A Perfect Blood

shook off the mitt and blew on her soup.
    “Thank God,” Gerald muttered, almost forgotten at the monitors.
    “We’ll get the sample somehow,” Chris finished, looking at me and sighing as if I was an errant child.
    “Way to think ahead, Einstein,” Eloy said, and she frowned.
    “You’re not touching Winona,” I muttered. I had the sudden urge to use the bathroom. This might be a problem if I kept threatening them, but I couldn’t stop myself.
    Jennifer slid the last book away and turned, smiling brightly. “Want me to dart them?” she asked, eyes going to a box on the counter.
    “No,” Eloy said, exhaling softly. I didn’t like the way he was looking at me, like I was an animal he wanted to study—but one too dangerous to keep for long.
    “Yes,” Chris said, immediately countermanding him. “At least she would shut up. I thought the whining and crying was bad, but this is worse.”
    “Let me try,” Eloy said, and Chris leaned back on the narrow counter. The light from the single bulb in the center of the room made her expression hard to read. Eloy put his hand up as if asking for patience. “I’m sure I can reason with them,” he said, the expression on his face empty as he looked at me.
    “And I’m just as sure that Dorothy’s flying monkeys are going to come out of your ass,” I said, and Gerald rose with a stretch to get some soup, chuckling.
    Eye twitching, Eloy stood before me, his hip cocked as if his feet were sore. He was inches from the cage. I could throttle him if I could get my hands through the mesh. “Will you let us get a blood sample from Winona?” Eloy asked calmly, as if he was reasonable and I was an idiot.
    “No.” I lifted my chin, feeling powerful though I was on the wrong side of the cage. They wanted something. Bad enough to give a little, maybe?
    Gerald growled something, and Jennifer sniffed as Chris turned to watch, amused. “You really think asking her is going to work? Jenn, just dart them.”
    “Wait!” Eloy said, inching closer, his gaze becoming canny, as if he knew I’d been caged before and had escaped. I wasn’t cowering in the back, but snapping at the lock, and he respected that even as he thought I ought to be exterminated.
    “You stole Kalamack’s machines,” I said. Not a flicker of change marred Eloy’s expression, but behind him, Jennifer’s mouth dropped open in a sweet little O of surprise. Honestly, how had she gotten mixed up with these people? My lips quirked as I got my answer from her, and Eloy dropped back a step, clearly peeved by her lack of finesse.
    “Will you ask her to stick out her arm so we can take a blood sample?” he asked again.
    I edged closer to the mesh, mocking him. “You’ve been stealing machines and living off the back of civilization like the scum you are. Moving around like this isn’t cheap, either. HAPA doesn’t have that deep a pocket. You’re a backwoods, ignorant fringe group that should have died out with the space program in the forties. Who’s funding you?”
    Eloy never dropped his gaze from my eyes, but I could see the tension in his shoulders. “HAPA is bigger than you think,” he said. “Our people are everywhere.” Behind him, Chris went back to her work and Jennifer took the second mug of soup, which Gerald had poured her. The hierarchy was being played out more clearly than if they had been lions on the savanna.
    “Who is funding you?”
    Eloy smirked. “If you don’t convince her to let me take some blood, they’ll put you to sleep.”
    Winona’s breath caught. Put us to sleep, and then take more blood from both of us. “Why are you talking to me?” I said, disgusted. “She is her own person. Ask her yourself.”
    Eloy turned to her, his lip curling when he saw her face, but I hadn’t won anything in our verbal pissing match. “Can we please have some blood?”
    Winona awkwardly flipped him off with her thick fingers, and I almost applauded.
    “Have it your way,” Eloy said, and my heart pounded as he turned away. Jennifer made a happy sound, setting her cloverleaf mug down and starting for a box.
    These people are nuts! I thought, then sighed when Winona scrambled in a crawl to the front and shoved a skinny, red-fuzzed arm through the wire mesh with frantic haste. “You don’t have to do this,” I said, but if I was honest with myself, I was relieved.
    Winona shrugged. “Ah don’ wan oo be spelled,” she slurred, her face going almost black in embarrassment