Her brow furrows in thought—

Did I get my own blood in the barrel?

—and the yellow light shines across her view.

If it weren’t for the new light, she would never have seen them: two tiny purple dots on her wrist. She brushes them with her thumb, feeling slight bumps, and shudders.

The lock snaps and the metal door swings open. She sticks her bleeding finger in her mouth and looks helplessly at the doorway, her eyes growing sleek as glass. The blood drips onto her tongue. It tastes like brown water.

“How is my little— Oh! What happened here?” Her daddy stands in the doorway, staring down at the disassembled syringe. He shuts the door behind himself and takes a step toward her, picking up the pieces. “Did you do this?”

“No, Dah’dy! I di’n’! I wo’h up and i’h wa’h like tha’!”

His jaw tightens despite the ridiculous sight he might have found adorable on any other occasion. But not now. He doesn’t like it when she lies to him.

“Are you telling the truth?” he asks, his voice hardening into a blunt shell, and then asks again: “Vanilla, are you telling the truth?”

She doesn’t answer at first, but he can sense the change in her body language. He can feel the increase in her heart rate as she turns her eyes away from him like a cowering dog who knows it’s done something wrong.

Slowly, she shakes her head.

No. It was a lie.

The corners of his mouth curl into a forced smile and his voice melts into warmth. “That is all right, my sweet.”

He fiddles with the syringe pieces, scolding himself silently as he does, not letting the expression reveal on his face. He can smell the blood dissipating from inside the glass barrel. He’d switched the needles incorrectly.

Foolish.

Without needing to watch the mechanics of his hands, wanting instead to relish in her reaction, he balances and twists the pieces in his fingertips. He snaps them back together and the syringe is once again whole. Her eyes watch him like a charmed snake. Awe fills her, nearly overflowing beyond the brim of her lids. Her skin faintly glows and a tentative smile curls across her slim lips. A smile just for him.

His dead heart flutters more than usual at that look of lovingly dependent gratitude. An exhilarating tingle spreads across his normally numb skin. Only she can do this to him, and now, he wants to be closer to her, like she’s a magnet intensifying that feeling of being alive.

He sits down cross-legged in front of her and holds out the syringe. She reaches out to grab it, but he yanks it away before she can, her skin grazing his cold knuckles, leaving her kiss of warmth. She jerks back in fear and he smiles.

“That is all right. But do not lie to me again. Do you understand? How can I keep you safe? How can I protect you if you lie to me?”