17

22. Crime Fighting Duo

"Hurry up."

"I am."

I tapped my fingers on the cold desk impatiently as I waited for the devices to do their jobs. Meanwhile, Rami stays outside the laboratory, swaying back and forth while on the lookout for any intruders. I mean, technically we are the intruders, since we sneaked in the hospital; it's for science and research purposes.

"Rami, stop dancing."

"I need to pee. Hiding and doing sneaky stuff makes me want to pee." The boy explains, dancing with his hands on his crotch. "How long until the tests are done?"

"I just started them. It will take a while." I sat on a wooden stool, keeping my eyes on the devices. "I think there's a bathroom down the hall. Just run there and come back as soon as you can."

Rami sighs in relief. "Thank you. I'll be back. Don't miss me too much." With that, the boy sprints away from the lab, leaving me all alone in the third floor of the Gold Valley Hospital.

Just a typical Friday. Sneaking in a hospital's laboratory with a friend to run some tests on a vampire's blood that we had collected the other day. The hospital is the only place that have proper equipment for tests, so that's where we went. Because we needed to learn more about vampires and their biology, analyzing their blood would give us a lot of information and that will help us make the cure for their skin, so they don't burn under the sunlight. I'm not exactly sure how the hell I'm going to pull it off, but it's worth a try. After all, a deal is a deal. Idris helped me rescue Lysander from the hunters in West Grove, and I give him a cure. That vampire really overestimates me.

It's only six in the morning, the sun is just starting to rise, so there aren't too many people in the hospital yet. Just the night shifts, early birds and inpatients. It's rather quiet as well, and to be honest it's a bit creepy. The hospital is old and looked like those haunted ones from the movies.

Wandering around the lab, I found a white lab coat with chemical stains. I wore it over my all-black attire and smiled at my reflection in a mirror next to a clock on the wall. I am enjoying the familiarity of the environment: computers, scientific equipment, and chemicals. It's like being back in SIlverstein as an intern. I miss that place, even if I was only there for a few days. I wondered what I would be doing right now, if I had never met Lysander. Experiment 17, who makes my insides feel all weird and fuzzy.

My thoughts on the werewolf stopped as one of the devices beeped, indicating that it is done running. This one tests the composition of their blood: red and white blood cells, platelets, and plasma. Although vampire blood composition is exactly the same as humans, the numbers are entirely different. Especially the number of white blood cells and platelets. It's probably why vampires are so hard to kill. The number of red blood cells are quite low in compare to humans, which most likely impacts the blood flow and heart.

Rami has more knowledge about biology, so I thought I'd just take pictures of the results and wait for him to return so he can analyze them further. He's still in the bathroom and the other tests are still running, so I used the time to observe the blood a little more. Using a dropper, I put a drop of blood on a microscope slide and slid it under a microscope. Just as the first test result found, the compositions are similar but differs in number and size of each part. They look thinner than the human blood cells as well.

I carefully removed the slide from the microscope's stage clip. As I reached for my phone to type down my observation, the sunlight through the blinds of the window hit the slide and I heard a fizzing noise. I focused on the vampire's blood at the center of the slide and watched it boil like water.