Vanessa slips into Birdie’s room like a ghost. She’s made sure no one in the house has seen what’s in the bowl on the tray.
She closes the door behind her and sits the tray on the dresser opposite the bed. Vanessa turns to see Birdie stir at the sound of the dish clattering on the tray.
“You’re awake,” Vanessa says, a smile pulling on the outer corners of her mouth.
Birdie grunts. She shifts in the bed, trying to prop herself up but failing, like a rag doll.
Vanessa turns back to her tray. She dips a rag in the bowl and red blooms upward, climbing the fabric like quick-growing ivy on the outside of a building. She lets it drip for a moment, the majority of the liquid seeping back into the bowl. She takes the rag, drops it to her side and walks toward Birdie.
“You know,” Vanessa says. “Tom is awfully concerned about you.”
Birdie’s eyes follow Vanessa’s hand at her side. Vanessa steps closer to the bed.
“But as concerned as he is for you, he’s more concerned about the baby. And I told him that you said it was fine, but I wanted to ask you again.”
Birdie’s eyes dart from Vanessa’s hand to her face. A few beads of sweat punctuate her brow like a watery ellipsis.
“Birdie,” Vanessa says slowly. “Have you felt the baby move?”
Birdie’s throat visibly constricts as she swallows. She opens her mouth to speak.
“I—yes,” she says.
“Lying is a sin, you know,” Vanessa overpowers the girl. She brings the bloody rag to her mouth, clamped tightly shut and she forces it open, pulling her by the hair. Birdie cries out and Vanessa silences her by shoving the cloth deep into her mouth. She forces her bottom jaw upward, closing her mouth as tightly as she can around the bleeding linen.
“I know you haven’t,” Vanessa hisses in her ear. Birdie thrashes. “Calm down,” Vanessa orders her. Before Birdie can comply, Vanessa slaps her hard across the face. Birdie’s eyes widen, large as dinner plates, and she makes a noise behind the rag and tears well. She stares up at Vanessa, her captive. “I know the baby hasn’t moved. And we both know that’s not good. For us or for you.”
The girl stares at her in horror.
“You need to be cleansed,” Vanessa points out and clamps her hand over Birdie’s mouth. “The blood will help with that. The child will taste it and like a little vampire, she’ll wake up from her rest.”
The two women stay in still silence for a moment. Vanessa pulls the rag from Birdie’s mouth.
“I’m going to ask you again,” Vanessa says. “Have you felt the child move?”
Birdie dry heaves as the cloth exits her mouth. Her eyes lock on Vanessa’s.
“Yes,” she croaks, her voice desperate and steadfast. “It’s faint, but it’s there.”
Vanessa doesn’t believe her.
“Wait,” Birdie gasps as Vanessa brings the rag back up. “You’re not the only one with gifts, Vanessa.”
She pauses, listening to Birdie.
“I’ve seen things,” Birdie says. “When I was shot. I saw the child being born,” her words are hurried, feverish. “It’s coming. Soon. And it’s alive.”
Vanessa thinks about this. She thinks of Mark and his warning and remembers that the darkness surrounding the child was not with Birdie, but instead with Tom. This makes her think that the girl might be telling the truth. The greatest danger posed to the child will be at Tom’s hands; not its mother’s.
Vanessa lets the rag fall limp at her side. Birdie relaxes slightly. Tom’s long-suffering wife stands from the bed and goes back to the bowl, where she rings out the rag, letting blood run down her fingers into the dish.
“Get some rest,” she tells Birdie. She looks back at the girl, blood at the corners of her mouth, a little vampire herself. Vanessa smiles.
She exits as silently as she came in and carries the tray with her, the bloody bowl looking like an element of some satanic rite. She obscures it with her carrying arm as well as she can, passing one of Tom’s men in the hallway. She smiles demurely at him, and he returns it. At Tom’s study door, she stops.
“He’ll call again in a few hours, he said,” Tom tells Jeff and Ollie, who stand, arms folded, in front of Tom’s desk. The sight reminds Vanessa of Tom’s time as a professor. They look like two students, come to his office for guidance on a paper. The memory of that time covers her like a wool blanket, itchy and unwelcome on her skin in the heat.
“Who’ll call again?” Vanessa asks.
The three men look at Vanessa. Jeff and Ollie turn and look like bookends on either side of Tom, who sits behind the desk. An old rotary-style phone sits in front of him, plugged into the phone jack on the wall behind him.
“I thought the power was cut,” she says.
“It is,” Tom says. “But the phone line isn’t. The FBI left a note this morning at the gate saying they’d call and provided this,” he points at the phone and then lets his hands return to their positions cradling his temples.
“Who called?” Vanessa asks again.
“Man named Wyatt,” Jeff says.
“A hostage negotiator,” Ollie adds.
“You two get the hell out of here,” Tom says to both of them. They follow orders without a second thought, but as Ollie passes Vanessa, she swears she sees something in his eyes: a plea.
“I wasn’t aware this was a hostage situation,” Vanessa says dryly, still hanging in the doorway.
“It’s not,” Tom snaps. “They want to take Birdie for medical care.”
Vanessa rolls this over in her mind. It’s unthinkable. With medical care, they’ll take the child. A child that Vanessa desperately wants. Birdie will leave here and never return. And then