BANE

CHAPTER ONE - BLEND (Part 2)

Holden awoke a few hours later. Walking around the apartment, he was surprised to find that no one else was home. This was his chance to get away, so why didn't he feel like leaving? He didn't feel like he was in any immediate danger, so Holden decided to stick around for the time being. There were some photos on a bookcase shelf-- an old wedding picture and some of children. The wedding photo appeared to be of Corbin and Layla's parents-- a tall man with tanned skin and dark brown hair, and a petite Asian woman with large brown eyes and flowing black hair. It was no wonder where the siblings got their good looks from. Beside the wedding photo was a picture of two young girls-- one with red hair, who Holden immediately recognized to be Layla, and the other a few years older with brunette hair tied in braided pigtails.

On the shelf below was another photo of six children. Once again, Layla was easily recognizable. The brunette girl was also in this photo. It was clear to Holden that these children were all siblings, the family resemblance was just too striking for it to be otherwise. He looked at the picture closely to see if he could tell which of the boys Corbin was. He decided that the boy standing second from the right was probably him, although it was harder to tell. The age difference between him and Layla looked about right. Corbin had told him the night before that they had two surviving siblings - a brother and a sister. It made Holden wonder how their other two brothers had died, but he knew better than to ask about it from his own personal experience. Still, he wished there was some way to know which two of the four brothers in the photo had passed away.

The sound of the lock clicking on the apartment door startled him and Holden hurried over to see which sibling was arriving home. "Hey, Holden. How was your day? Did my brother behave?" Layla set her purse down on the kitchen counter and walked back to the door to lock it behind her.

"It was fine. Um, aside from one little setback..." He held up his bandaged hand with an unconvincing chuckle.

"He didn't! Corbin, that fucking asshole! He bit you?!"

"Ah- no, no!" Holden tried to calm the younger girl down. "I cut myself, that's all. Your brother actually helped me out with it..."

"Is that true? You better not be covering for him. Indulging him will only make things worse, you know," She went to the sink to pour herself a glass of water. "The blood bottle is gone..."

"Yeah, um... that's what I broke. I got a little freaked out and dropped it, sorry. Was is important? I'll pay for it."

"Pay with what, exactly? That's an especially empty offer coming from someone sleeping on a piece of cardboard less than 24 hours ago."

"Sorry..."

"It's fine, those bottles are a dime a dozen. Well, a quarter a dozen actually-- they have a recycling program for returning the empties."

"Recycling? Is that sanitary? What about diseases like HIV and stuff?"

"It's not human blood! What kind of horrible industry do you think exists that would do that? It's pigs' blood, we get it from a butcher that has connections to the supernatural community."

"Well, how should I know? Until last night I had no idea anything existed that would want to drink my blood, but clearly there are lots of things I don't understand going on here."

"Then ask, don't assume we're some savage monsters that harvest innocent human beings in some kind of factory. Remember, 'when you assume you make an ass out of you'."

"Isn't it supposed to be 'you and me'?"

"Why 'me'? I'm not the one saying stupid things." She laughed. "So, Corbin really did behave today? That's a relief."