I had the whole drive into work to think about ways I could have handled things better. Maybe if I’d just stopped things after that first night. Dammit. I knew better than to ride the same ride twice.
I tromped into the hospital and took the elevator down to Y4. At least being angry at Asher had stopped me from thinking about my upcoming vampire trial. Or about small childlike footprints in the snow that may, or may not, have been created by a small childlike vampire.
Only one way to know. I had to get some blood.
Most drugs are clear, their amounts so small as to have been completely diluted in the saline we give them in. Putting them into a person—you know it helps, but there’s no visual. It’s not satisfying.
But blood transfusions look dramatic. It’s the stuff of life running in, and there’s this ritual with another nurse before you hang it—unless you’re running it into a vampire during a ceremony, whereupon transfusion reactions mean lunch buffet—when you recite batch numbers and blood types like a short scientific mass. Someone can die if you get it wrong. Always a thrill. Even before my time on Y4, I’d loved the process.
That night, it was my turn to hang blood. Gina did the paperwork with me, her normal enthusiasm somewhat restrained.
“You sure you’re okay?” she asked, for the fourth time.
“Okay for now.” I took the identifying paper off the packed red blood cells and handed it to her. “What would I be doing at home?” I knew what I’d be doing at home. Walking around my parking lot shouting, “Anna? Annnnnna!” like I was calling a lost cat. “I’m being far more useful here.”
“If you say so,” she said, signing out my transfusion sheet. I stuck it into the chart, with both our signatures.
I watched the blood go in as my patient watched TV and ate Jell-O. When there were just a few cc’s left, I stopped the transfusion and took down the bag. Normally you ran blood in till it went almost dry, and you flushed the end in with saline, so the patient got down to the last drop. But right now I needed it slightly more than this guy did. I taped the bag shut, and when I went on break, I hid it in my bag.
I drove home that morning with the blood bag in my coat pocket. It’d been chilled since whenever it’d left its original donor—but right now, knowing I had it made it feel hot against my thigh. I’d been busy ever since I’d saved Anna, practically—I’d either been at work, as a patient or working, or been distracted with some guy. Maybe if I hadn’t been so keen on getting laid, I’d have already solved my own mystery. Then again, who knew I would be called to vampire court? You couldn’t not get laid, especially by a man like Asher, worrying about every bizarre possibility.
I’d wait up for Anna tomorrow. I put the blood bag in my refrigerator, beside my expired milk and prepackaged turkey slices.
Who was I to ever criticize Mr. November now?