Fine Wine

I had spent all my life aware of the consequences should my blood ever be spilt, and so I’d kept to myself. I had taken sick days on account of a hangnail tearing. I had doctors notes to sit out of contact sports in primary school. I had chosen a safe career behind a counter and plexiglass gridded with a decorative, wrought iron gate.

Still, somehow, a bullet made its way through it.

I suppose it’s to be expected, I thought. Before my mother passed, she had expressed concern about the supposed safety of my desk job.

“Bank teller? Really?” she’d said. “What if there’s a robbery? What if you’re shot, then what?”

She had known, the way she had always known, that I was destined to be in danger. Still, I’d gone on believing the prospects were ridiculous.

We were past the days of bank robbers, I’d thought. The last robbery had been a decade prior to me accepting this position, and it had ended with all participants killed on the spot in a shootout that ended with a bullet to each fallen body, just to be certain. Just in case.

And it wasn’t even my bank.

As I bled out behind the counter, I felt bad for them, really. A coworker was trembling over me, her voice feathery and faraway as she cried to someone over her shoulder. Anyone willing to do what the robbers had done had to be in dire straits.

The corner of my vision warped around the outline of a man the size and shape of a refrigerator. He was shouting to his comrades, and a part of me was still awake enough to wish the robbers had succeeded in more than one way.

I hoped they’d gotten what they came for, and that the blood on the tiles would be the last of me.

“Th-they must have gotten an a-artery,” her coworker cried, her hands still buried in my shoulder.

“Remove your hands,” the man ordered, and as she did, her weight was immediately replaced with the sensation of a sofa being shoved atop my shoulder.

A cry ripped out of me.

I gasped, wincing into the pressure. A strained curse twisted from my throat.

“Hold on,” the man said, his full weight shoved into the wound. He released one hand just to press it beneath my chin, squeezing my jaw, my cheek. His skin was tacky against my own, damp with my blood. “Stay with me. What’s—”

It occurred first in the man’s eyes—shock. And then, his attention dropped to my cheek, and then at last to his own fingers.

Mesmerized, he brought his shaking hand to his lips.

Don’t— My thought, as if heard, startled the man to drop his hand back to my shoulder.

As if burned from behind, the man twisted, sharp, and called over his shoulder in a panic to one of his comrades. “Roman, get over here. We’ve got a situation.”

From a distance, the man—Roman—spoke. “Ambulance is already on the way. Is the kid dead?”

I shut my eyes to the look on the man’s face as he said, “If she dies, it’ll be way worse. Taste.”

Crisp footsteps hurried around the employee door and behind the counter. An acrid scent trailed in, hovering over me. A knee pressed to the bloody tile at my shoulder.

The pressure that had once crushed me fell further and further from my periphery. Through it, I could only see rather than feel Roman’s finger pressed to my bloody uniform.

A wince broke my resolve. The man hardly looked appropriate for the occasion—tailored suit, prim and properly slicked-back hair, and slacks that shined like new silk. On his knee sat a black-brimmed hat and between his fingers, a pair of sunglasses. A tan line followed where they often sat on the sun-kissed bridge of his nose.

And then, Roman pressed his bloodied finger to his tongue and held it there.

“What do you make of it?” his comrade whispered.

Roman’s eyes—dark, sharp—were at once on mine.

A resounding, Fuck, echoed in my head.

“Get her outside. She needs pressure on both sides—looks like a clean shot.”

Before being lifted, heat swelled at my cheek. Roman’s hand was there, steady and warmed by the sun. His eyes softened as if to cradle my own. And then he promised: “You will live. Do you hear me? Don’t worry about a thing.”

Somewhere between the floor and the back of the ambulance, my stomach swooped and my eyes drooped. Like fingers prematurely shutting my eyes, I struggled against them to say, “No, I’m still alive, please wait.”

For a split second before unconsciousness, it felt wrong to want to die.

A fluorescent, glowing hospital room greeted me hours later.

My veins were heavy, my blood slogging. I breathed through it with a curse that only called my body to weigh heavier on me, to push into my lungs. My lips cracked.

Out of the corner of my eye, a woman blurred into focus to hold my outstretched hand.

“Welcome back,” she said through a brilliant, reassuring smile. “The surgery went well. How are you feeling?”

“Where’m I?” I croaked, coughing. “Water—”

She pressed a straw to my lips. Cool, crisp water poured through. I drank so desperately I choked. “You’re at Saint Mary Magdalene, miss. In good hands.”

It was a private hospital, one I couldn’t afford without selling my soul—and blood.

The news gripped me, choked me, and I put a hand to my lips. The nurse offered another sip, but I shook my head.

In the corner of the room, a shadow loomed nearer. A man, built like a doorframe, dressed in black. I thought I might recognize him as the nurse fled with a stammer about fetching a Dr Cyril.

As the door slid tremulously shut, the man pushed off the wall to approach.

“You saved me,” I rasped from the pillows. I’d hoped the nurse would stay as a buffer, but the man kept his distance. Thank God.

I thought I felt my shoulder throb, but it must have been a fluke. A wispy fuzzy had taken hold of my head, lulling my eyelids shut. I swallowed hard. “Thank you.”

Sunlight was still bright behind my eyelids as the man said, “You’re welcome. Your name is Vera Vikander, is that right?”

I nodded. There was a twitch in my neck that only tightened with the nod. I opened my eyes to the man and held out a hand.

He shook it. “Lev Leonov Brezhnev. Pleased to meet you.”

I wondered, as I had on the floor of the bank, if I might have avoided this conversation if I hadn’t been so foolish as to assume the robbers wouldn’t shoot. They were already desperate—what was murder on top of making a killing?

Or better yet, if I’d just kicked it. That would have saved me this pain.

I swallowed hard again and this time, it was around the rock in my throat that wouldn’t budge. It only grew. “You tasted it, didn’t you.”

“Only smelled it,” he assured. “Of the cannibals you’ll meet, a well-fed one isn’t all that dangerous to you.”

Right, I thought, agonized. Heat gathered behind my eyes. I may as well have a spotlight on my body now. Brezhnev only smelled it, sure, but his comrade—

Roman had tasted my blood. Whoever that man was knew where I was. It was only a matter of time before he came to collect more.

I raised my arm to look for the port, expecting to be plugged up like tap for sap. The IV was there, the input port discrete.

“Nothing’s been taken from you,” Brezhnev reported.

How am I supposed to believe that? I felt like I was on my deathbed, ascending to the heavens. “Okay.”

“I’m serious.”

“I believe you, sir.”

“Don’t—call me sir. I’m not much older than you.”

At my resigned silence, Brezhnev coughed awkwardly to the side and said, “Focus on your recovery. You won’t be bothered.”

With that, Brezhnev pulled up a seat equipped with a book. I watched until he was settled to say, “What are you doing.”

Brezhnev spared me a glance, wary. He resumed reading. “Just making sure you’re safe.”

Making sure I don’t kill myself, I thought, unsettled. Sleep came easy in spite of the nerves writhing in my sluggish veins.

The next time the door opened, it was to the surgeon. His lanyard read: Cyril Qin, M.D. with a photo that looked more like a mugshot the more I stared at it.

Just my paranoia warping things, I told myself.

“Miss Vikander, glad to see you alert,” the doctor said as Brezhnev stood to leave. As the door shut, Dr Qin claimed Brezhnev’s chair for himself, clipboard to his lap. “How are you feeling? Any pain?”

“Sore,” I admitted. The words spilled out before I could stop them. “Did you do any tests?”

Did you take anything from me? went unsaid.

Dr Qin sat with this question for a moment, studying me. It was enough to assure me that he knew, and that I knew he knew. Surgeons were required, by law, to have the regular blood-type spectrum—A, B, AB, O, so it goes. There was no telling, though, with doctors endorsed by the mafia.

“No,” he said, carefully. He put a hand to his chest. “I swear it on my livelihood. Beyond the blood you lost on the way here and a transfusion, we’ve taken nothing from you.”

A part of me wanted to reach for the urine bag that was undoubtedly hanging beside me. Embarrassment flared hot to my face, if there was even enough blood to manage that.

“Sorry, sir,” I said, shaky. “Paranoid.”

“It’s perfectly normal,” he said, and checked his clipboard. “A donor such as yourself… I can see why you don’t have much of a medical paper trail. Things are different now, though.”

“Right… Sorry.”

“It’s okay, really.” He cleared his throat and went on to describe my recovery. Physical therapy. “You’ll be discharged in the morning two days from now. Please, take advantage of the cafeteria while you can. The soup today is excellent.”

I promised I would, and Dr Qin left. Brezhnev took his place for as long as it took me to convince myself that I hadn’t been shot in the foot, actually, and that I could stand if I really wanted.

After being freed from the confines of my IV (and catheter, embarrassingly), the nurse held gauze to my arm to catch the dollop of blood that my heart raced at. I covered her hand until her fingers slipped away.

I pressed into it myself while she wrapped my arm. Even after I released the gauze pad, my hand trembled in the sling.

“Thanks,” I said to the nurse, who nodded and thanked me in return as she hurriedly left.

Brezhnev had left the room during this affair, which I didn’t blame him and was, in fact, grateful for. After a moment alone, I’d managed to find my shoes in the bloody plastic bag next to his chair and found my clothes almost more concerning to be seen in public with than a hospital gown.

They were brown with my own blood and should have, in my opinion, been burned on sight.

I tugged on my shoes with one hand, sat on the edge of the bed. With them equipped, I approached the door and the blinds that covered my view of the hallway.

I was one foot onto the linoleum when my eyes locked with a man sitting on a bench across from me. Leather jacket, a fan of playing cards in hand.

His neighbor was throwing down a card on the bench between them. “Your turn,” he said, before noticing me as well.

My feet propelled me on their own, careening to the intersection as the man shouted, “Oi! You shouldn’t be running—! For fuck’s sake—”

This hall was populated by a handful of nurses in scrubs and a single man than stood out amongst them all. After all, he was a foot taller than them and currently bending down to the base of a vending machine.

I spun and dove around the fast-approaching guards as they made it to the corner. Their boots squealed to a pivot and one of them cursed.

My good arm lurched in its socket. My wrist twisted in one of their hands with a painful burn that only grew when I yanked.

“Let me—go!” I kicked at him.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Brezhnev’s voice hurried close, vending machine snack in hand. He wedged between the guys to pat me on the head, even when I shoved with my foot at him. “I was just grabbing you a snack, but since you’re up…”

He eyed the guard who still had a vice-grip on my arm. When he let go, Brezhnev raised the candy to me in offering. “We go to the cafeteria instead, yeah?”

I assessed the distance between Brezhnev and the fresh pinprick wound on my arm from the IV. My blood smelled no stronger than anyone else’s, but still, I wondered if Brezhnev could smell it.

I glanced at the guards, one of whom was already retreating to their card game. “Y-yeah, sure,” I agreed, and so Brezhnev accompanied me.

Brezhnev walked ahead of me, unbothered, back the way we came. The last guard eyed me, barricading one of three options I had: to follow Brezhnev, to escape left down the hall and be subsequently chased again, or to kick him in the shin.

I followed Brezhnev.

There was another man, I realized. Brezhnev greeted him as we passed—he had seemingly appeared out of nowhere, and he accompanied us to the elevators where he remained after the doors shut between us. Four guards, all on me.

Watching me.

As I shuffled, the guards remained put. Down the hall, I glanced over my shoulder to assure myself that they would stay there, but one stood from the bench to follow.

I whipped my head back around, dazed, tangled hair falling over my eye. A little off-kilter, I brushed it away and thought, This is bad. This is really bad. Next thing I knew, I’d be strung up like a pig to be exhumed for delicacies a cannibal would only ever dream of.

My appetite fled the premises by the time Brezhnev spooned soup into two bowls, one for each of them. At the table, I shuddered as I watched him eat. I could only imagine the taste in Brezhnev’s mouth, the texture.

“Like vomit, always,” my mother had warned. “Chunky. Bile. Soapy water you’ve used to wash the floors. It’s why they want your blood. To taste regular food again.”

A gag crawled up my throat, mouth watering.

I pressed the back of my wrist to my lips. My blood wasn’t an everyday taste, though—meat and vegetables, for instance. My flavor was acquired, a treat at the end of a long day, something a person might crave daily.

“What’s wrong?” Brezhnev said over a spoonful of soup. I wondered if he was distracting himself from having to take another mouthful of warm puke.

Still, Brezhnev downed it—a fast bite to his spoon. The metal clinked on his teeth.

I considered admitting that I was nauseous, but imagined it compounding with the taste already in Brezhnev’s mouth.

I made direct eye-contact with my soup. Red bisque. “Nothing,” I said, and took a sip.

It was bright and warm. Garlic and tomato colored my mouth and flushed the imaginary taste from my throat. A pinch of salt, oregano simmering on the surface. I didn’t need to focus on the texture, which was all Brezhnev likely tasted.

It was good.