He’d managed to save two of the eight quart containers, but it wasn’t going to be enough, he could tell, and after the fight at the butcher shop and his escape, he knew he wasn’t strong enough to give her any more of his own blood. She’d need more, and he was going to have to start thinking of her as something besides the “burned-up white girl.” She was starting to resemble a real person now, more than a person-shaped cinder. A very old, very scary dead person, to be sure, but a person nonetheless. Her red hair nearly covered the pillow now, and she’d moved, if only a little, closing her mouth after the last drops of blood went in. No ash had flaked away with the movement. Okata was glad. Her exposed fangs made him a little uneasy, but now she had lips, sort of. He picked up his sketch pad from the floor, moved to the end of the futon to get a different angle, and began drawing her, as he’d been doing every hour or so since he’d returned from the butcher.
