“All right,” he said, apparently moving on. “This is where it gets gross—and complicated.” He paused. “It is also extremely weird saying all of this out loud, especially to someone who didn’t grow up like me. I just want that to be on record.”
I nodded very seriously. “Noted. Hey, can I call you ‘Dracula Pants’ in public? It’s kind of like ‘Smoochy Pants,’ but funnier, because you’re a vampire.”
“No. When we drink blood,” he continued, “our immune system destroys everything but the red blood cells. Our native red blood cells mimic the size and shape of the donor cells before they break apart the donor cells, exposing their hemoglobin into our bloodstreams.”
I stared at him. He’d said “cells” so many times it was starting to sound like a made-up word.
“Normally, raw hemoglobin would be toxic, but our red blood cells safely absorb it and use it to attract and bond with oxygen like normal.” He glanced over at me sheepishly. “That’s the, uh, basic overview.”
“So,” I said slowly, honestly wishing he’d brought a flannel graph, “you drink ‘donor’ blood so your body can function the way a normal human body should, except with a bagillion more steps thrown in for supernatural kicks and giggles.”
“Pretty much.”
I frowned. “That’s all way less mysterious than I was expecting.”
He shrugged. “We’ve been studying our own anatomy for centuries. We may not know exactly where we come from, but on a basic physiological level, we understand how our systems operate. Anyway, all that was a roundabout way of telling you why we need blood. I believe your original question was how do we not kill humans when we get it?”
“Right. That one was the one. Yes.”
“You don’t sound very convinced.”
“You just dumped a lot of information on me. How am I supposed to remember what my original question was?”
He blushed a little. “I can stop talking.”
“Gee,” I said, scratching my chin, “y’know, I think I’d really rather discuss foreign policy or the bacterial growth of yogurt—of course I want to hear more.”
He smiled. “Okay, well, this is all new to me, too—at least getting to talk about it with someone who isn’t old and pompous and incredibly boring.” He cleared his throat, blushing a little. I liked how easily he blushed. “Anyway,” he continued, “people kinda freak out when you’re trying to extract blood from one of their major arteries, so we kind of convince them not to, y’know—twitch around and stuff. In fact, I can persuade you to do almost anything I want, if the conditions are right.”
I peered closely at his face. “You talking about the freaky eye thing?”
“Yes,” he smiled. “But we call it compulsion.”
I leaned back. “So, basically, you’re telling me you can do Jedi mind tricks.”
He glanced at me. “Well—yeah.” He shrugged. “Closer to hypnosis, really. I have to be making direct eye contact, and the donor has to be physically weakened or otherwise susceptible to persuasion.” He held up my wrist and ran his thumb across it. “We hypnotize them into a short coma so they don’t make a mess.” He blinked, then set my wrist back down carefully. “It’s not just that we need it, though. We—like it. When it’s weeks old, transported between God knows how many blood banks and hospitals—even if you’re trying to be cultured and drink it from a juice glass, it’s bland. But when it’s fresh—”
He was still driving carefully, but his eyes had a slightly glazed look to them, like he was daydreaming. “You kind of just want to take more than you need.”
A small smile played across his lips, and I think that was the first moment I truly believed what he was. If he’d shown a matching pair of fangs, I wouldn’t have been surprised. Freaked out, but not surprised.
He blinked a few times, then turned to me, frowning. “You know it’s weird that you’re not more weirded out by all of this.”
I shrugged as he pulled into the school parking lot. “Besides your freaky eye thing and the freaky storm thing, this is all just a story—you’re telling me a very detailed, very bizarre story. It’s hard to be scared by that, especially when it’s sunny out,” I said, pointing a thumb at the window. “Anyway, I’ll see you later.”
He smiled at me, but we were late, so I ran off to class.
As soon as I sat down in what had become my customary desk in Mr. Warren’s room, Trish pounced.
“What the hell, Mystic? You hook up with Adrian and what? Forget to tell me? This is why we have cell phones, e-mail! You could’ve tied a note to a friggin’ pigeon and sent it to me!”
Was it really only yesterday that he’d sat by me at lunch and basically announced to the whole world that we were an item? It felt like a week ago.
“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to sound meek. “It all happened really fast.” Really fast.
She looked at me slyly. “What exactly did happen?”