she puts up with it to ensure Forty-Five's safety, though the way the other woman barely restrains her laughter is pissing Forty off. When the timer of the cursed thing rings out, Forty spits the silicone part across the floor. Dr. Daas lets out a frustrated sigh.

"Okay, she's ready," Dr. Zapata signals, turning the air purifier off and setting it on a nearby rolling table. Dr. Daas sulkily picks up the rejected silicone piece and tosses it into the biohazard bin. Forty moves her chair closer to Forty-Five's arm, who stares at her with green eyes showing both a mix of curiosity and anticipation. Her teeth cut into her perpetually chapped lips, and her tongue darts out to soothe them. Forty deeply hopes this venom thing works out the way she wants and will give Forty-Five some momentary relief. Thoughts of how this could potentially go wrong fight for space in the forefront of Forty's brain. She tamps them down to focus on the expanse of smooth, grayish flesh in front of her. If Forty-Five was human, she'd probably have really pretty skin, smooth but decorated with wayward freckles, the color of adobe. Forty thinks her teeth would still be messed up, though crooked in the way a human's would be. Seeing Forty-Five with a normal smile would probably send Forty into cardiac arrest.

"Just bite where she would get a vaccine," Dr. Daas instructs, scooting a recording camera closer to Forty so it can get a view of her bite. Dr. Zapata reaches behind Forty and ties her hair back, the gesture surprisingly gentle. He them pushes a large thumb in between the two cervical vertebrae Dr. Daas pressed previously. Forty figures the pressure points the monitors use to make her teeth ascend and descend are a rather recent discovery, for once one not made at her expense. No matter its origin, the feeling of her teeth involuntarily slipping out makes her gag.

She looks up at Forty-Five once, about four inches from her arm with her measly fangs extended. The girl just smiles at her and nods. Forty tries to close her ears to the sound of pain she knows Forty-Five will make, then punctures the thin skin in the crease of her elbow. The blood immediately starts flowing, and the idea that it's Forty-Five's blood is deeply disconcerting. Where Thirty-Seven's blood had been borderline exhilarating to taste, Forty wants to retreat in on herself at the first drop of Forty-Five's. What strikes her is that she can taste her diet, and like Thirty-Seven it is made almost entirely of blood. She gags when she picks up the oily taste of human, but thankfully it's muted by an array of fresh animal notes.

Forty tries to concentrate on moving the little sacs in her face. She wiggles her nose like a rabbit, attempting to disrupt the liquid inside, but she feels nothing even as she bites down harder. At this, Forty-Five flinches. A stab of guilt makes Forty's chest ache. She continues biting down, waiting for the signal from Dr. Daas to stop.

Instead, she hears a hushed "No way," from the monitor, who stands with her arms loosely crossed behind the real-time infrared camera stationed just to the side of Forty and Forty-Five. Dr. Zapata lopes over from his place next to Forty-Five's unharmed arm. When he lays eyes on the camera he too lets out a gasp. Forty watches them from the corner of her eye, trying to discern what's so astonishing to them, but they give nothing away. Meanwhile, Forty-Five's pulse drops against Forty's cheek, and when Forty looks to her she's astounded to find her teeth have receded. She looks normal except for her secondary set of regular human canines, though the change is obvious from the appearance of friction scarring and redness where her secondary and tertiary teeth used to be.