DNA

All For You

While Jade and Tori waited for Andre to arrive they kept their gaze steadily on the manhole. Nothing was heard or seen yet but they remained vigilant. In the distance they could hear orders being made to send people home just in case there were vampires that had gotten through. Guards roamed the streets, guns at the ready.

"We were too late," Tori said, her voice quiet as she glanced at the two dead guards. Jade sighed, like a weight was placed on her, and unsheathed a machete strapped to one guard. Tori understood what she was going to do and turned away while Jade stabbed them through the heart in order to make sure they wouldn't come back. Andre returned without Beck, a strip of grenades strapped around his torso and a satchel with what Jade figured to be his handmade dynamite.

"Beck said you needed me?" he greeted. Jade cleaned off the blade she held on one of the guard's pants then set it aside.

"First I need you to stay here while Vega and I get rid of the bodies. We don't want any more vampires attracted by the blood. Once that's done you're coming down with us into the tunnels to collapse some and secure the passage. It'll lower the chances of something like this happening again," she explained.

"Good call. Ok then. I wish I could help you girls, but, we both know who has the real muscle here," he acknowledged, teasing just a little to lighten the tension.

"Yeah, we do," Jade agreed with a small smile while turning away to start dragging the bodies to the hole to dump them. Tori helped her until they were all cleared. Jade then jumped in the manhole too. Andre looked over at Tori whose golden yellow eyes followed Jade until she disappeared. She flicked them over to him when she felt his own eyes on her. He shrugged and she jumped in after Jade. Her abrupt landing behind Jade made her spin around with her gun raised.

"Dammit, Vega," she growled. Tori snickered and nudged her.

"Just me, West," she teased, her clawed hand coming up to rest on the barrel of the pistol. She pressed it down towards the ground while leaning closer, a challenge. Jade's brow quirked and she smirked.

"Careful. You wouldn't want to get distracted, wolf," Jade whispered, pulling away to holster the gun then pushed her back so that she could haul up two bodies, one under each arm. Tori did the same and stacked the last one over her shoulder. She grunted under the weight and Jade stopped to look at her.

"You ok? It isn't too heavy?" she checked.

"No, it's not. I'm just hungry and running a little low on energy," Tori mentioned. Her metabolism kicked her ass sometimes. She ate a lot and often felt bad for consuming so much when there was barely any food in the first place. Finding the animals was hard enough. Most of their meat came from hunting them and she made sure to help out. She craved meat all the time so she just made sure to catch extra for herself.

"You'll get used to it," Jade responded, leading the way through the tunnel. Tori frowned, upset Jade herself had so little to go on. From what Jade shared about being what she was she learned that blood was the sole source of energy. Low blood intake meant low energy, and in turn, low strength. If a vampire didn't remain stationary in sleep during the day they wasted extra energy and it weakened them considerably. Direct sunlight damaged their skin and eyes which were sensitive to it. A lack of blood in such a situation could kill the vampire from starvation, but in Jade's case she was right on the fence. She got by just so, not too bad but not too good either. Even at night she was better but weaker than any being like her could be in top condition. For Jade, every day she was starving. Tori whimpered at the thought, making her vampire companion glance back at her.

"You sure you're fine?" Jade questioned, her steps heavy and body straining. Tori could see it, the pain of starvation lining every muscle and bone in Jade's body. She acted so strong and threw herself into danger first before anyone else could get hurt. She wished she could help, but testing her blood on Jade's body proved futile. Her body rejected it and she was sick for a day. At least they knew what reaction vampires had should they try to drink her blood. Still, Tori wished she could at least convince more people to donate. She thought that after Jade did so much for the colony she should have been treated better than she was, but maybe Tori was just naturally caring, even to what was supposed to be her enemy.