Bump

  ***

  “Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” Ryan asked.

  Vanessa had her belt fastened around Ryan’s bicep and she watched as the veins in his arm became more visible.

  “It’s not really a difficult concept.” She replied.

  “It’s not the concept I’m worried about. It’s getting stabbed in the arm.”

  “How did you think the syringe was going to be used? I was going to squirt the stuff in your mouth?” She cinched the belt tighter.

  “Ow.”

  “Make a fist.”

  Ryan did as he was told and laid back on Vanessa’s bed. It smelled like her, and that went a long way toward calming his racing heartbeat.

  “You know, I feel like you’re a little too good at using household objects to find veins in an arm.”

  “What, you’d prefer I was worse?”

  He had wanted to do this on the couch, since he already felt terrible about even being in Vanessa’s house when night fell. She however, had made the point that they didn’t know how well or how long the serum was going to work, so they needed to be able to lock Ryan in a bedroom in case he woke up while transformed. That meant that Vanessa got kicked out of her bed, and Ryan prayed that was the worst thing that happened tonight.

  “Are you comfortable?” She asked.

  “Yeah, I’m good.”

  The room had taken on an orange hue and even though Ryan couldn’t see out the window from his position on the bed, he could tell that darkness was on its way.

  Perhaps the strangest event of the afternoon had occurred when Ryan first returned to Vanessa’s house. Her mother’s gun had been left on the dining room table, and tucked in the shattered door frame had been a blank check. It bore no printed name, and the signature was scrawled and illegible, but the account number looked real enough and it bore the logo of a legitimate national bank. Ryan didn’t know if it was any good, but it seemed like a strangely thoughtful gesture. Upon closer inspection, they realized that the handwriting of the address on the business card was different from the signature on the check. Ryan had a feeling he had only glimpsed a small corner of a much larger picture.

  “Hang on.” She repositioned herself in her perch on the bed so she could approach the vein at a better angle.

  “You have 911 on speed dial?” Ryan asked. “In case you miss the vein?”

  She rolled her eyes. “You need speed dial for three numbers? Besides, shouldn’t I be calling animal control?” She smiled.

  “Not if this works.”

  “Hold still…”

  Ryan braced himself for the sting of the needle, and then it came. His adrenaline was pumping so fast he barely felt it. Ryan was nervous that Vanessa would do something wrong and he would bleed out. He was worried that everything would go fine with the shot, but that the sedative wouldn’t work and he’d transform before Vanessa could get the exits blocked. Most of all he was afraid of feeling that awful pain again. The transformation itself had opened doors of bodily agony that Ryan had never imagined. His focus since then had been on the hunt and the kill and the consequences, but now that the transformation was coming closer, Ryan was terrified that he would have to endure it again.

  “Oookay.” Vanessa said and her voice shook slightly. “I think I did it.”

  Ryan shook his head. “You put it all in?”

  “There wasn’t much there, but yeah. Let me know when you feel-”

  And Ryan slipped into a blissful unconsciousness.