Blood Relatives

46. It's Tradition

"Should we clean up the circle?" Anna asked finally. The four of them had been standing there for several minutes, not sure what to do.

"Let someone else do it." Luke told her. "The wind'll probably take care of it before lunch tomorrow anyways."

"Can someone help me?" Mia called out from where she was still seated on the ground. "Please?"

Luke snickered. "I almost forgot about her." he told them as they walked over. Carmine noticed he didn't seem to be in a big hurry to get her out.

"Do you have a key?" Carmine asked.

"Yeah." he felt around idly in his pockets. He closed his eyes for a second, and Carmine saw him sway just a little bit. It was only then that she noticed how pale he was.

"You should sit down." she told him. He must have been feeling pretty bad, because he didn't complain at all. He just nodded and sat on the edge of the bench Mia was still handcuffed to.

"I'm really sorry." Mia said. She sounded mortified.

"It's ok." Luke told her. "I just need to sit for a minute."

"How much blood did you lose?" Zev asked standing up and coming around the table. He was still wobbling pretty badly himself.

"Not more than if he'd donated it." Conner told them.

"How do you know that?" Carmine asked. Conner shrugged.

"My mom's a nurse."

"Do you donate blood?"

"Uh, no." he said. "Just in case they do tests on it or anything. It wouldn't exactly come back as normal, you know?"

Carmine had never really thought about that.

"So he's going to be ok?" Mia asked, sounding relieved.

"Yeah. He'll be fine – we're not that fragile, you know." Conner told her. "But all that running around after probably didn't help."

"You mean like changing and jumping on Adam?" Zev asked, sounding a little too happy. "That was impressive, by the way."

"...Are you ok?" Luke asked him. Carmine was wondering the same thing.

Zev stared at Luke intently for a minute.

"I'm not sure." he said finally.

"How long is he going to be out of it like this?" Luke asked Anna.

"He should have been fine about ten minutes ago." Anna said, sounding both embarrassed and worried. Mia slumped over on the ground.

"If you want to just leave me here tonight, I'll understand." she mumbled quietly to her shoe.

"Luke's not going to leave you here – he's got the key." Anna told her. "Why would you think we'd leave you?"

Even though Mia's eyes didn't leave the ground, Carmine thought she could still see the edges of her cheeks turning bright red.

"I may have been messing with him a little." She said it so quietly it was almost inaudible.

"For how long?" Luke asked.

"From about the time you sat him down until Adam was finally gone." she said.

"You did?" Zev sounded shocked.

"You don't remember?" Luke asked. Carmine could see he was trying to keep his face neutral, but he was already starting to grin.

"Not that part." Zev said, eyes wide.