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thethistlegirlwrites · 11 months ago

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Blood Stained

Joey unzips the blue canvas duffle bag that’s sitting on her coffin-bed, ignoring high-pitched singing from the hallway bathroom and the sounds of someone in the next room over slamming drawers. She’s one of five vampire mentees living in this halfway house, eligible now that she’ll be participating in an apprenticeship. She’s one of the lucky ones. Her counselor said before Chimera got grants for halfway housing options, vamps in the mentor program were stuck finding their own accommodations. And places that will take vampire tenants at all often charge exorbitant rates for the privilege.

Inside the bag, on top, is the folder that holds her copies of the mentor program agreement, the list of expectations and terms, and her visitation plan. She pulls out the plan and pins it to the corkboard over the head of her bed. The first three weeks are solid red, but there’s a yellow bar halfway through week four. Conditional potential to see family members in a controlled environment.

She’ll take it. Video calls with Mauri and Via are more contact than she thought she’d ever be able to have again, but now that she knows there’s the possibility of more, waiting three weeks’ probation feels like an eternity.

She tacks up the stained, creased photo of her family beside it. Over the years and miles, the corners have gotten blunted, the color has flaked away on the fold lines, and the faces have changed. But she’s held onto it this long, and it’s a reminder of what she’s going through all this for. She’s absurdly grateful someone chose to tuck it into her coffin with her.

Everything Josefina Quintero has done for the past six years has been to protect her siblings.

Even, if necessary, from her.

There’s another folder in the duffle bag, this one with a company’s logo on the front. The same logo that’s on the azure sweatshirt and t-shirts folded up inside below it. Even on the pen clipped to the front.

Joey sits down on the bed and starts filling out the employment papers for Nico’s Custodial Service. She can even answer the work authorization honestly for once. Chimera’s legal team got her provisionally cleared to work while Carmen Stoker of all people is using Joey’s case to make an argument for citizenship status for vampires based on location of home earth.

As far as starts to an un-life go, this isn’t the worst.

She isn’t counting the two weeks she spent locked in a crypt trying to keep herself from feeding on humans after her first fledgling hunt, or the next ten days in Chimera’s infirmary with their medics treating her blood-starvation and throwing her a lifeline in the form of the synthetic replacement.

She takes two easy-open packs from the mini-fridge in the corner of her room and tucks them into the insulated lunch bag that was folded under the shirts. Eventually, she’ll only need one, but her body is still riding the peaks and valleys of the newly fledged.

By the time a blue-and-white van with the cleaning company’s logo pulls up in front of her building, she’s checked off nearly every item on the paper at the front of her personnel manual.

Long hair out of the way; braided in a single tight French style down her back.

Wearing the company t-shirt and sweatshirt (if desired, and apparently most vampires appreciate the extra warmth), as well as the grey cargo pants that were folded up below them, and the sturdy ankle-high work boots she found in a box under that.

Copies of her work authorization documents to be filed with her I-9, made at Chimera’s office this morning.

Signed front page of the personnel manual.

Signed technology policy and her new (very basic, very locked down) cell phone in one pocket. There’s only three numbers in it right now. The cleaning company’s office line, her mentor’s personal cell number, and the Chimera number that will take her directly to the department that deals with anyone in the mentor program.

She’s met Nico Pontevecchio a couple times before this. Once in one of the interview rooms at Chimera when they were determining if the two of them were a good fit for each other, then again in Huntmaster Lawson’s office when they signed the mentorship agreement.

The vampire in the driver’s seat is wearing the same sweatshirt she’s seen every other time, a faded version of the one she was just given, with bleach stains (that seems like the wrong word, but she can’t come up with anything else for it) on the stomach pocket and grimy, frayed wrist cuffs.

He’s chomping away on another of what seem to be ever-present sticks of gum as he reaches across the front seat and opens the passenger door for her. Joey climbs in, looking for a place to set her paperwork. There’s invoices stacked on top of the dashboard, and the console is a clutter of rubber gloves, empty sanitizer bottles, and gas receipts.

She’s not sure how much faith she has in the professionalism of this cleaning company.

“Sorry for the mess,” Pontevecchio says, grabbing the invoices off the dashboard and setting them down somewhere between the backs of the seats and the grating that keeps the cleaning supplies from coming up into the cab with them at any red light. “I’ve been keepin’ all my stuff on the passenger seat. Haven’t had anyone in here in a bit, and last night was crazy. Wish it was cleaner for ya.”

“I don’t mind.” Joey sits down and straps in, and they pull away from the curb.

“Nervous?” Pontevecchio asks as they make their way through evening traffic.

“Kind of. I’ve never done this before.” It sounds like cleaning for a janitor service has a lot of different responsibilities.

“Don’t worry about it. You’ll catch on quick. Once you learn your building layouts, you’ll get a feel for it. You can start making a sort of pattern.” He hands her a flat plastic clipboard, also blue, with a stack of papers on it. One is a list of addresses. One is a list of tasks. “Some of our clients have in-house janitors that they’re just supplementing, and we do a little less at them. Those are the places we’re going to start with.”

He reaches across the dash and opens the glove box. “There’s a pack of gum in there if you want some.”

“No thanks.” Her stomach is tied up in enough knots.

“Ok, so here’s the deal. My first mentee said it was just me being an enthusiastic Italian, but I will talk your ear off today if only to keep your mind on something other than getting overwhelmed by a new job. You can be getting overwhelmed by my inability to shut up instead.”

Joey actually laughs at that one.

“So ask me anything you want. Otherwise I’m just going to start rambling about weirdest work stories.”

“Why did you start a cleaning company?” She’d sort of figured a former hunter would have opened a private investigation service or done something similarly…cool.

“My great-great-grandmother cleaned rich people’s mansions in New York City after my family came over from Italy. If it was good enough for her, it’s damn well good enough for me. Runs in my blood. And it’s a good job for young vampires. Little to no interaction with humans on shift, and all night hours.”

“That makes a lot of sense.”

“We advertise we’re 100 percent vampire owned and staffed. Bleeding hearts who wanna put their money where their mouth is are honestly competing for contracts right now. There’s more people on our side in LA than it feels like sometimes.”

It takes Joey a few seconds to remember that ‘bleeding hearts’ isn’t an insult to vampire supporters anymore. They’ve sort of commandeered the term, deciding it’s pretty accurate, and made it a rallying cry instead.

He digs around in the tangle in the console, pulls out a cigarette-lighter phone charger and tosses it up on the dash, and eventually comes up with a pen and a small rectangle of label paper. “Your ID’s got all your info on it, but if you don’t want anyone you bump into knowing your last name and all, you can just make your own nametag. We had some trouble with one of our employees getting harassed, so now I offer everyone this option. As long as we still have the work IDs to show building security, no one minds.”

Joey wouldn’t have thought of that issue, but she’s glad her mentor did. She unclips the badge with her whole name, photo ID, and a little strip like a credit card on it, slips it into her pocket, and starts writing her nametag out.

“We’ll get you a real nameplate ordered, just let me know what name you’d like on it.”

She looks at his own, a plain white plate with smallish blue letters spelling out Domenico P.

“Is it better to use our full first names?”

Pontevecchio laughs. “I just do this so no one knows I own the company. They don’t usually bother readin’ all the way to the end.”

“Why, less people harass you about how you’re doing the job?”

“Actually more like the opposite.” He shrugs. “I work the first few nights at any new location. They can be perfectly respectful when they’re talking to the company owner, but what matters to me is how they’re gonna treat my people.” He taps the nametag. “But you can call me Nico.”

“In that case, I’m Joey.”

He pulls into the parking garage of a tall office building. Joey feels like panicking for a second, until she realizes the garage is shared with the low building next door that advertises itself as the HR software company whose name is on their list. Okay. One floor. One building. She can do that.

They climb out of the van and start unloading the equipment they need.

“Three pairs of gloves, in your pockets, at all times.” Nico hands her a box of bright green ones. “You didn’t indicate any known allergies to the supplies we use, but tell me right away if something starts bothering you.”

She nods and tucks the gloves into one of the big leg pockets. She’s starting to understand the specific clothing choices whoever put together her work bag made.

He talks her through the rationale behind every other piece of gear they collect, and then they’re headed in through the back door.

“This one’s easy. We deep clean once a week, but that’s not today.”

Joey picks up her clipboard to double-check what her checklist for this building will be, and then realizes this isn’t her clipboard at all.

There’s a photo of a kid with braces, floppy hair, and a lopsided model volcano taped to the back of the clipboard under the list of addresses, checklists, and cleaning supply order forms.

She’d known Nico had a kid. She was told upfront that the best mentor-mentee matches share something deeply personal in common. Wanting to get their lives together to be part of their families’ again, well, it doesn’t get a whole lot more personal than that.

“That’s Ricky,” Nico says. There’s an undercurrent of hurt in his voice.

“He’s sweet.”

Nico just nods. She has the feeling there’s something there that hurts. Something that, for all his enthusiastic rambling, he can’t bring himself to talk about.

She doesn’t talk about her family. She never has. It was safer for them all. No one knew she had younger siblings unless it was absolutely necessary. Not when they were trying to cross the border, and definitely not when she was trying to pay for Via’s seizure meds with her bookie gig.

Nico folds the papers back over the picture, tucks the clipboard into a side pocket of the trash cart, and reaches for the trash can near the door while Joey unwinds the vacuum’s cord and searches for a wall plug.

For a while, the whine of the motor is their only background noise, and then Joey shuts it off and fights with the catch holding the dirt cup in place so she can empty the astonishing amount of grit and hair it’s collected into the trash cart.

“I bit him,” Nico says, out of what seems like nowhere.

But Joey knows exactly who he means.

“My family knew what I was gonna be, and buried me anyway. I guess they wanted another chance. They were there waitin’ to help me dig myself out. And…I attacked them.” He looks down at the gloves on his hands. “I almost strangled my wife, and when Ricky tried to pull me off her I bit his arm. I’m just lucky I didn’t infect him. But…he’s been terrified o’ me ever since. For good reason.”

Joey knows fledgling hunger. She knows what it did to her, what she was afraid it might lead her to. He’s lived her worst nightmare come true.

“I’d just gotten my feet back under me and started figuring out how to control myself when I found out he’d gotten himself accepted to an oceanography program in San Diego. I had to get out of New York anyway. My old agency was hunting me down, and they were closing in. So I moved out here. It was about as far away as I could get from my old life.”

“Have you two reconnected?” Joey asks.

“We’re still…workin’ on things. This is the best compromise, gives him some distance but if he wants to get together on weekends, I’m close enough for it. And Lawson and I had crossed paths a few times before this. I knew she was starting a mentor program here, and I figured I might as well be useful to someone else. No one should be doin’ this alone.”

“Yeah, it kind of sucks.”

He laughs. “Lawson helped me get this business started on the condition I’d be another mentor for people when she needed it. It’s worked out pretty well so far.”

“How many mentorships have you done?”

“Two so far, you’re my third. It’s picking up now, I guess, after everything with your friend Barrett.”

Joey nods. She’s still shocked he went to the trouble to track her down. They’d been friendly enough when he was an underground fighter and she was taking bets on the action, and she’d never believed what the news had said about him killing those people, but she’d never expected him to remember her, much less realized she’d been infected.

Apparently, according to his partner, he’d put her name at the top of a list of likely candidates for a pilot program the agency is running with people who are infected, but haven’t turned.

He found her too late for that one, but at least there was still an option.

If it’s working for him, she’s pretty sure it’ll work for her too.

“Okay, that’s it for this place.” Nico hauls the trash cart out back, and the two of them reload their van and pull out.

The next location is a resource center that caters to people recently released from prison, connecting them to housing, food, and employment options. It isn’t so different from the office Joey was sitting in just this morning, getting the keys to the halfway house, her few possessions she’d had on her when she was brought to the clinic, and the blue duffle that contained everything else she currently owns in the world.

She walks into the bathroom to start cleaning, and stops cold.

The floor is covered in red smears.

There’s a coppery scent in her nose, a ringing in her ears, and a tingling in her jaw.

Blood. Fresh blood.

Someone touches her shoulder, and she spins with a snarl. This is hers. She found it. Her food.

“..ey? Joey?” The threat to her meal resolves itself into Nico’s worried face, accompanied by the strong smell of wintergreen, overpowering the metallic tang of blood.

“I told them to stop using kill traps,” he says apologetically. “They’ve been having issues with rats since they set up the food pantry in here, so they’ve been setting traps, but these kind make a mess.”

A rat. A rat is what bled all over the floor.

And she’s so out of control that the blood from some dead vermin would have been enough for her to tear into Nico over.

She chokes, pushes her way out the door, and rushes into the corner behind a rack of business suits with a faded sign that says “Interview Closet” on it.

She’s not sure how much later it is that Nico wheels aside the rack and crouches down beside her.

“It’s all taken care of,” he says gently. “I threw the rat out, cleaned up the floor twice, sprayed the whole room with wintergreen, and threw out every kill trap I could find in this place. They can bill me for it if they want, and I’ll bring by some live traps tomorrow.”

Joey doesn’t answer him. She can’t.

“It’s okay. You’ve barely been a vampire two months,” Nico says quietly. “Nobody expects you not to react to blood.”

“What if I never get better?”

“You will. It just feels impossible right now.”

“But I thought I was controlling it, and then this happened. What if I only think I am when they let me see my family?”

“No one is going to let you hurt your family. I promise. We know what we’re doing.”

“I was only ever trying to protect them,” She whispers. “My mother was a reporter, back home in Venezuela. She went after a powerful man with dangerous friends. When he had her killed, I was afraid to stay in the country. My aunt had married an American businessman years before and gone to live with him in Los Angeles, and my sister needed good medical care. I thought Tía Patricia could help.” What none of them had known at the time was that the marriage had lasted three years, and ended in a messy divorce that left Tía Patricia barely scraping by on an office assistant’s salary. They’d only found out after they made it to the city.

Our family isn’t really much for sharing our failures.

“We didn’t have enough money for most of the coyotes making border runs. I was told about one man who would do it for cheap, but he wanted more than money. I thought I knew what he was asking for.”

She still remembers that night like it was yesterday. The blood-red semi. The flickering halogen lamp with moths fluttering around it. The sting at her wrist and the chill in her blood.

The last thing she remembers from her human life is a pair of bright headlights, coming straight for her.

“He was a vampire. Did border crossings for blood.” They were lucky he wasn’t one of the sort who kept his human cargo as a food source. She was in the Chimera infirmary when a raid team brought in some victims of one of them. “He must have lost control and infected me when he fed on me.” She shakes her head. “Mauri and Via didn’t know what he was. I should have told them but I didn’t want them to know what I’d done. I didn’t want them to think it was their fault. It was stupid. I was stupid. I thought there would be time, when they were older, to tell them everything. So they’d know what to do when the time came. But I was wrong.”

Red lights reflecting off the hood, painting the car the same blood red as that semi.

And in the split second before impact, the oddest feeling that she’d seen moths clustering around the lights, narrowing them down to searing pinpricks of brilliant death.

“They didn’t know I was going to turn, and they buried me.” She chokes back a sob. “I made some bad decisions. Some really bad decisions. But I was nineteen and I was scared and I didn’t want to lose the only family I had left.” She looks down at the floor, seeing those smears of red all over again. “But it didn’t matter what I did. I lost them anyway.”

“You haven’t lost them yet.” Nico puts a hand on her shoulder. “Come on. We’re done here. Let’s go out to the van and eat. Even I’m not immune to smelling blood. I feel like I’m starving.”

She’s not sure if he’s just trying to make her feel better, or telling the truth, but it sort of helps.

Maybe he’s right.

Maybe, someday, she’ll be okay.

(You can read this story and more from this universe on my WorldAnvil here!)

@catwingsathena @nade2308 @the-one-and-only-valkyrie @telltaleclerk @ettawritesnstudies @writeouswriter

#febuwhump #febuwhump2024 #febuwhumpday14 #blood stained tiles #lady whump #sort of #mostly angst here #tw: animal death #josefina quintero #domenico pontevecchio

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