I let out a hysterical laugh and wiped a fresh wave of tears away.Again.
What even was my life?
First, I’d found a stalker who had some kind of medical fetish and was able to give a weirdly accurate diagnosis of what was wrong with me.
Then, I’d found a boyfriend who had me googling stuff like, “Why does someone keep bagged blood in their fridge?”
By the way, the results were utterly unhelpful. Most of the sites were droning on about why medical facilities needed to refrigerate donated blood for it to stay viable. Which,duh.
But it didn’t tell me why someone would, as a private citizen, keep blood in their fridge.
Maybe it really was just a relic from Halloween.
I took a deep breath, got up from the couch, and opened the fridge.
The bag was still where I’d put it. On the top shelf, right next to the tub of Greek yogurt. Then again, where else would it be?
I could find out what it was for sure if I just opened it and… what?Smelledit? Fuckingtastedit?
I laughed again, shaking my head.
Yeah, sure. I could just fucking taste it.
Like avampire.
Maybe there was a completely normal explanation.
Well, maybe not completely normal, but less crazy than what I’d come up with.
According to the internet, some people used their own blood as a means of doping prior to competitions to enhance the amount of red blood cells. Which, yeah, was fucked up, but in this case also pretty unlikely considering the fact that Eric insisted he didn’t even have a fucking workout routine.
Also, there was the fact that he’d tried calling.
Not once.
Not twice. But six times in a row.
I’d declined the call once, then immediately put the phone in do-not-disturb mode.
Had he realized that I’d not only found the blood but stolen a bag?
I closed the fridge again and raked a hand through my hair. What if it wasn’t blood, but indeed just a very bloodlike-looking cocktail that I was currently making an absolute fool out of myself over?
But I was sure it wasn’t.
Eric had called me six times in a row—that sounded a lot like panic to me.
And why would he be panicked about me finding a cocktail?
I wanted to believe that there was a different explanation. A normal one.
But I couldn’t fucking think of anything.
What if Eric needed regular blood transfusions due to his gunshot wound? The wound I still hadn’t seen proof of. Maybe Eric didn’t need the blood at all, but Bennie did. Were there autoimmune illnesses that necessitated regular transfusions?
But they’d be done in a hospital, right? I couldn’t imagine a hospital would be like, “Yeah, there you go, five bags of blood to go. Come back if you need more.”
Also… a person just needed one blood type, right? And the bags had been mixed. I was damn sure of that.
