A Perfect Blood

box of her vials drew my attention, and I sighed. She had been counting them again. God, she was worse than Ivy.
    Ivy, I thought, feeling my chest clench. By now she must be worried to the point of tearing someone’s throat out, but she and Jenks would find me—and get me out of this cage. I fingered my band of silver, thinking I’d been more than stupid about this. No wonder Trent thought I was brainless. He’d been trying to tell me, and I hadn’t listened. I guess I hadn’t watched the right movies to know that with ultimate power comes ultimate responsibility. My blood was power, and I had a responsibility to keep it safe—even if that meant I had to hurt someone in the short term.
    I didn’t like it. But it was a moot point if I couldn’t get out of here and fix things, and my jaw clenched as I watched Eloy through one of the monitors, squinting as the camera panned back and forth. Nodding in satisfaction, the man walked out of the camera’s range. He flashed up on a second monitor before vanishing behind the new camera in turn.
    “Hey, how about a bathroom break?” I said loudly. Chris had left a screwdriver on the counter after replacing the back of the machine, and I wanted it.
    “Use the bucket,” Chris said, not bothering to turn around.
    “Winona didn’t have to use the bucket,” I said, then looked at the monitor and the gray shape coming down the stairwell, one hand on the railing, one hand holding a shopping bag.
    “Shut up, you stupid little chubi,” Chris said, pushing back from her chair as if she’d been killing time up until now. Sure enough, she went to her cot and grabbed her thick, army-green coat, shrugging into it as she muttered under her breath.
    “Bathroom?” I prompted, ignoring the slur.
    Chris searched her pockets until she found a tissue and wiped her nose. “Hold it,” she said as she threw it away. Not looking up, she yelled, “Gerald! Jenn’s back! Let’s get this over with!” Rolling her eyes, she turned to the monitors, now showing Eloy and Jennifer. He’d taken her shopping bag for her all polite like. The woman didn’t look like herself, being about twenty pounds heavier and just as many years older. It had to be her, though, seeing that Eloy was talking to her and the matronly seeming woman looked right up at the camera and waved.
    I fidgeted, balling up my napkin and throwing it at the bucket. My blood had made the doppelgänger curse work, and it bothered me, even though voluntarily giving them ten cc’s of blood had gotten me a much-needed trip to the bathroom last night. I was an unwilling demon, doling out wishes to an insane practitioner. At least Al could say no. I suppose I could say no, too, and pee in a corner. Maybe I should have. But then they just would have darted me.
    “You think you’re part of this, but HAPA is going to kill you when they don’t need you anymore,” I said, and Chris stiffened. “Why do you think Eloy is here? To keep you safe? They’re using you, and as soon as they don’t need you, you’re dead.”
    “You open your mouth one more time, and I’ll dart you this shy of a coma,” she snarled, but I’d seen her flash of fear. Maybe she was smarter than I’d given her credit for.
    The fast-paced sound of heels on cement grew loud, and Jennifer click-clacked into the circle of light, looking refreshed and red cheeked if nothing like herself. Eloy set her bag on the floor and went to Gerald’s security camera, making sure the joystick worked.
    “Why are you bothering to fix those?” Chris said snidely. “They don’t need to pan.”
    “Why are you opening the back panels of those old machines?” Eloy said dryly. “They aren’t going to work any better with the dust out of them.”
    Chris leaned against the makeshift lab bench, the nylon of her coat scraping it as she looked him over. She was ugly with her short hair, no makeup, the scratches from Jenks healing—and the fear I had reminded her of. “You do your job, I do mine.”
    “Uh-huh,” he muttered, still standing hunched over the equipment.
    “Wow, it got cold out there!” Jennifer said, her gaze going over the small room and seeing that Winona and Gerald were absent and that Chris had her coat on. “I thought we were staying in tonight,” she said, picking her bag up and setting it on the counter. A new name tag attached to the pocket of her scrubs peeped out past her unbuttoned coat.
    “Captain America has plans,” Chris said