Trying not to overthink my actions, I pushed up my sleeve before I could change my mind. I grabbed a rubber strip and tied it just above my elbow with the help of one hand and my teeth. Then I sprayed the inner part of my elbow with a disinfectant, feeling more and more detached the further I got into the process.
I knew exactly what to expect. The cool dampness on my skin that would almost instantly evaporate. The eye-stinging, nose-wrinkling odor of antiseptic. The sharp prick and then the steady flow of blood. Sometimes, they’d drained me straight into oblivion.
I paused, the syringe in my almost-steady hand. I’d never drawn my own blood before, and I had definitely never given it voluntarily. But doing this on my own terms, for my own reasons, was different and somehow empowering. I didn’t know if I was making a good decision, or the right one, but at least it was mine. My choice.
I looked down at my pale skin and at the needle poised over my inner elbow. My heart raced, and the tourniquet felt tight and uncomfortable.
Who could this hurt? I’d kissed people, had sex with Gabe, bled on just about all of my crew members, and whatever was different about my blood or fluids had never harmed them. There was no reason to think my body contained anything damaging to other people, at least not in its natural state.
I forced the slight tremor from my hand. If I was going to do this, there was no sense in mucking it up with the jitters. I’d seen my blood drawn often enough to have the right idea about technique, and I went straight for the vein I knew worked the best. Maybe it was more the feel of the process I knew by heart? In any case, I got blood flowing into the syringe on only the second try and then filled up a whole blood bag before calling it quits.
Sliding the needle out of my vein, I held a sterile compress to my arm until blood stopped welling from the tiny hole I’d made. I wondered if I felt a little woozy. I couldn’t tell. It might have been my memory supplying everything about how I thought I should feel after something like this—how I often had.
In the end, I decided it was just the ghost of the past haunting my imagination. I stood and felt fine. I pulled my sleeve down, not bothering with any kind of bandage, and then threw the used needle and syringe into the covered biohazard trash.
The clear plastic bag full of my blood lay on the metal lab table. I picked it up and held it away from me a little warily. With all his wealth, resources, and experiments, I wondered if my father had ever figured out what was different about me.
Actually, what probably wasn’t an issue at this point. The questions that remained were why? And how?
I started toward the series of doors that would lead me out of this airless trap, powering down the lights in the lab attachment when I reached the exit.
The problem was, even if dear old Dad knew the answers to any of those questions, I still didn’t.
* * *
After giving the blood sufficient time to cool down in one of our cargo bay refrigerators, I made my way to Fiona’s lab and called out a greeting to her. She turned, her goggles and mask in place and a tiny eyedropper in one hand. Rows of test tubes sat lined up in front of her, all color-coded and carefully labeled. Floral-toned liquids bubbled in beakers behind them.
“Are you back to distilling essential oils?” I asked. She’d been working on naturopathic cures for Starway 8 since we hadn’t found anything pharmaceutical to give them in ages. I’d thought our luckless streak had finally ended, but taking the lab didn’t exactly work out like I’d hoped.
She nodded. “They’re pungent. You might want to stay back.”
Taking her word for it, I hovered near the doorway to Fiona’s leafy green domain. Her plants had a significantly larger living space than I did. The strong, almost overpowering odor of whatever she was working on reached me a moment later, and my eyes started to water.
“Wow. What is that?” My nose already felt burned up and hollowed out.
“Celioptolix. It’ll clear up a stuffy nose like that.” She tried to snap her fingers but just