BARGHEST

Chapter Five: The Stoner

The hypodermic needle pressing into her skin is searing with the haphazard disinfectant job she made using the kitchen fire just moments ago. Forty grits her teeth, steps into that little room in her head where everything is like cotton. She breathes deeply, and like her blood to the bag, oxygen floods her body.

Needles have never bothered her much, not after being poked and prodded her whole life, but it's the antiseptic smell still lingering on the recycled blood bag that makes her head spin. It's jarring compared to the constant freshness of the forest she's been surrounded by. The bag fills slowly, her blood too thick  from how little water her body needs, and she watches the way the mid morning light filtering through the small cracks in the ceiling dances off the sheen on the bag until her eyes flutter and her mouth goes cold.

The tiny cellar fridge now holds two full-to-bursting bags of Forty's blood, nestled between old preserves and flat beers. The others can't smell the blood from down here. The mildew and rotten wood is too strong.

"Two weeks," Forty whispers to herself.

Two weeks since the deer practically appeared at her doorstep. It's been gnawed down to the marrows and then some, and despite hunting efforts and Mick's unskilled fishing attempts, there is a hunger that can't be sated with food alone.

Forty wonders if he'll be angry with her if she suddenly starts offering her blood up like any other dinner she's prepared. She remembers long ago, tucked away in the brush outside of Vaine when he begged her to stop giving herself so freely to people. She remembers the desperate elation in his face when she woke up for the first time in two weeks after having her stomach ripped apart. Was she doing him a disservice by hurting the thing he loved?

Not thing, she reminds herself. Her. He loves her.

Forty supposes this is a lot of contemplation to have over the smelly icebox tucked underneath the cabin. She wrinkles her nose and shuts the door roughly, scurrying up the stares as quickly as her swaying head will allow her.

Alex is sitting at the kitchen table, fiddling with the fraying ends of the tablecloth. She looks smaller than she did just hours ago, the light flickered out in her like a dying candle. Quinn sits across from her, something like panic in her eyes.

"Hello," Forty says easily, tugging her oversized sleeve down to cover her bruised vein. "How was hunting?"

"Your hair looks pretty today," Alex says instead, her green eyes owlish. Forty cocks her head at her.

"Yours too?" she says, not really meaning it as a question despite how it comes out.

"I could smell some rabbit warrens about a mile from the usual spot," Quinn says suddenly, snapping out of her fog. "I caught one infected, but that doesn't mean they all are."

Forty's racing heart slows a little. She's still light in the head. "That's great." She remembers, like a burn across the back of her hand, the efficacy of praise. "Good job, Quinn."

"We can scope out the exits tomorrow to see if we can trap them," Alex offers, her usual conversational tone returning. Forty relaxes as the weird atmosphere dissipates.

"It's your turn for marrow tonight," Forty reminds her quickly, really needing to sit down. She leans against the back of the couch, her hands shaking. How long did Naila say humans were supposed to go between blood collections? Eight weeks?

"Are you feeling alright?" Alex gets up slowly from her seat, her eyes narrowed. She scents the air, the hair almost audibly raising against the back of her neck. "Are you bleeding?"

Forty catches a whiff of herself between labored breaths, and that's when she feels the warmth seeping beneath her shirt sleeve. Lightning quick, nausea races up her spine, and she doubles over and vomits.