Josef, I opened my mouth to tell him to leave me, that I was too injured to move, but I never had the chance. Darkness closed in and I felt a faint sensation of falling, and the sound of my name being called from far away.
I’m not sure how much time passed, but sometime later I awoke to “Drink, Olivia. Drink!” Those were the only words echoing in my head, and I struggled to respond, unable to awaken from a deep sleep. Someone was pushing me, imploring me to wake up, but I didn’t want to. I was very tired, so I resisted. The person on the other end of my dream, though, was relentless and persisted, shaking me and rattling my bones until I regained consciousness.
I blinked several times, trying to make sense of the chaos and bloodshed before me. People were leaning against the walls of the room, some slumped on the floor, bodies wounded, bloodied, bandaged and disoriented. I scanned the faces, trying to piece it all together. Elsa was on her knees, hovering over a body under a sheet. Why, I wondered, were we all here? Then, as if to make the answer obvious, the searing pain returned, passing through my leg and shooting up my spine until it caught in my throat, forcing me to choke back the agony. Now, I was present, in the moment. My eyes opened wide and quickly recognized Josef’s face directly in front of me.
“Drink, Olivia, you must drink from William,” he implored me. William was also kneeling inches away from me. He was holding his arm in front of me, revealing an open cut, his blood pooling at the edges of the incision.
Despite my injuries, I managed to recall Lily’s warning about drinking a vampire’s blood.
“Why?” I managed to ask, my tongue rough and swollen in my mouth. “Is it safe? What will happen to me?”
“It’s safe enough. Besides, you won’t survive unless we stop the bleeding right away,” Josef said. “You’ve lost a lot of blood. Drinking from William will help close the wound at the back of your leg more quickly.”
William, stone-faced, nodded softly in agreement. He held my gaze, and I could hear him clearly inside my head pleading with me to hurry up before I bled to death.
I was in no position to doubt them, so I nodded.
William brought his arm to my lips and I opened my mouth. His blood was warm and sweet, quenching a terrible thirst I wasn’t aware of until the liquid ran down my throat. After a few seconds of timid sipping, my body’s survival instinct kicked in and I began to drink more robustly. Feverishly I drank from him until finally he pulled away. I mewed like a kitten whose milk bowl had been removed, but William soothed me.
“That’s enough for now, darlin,” he said softly. I heard him from a faraway place, his voice slightly muffled. I felt drowsy, maybe from his blood, and once again, I succumbed to sleep.
My rest was short-lived. I awoke a few minutes later to witness something I could hardly believe. William was stitching up the back of my leg. I came back to life with a start, just as he pulled a stitch through my skin.
“Olivia, love, stay still,” William urged me. “Someone come over and hold her down.”
“This hurts like hell,” I said, to no one in particular, tears springing from my eyes.
I was rewarded with a sharp prick in my arm, and looked up to see Elsa holding a needle.
“You’re a nurse too?” I asked, my words slurring as the painkiller dulled my senses.
“Try to rest, Olivia,” Josef whispered. “This will help with the pain.”
I did as I was told, and when I awoke the third time, I found myself in bed at William’s house. This time I knew where I was, and sat up quickly, desperate to see William, to know that he was OK. I rose and saw that he was sitting in a chair across from the bed, a guitar on his lap, great sadness written on his face.
“I thought you were going to die,” he said quietly. “You lost so much blood. The glass from the museum. You wouldn’t wake up.”
I began to recall the events at the concourse, the injury to my leg, Josef dragging me to the fountain to make the jump. I remembered drinking William’s blood in a strange room I didn’t recognize.