"Who else is here?" I asked Mark abruptly. He looked startled.
"Rebecca. She wasn't feeling well, so she stayed home today. Why?"
"She's sick," I told him as I darted past him and up the stairs. It wasn't strictly true, but I couldn't tell her brother that she was dying. Not yet.
I was shocked at what I saw when I opened her bedroom door. Rebecca lay there, still in a t-shirt and sleep shorts, deathly still, with an unhealthy sheen over her white face. She didn't even look at me as I lifted her from the tangled nest of sheets on her bed. Her chest rose and fell, desperately sucking air into her failing lungs. I carried her hastily down the stairs, past her worried looking brother, and across the road to my house, indicating to Mark to follow me. He trotted behind me, still carrying the kitten.
I lay Rebecca on my new sofa, wondering what to do next. She was deathly pale, even her lips and tongue were white. I knew she needed iron, preferably in the form of fresh blood. Blood was really the best source of iron for us - it was rapidly absorbed from our stomachs, seeping into our systems within seconds. Images of Marcus' experiments on us flashed across my vision, and I was grateful for the unending thirst for knowledge that drove my brother. I could help Rebecca, but iron tablets would take too long. I dug a breadknife out of one of the kitchen drawers, and carried it into the sitting room, where Mark stood against one of the walls, gazing in horror at his sister.
"Mark."
"Yes?"
"Trust me."
He nodded slowly, and stroked the kitten's head. His eyes widened involuntarily when I lifted the breadknife, but he said nothing, and remained leaning against the wall.
I used the tip of the knife to slice longitudinally through the skin of my left wrist and the artery pulsing beneath it, and swiftly held my wrist to her mouth.
"Drink, Rebecca!" I barked at her, and her eyes fluttered open as the salty fluid flowed into her mouth, she swallowed once convulsively, and then again. Her eyes closed. "Rebecca!" I was almost shouting now. I felt rather than saw Mark flinch, but Rebecca opened her eyes, and started swallowing again. I watched as a trickle of blood travelled slowly from the corner of her mouth down her chin. Then she started sucking thirstily at my wrist, and I sighed in relief. She was going to be OK.