Though she tries to keep herself busy in the quiet moments between venom collection and Jane's inevitable visits to force her to eat, Forty's mind is an echo chamber. She constantly replays the vivid memories of the dying gurgles of each unfortunate animal she's forced to dispatch and the haunting grip of Thirty-Seven's hand on her neck.

Don't stop talking.

His voice visits her in her dreams more than she likes to admit. Many times her brain replays the second bite, though it quickly morphs into the first one. Otherwise, the blackness behind Forty's eyes is bathed in blood. It is everywhere, from the persistent friction burns on the inside of her mouth to the drip drop of it tumbling from some poor creature's neck. It is sanguine in her cup. Jane became avid in a mostly blood diet after the success of repeated venom collections.

Forty has filled eight cups this week, with two more left for today. She dreads Dr. Zapata's eventual arrival, the sour look on his face and the pallor marring his usual chipperness. Since the focused collection began, Forty finds herself using the walkie-talkie less and less. She isn't a huge fan of the constant burn in her throat and the soreness of her jaw, and even talking to Forty-Five is strenuous and often painful. Not only that, but Dr. Zapata seems to avoid the device like the plague. In the few times Forty reaches out to him, the line comes back silent. When he passes by her domicile Forty can pick up the faint stench of anxiety, something like burning paper and vinegar. His hair has grown out in the past month, and now a persistent beard dots his cheeks. He looks old, and worst of all, deeply unhappy.

What is perhaps the most bitter torture of this situation is that Forty, despite Forty-Five's encouragement, cannot find it in herself to fight back. Not only is she exhausted down to her very bones, but a smaller, more shameful part of her enjoys the attention. Sure, she despises having to kill a live animal and force down even the foulest of human blood, but the momentary spark of pleasure that courses through her when the monitors smile, pat her head, tell her that she's important and that she's saving lives seems to trump all the negatives. She's even found herself leaning into their touch, craving the warmth of their hands on her cheek, the ruffle of nails in her hair, a solid clap on the back. She struggles to remember a time where their hands terrified her. Now, all she thinks about is the individual ridges of their fingerprints settling on her, pulling the bird or rabbit from her mouth and pressing cold packs to her jaw. She doesn't think about their faces much, too focused on their arms, the beating of blood in their wrists. She's always seen them as higher beings, but now they worship the golden ichor flowing from her fangs, the hope for salvation in her body. An ugly, long dormant part of her revels in being a god.

Sometimes, especially when it is dark, her mind floats back to the curled fetuses in the tanks. She thinks of their blank eyes dead in the water, their long, clawed fingers curled against their undeveloped chests. It's fascinating to think that while these legions of semi-aquatic cell bundles float aimlessly in an egg-shaped womb, Forty had come from a person. Not just any person, but her mother. Forty tries to picture a mother, tries to remember the characteristics of moms in books, but ultimately her brain wanders to Jane. She supposes that if she were to call anyone her mother, it would be her, even though the woman would bemoan the idea. My real mother, she wonders, would she have liked me, or been disgusted? Would she look like Forty, have the same brown eyes and flimsy hair and long waistline? If she were still alive, would they be able to be mother and daughter. If her father was still alive, could they be a family?

Forty conjures up a picture of a blonde woman, just a few inches taller than she is now, her jaw square and eyes angry. She looks scary, Forty thinks, though there's also a warmth to her, something evolutionarily appealing about the set of her hips, the opening of her arms, the happiness hidden in those hard eyes. Forty tries to summon up the image of a father next to her mother, and to her embarrassment he ends up looking a lot like Dr. Zapata. He would have kind eyes, big hands for reaching out and patting Forty on the head, a perpetual gut that made hugs feel better. He would look nicer than her mother, even though they loved her the same. Even stranger, their love would be unconditional, a deep attachment to Forty despite her flaws.

Warmth races down Forty's cheeks where she lies in her bed, staring up at the twilight ceiling. She reaches a hand up to catch it, surprised to see her finger come back red. I'm crying, she thinks, not fully registering it in her brain. It takes a good minute for the rush of feelings to follow after. I had a mom and a dad, a whimpering voice says to her, not entirely her own. I never even got to know them.

This is the cruelest thing of all, Forty realizes. To know that there was once people that would praise Forty even if she didn't give her body and mind away. She will never know the sounds of their voices or the slant of their smiles. She'll never see how they speak to one another, if they broke the sacred rule of specimens and always had a hand on each other. She wouldn't know the way her mom walked or the way her dad breathed, if they really would have loved her for all that she was. The only two people that could truly understand her, gone before she was awake enough to know them.

"Forty," a tired voice mumbles, barely rising enough to penetrate the separating wall. "You okay? It smells."

Forty swallows down a lump in her throat that threatens to come out as a sob. "There's a lot of things I don't know," she tells Forty-Five, trying to fight the rapid beating of her heart.

Silence follows, and Forty thinks the other must have fallen asleep. She scrubs at her eyes, desperately trying to stop the flow of blood. However, it seems that now the dam has been broken, it must empty. Forty is nothing but the damaged foundations. She turns over on her side, and just as she does, Forty-Five's voice hovers above the humidity of her panic.

"It's okay to not know things," she says, voice still groggy. "It leaves room to learn something different, maybe something better."

Forty's breath stills, and she forces herself to swallow the ball of emotion that threatens to eject itself from her throat. This time, though, it's not made of grief, but of love, an appreciation of the family she does have. As Forty-Five's snores start bouncing off the walls again, Forty's image of her mom and dad grow to include one more figure, the willowy one of Forty-Five. She looks nothing like them, of course, but she holds the same smile, the same lively glint in her eye, the same open arms and heart. " Forty-Five does not have to be born of the same flesh as her to be her sister. With her in the little scene with Forty's parents, their image doesn't bring as much sadness. It feels more whole to have someone from the land of the living by their side.

Her mind eventually wanders, like it always does, to Thirty-Seven. His turn in her mind is inevitable. She thinks of his hand on her jaw, the press of his fingers into her vertebra, the way his skin ghosted up the back of her neck before finding the gap. If Forty was supposed to despise monitors touching her, she's absolutely supposed to loathe the thought of Thirty-Seven's skin against her own. She must really be broken, because thinking of her cheek against his shoulder just elicits the rapid beat of her heart and a nuclear warmth on her face.

He liked it, too.

She thinks of the gentleness of his hand, even as he pressed her head back to his shoulder. She tries to picture his fingers, if his claws were still extended or if he was content. Forty can feel his breath disturbing her hair, can hear the pump of his veins and arteries through the softness of his skin. In that very moment, despite the violence that led up to it, Forty had felt safe. It felt nice to be wanted in a way that wasn't conditional. Thirty-Seven held her close not because she had the venom his body craved, but because in this cold, unforgiving compound she was a spot of sunlight through the overcast of gray.

If there is someone who can understand even a fraction of everything she feels, surely it is Thirty-Seven. Forty doesn't believe in fate, nor does she subscribe to any religion, but it's strangely divine to fall into this unending push and pull with him. It's not courting, Forty is sure of that. It's something calm and natural, like a guarantee that just as they clash violently, they will cling back together with as much vigor.

I hate him, Forty thinks, working her jaw and trying to test the words in her mouth. She really should. He attacked her, tried to gut her, and is just a generally unpleasant person to be around, but she knows pretending to ignore the magnetic force between them will just make things worse. Perhaps in the same world where her parents are alive, they would have been friends. Him and Forty-Five would have gotten along, and the girl would tease him until his face turned red as blood. His anger and roughness is about as ingrained as the notches in his bones, but he would not be so upset all the time. He would like to hug Forty hopes, because the space between his arms is very comfortable.

Where guilt had previously infected her relationship with him, it simmers away for a new feeling, one that's tentative but wild. Despite her self-hatred, despite her deviation from the norm, despite all the pain she's endured, this one little match in the dark seems to light her path. On it, Thirty-Seven is by her side.

☠☠☠

What Forty wants and what the monitors have planned will always be two separate things, and right now Forty wants to lay in her domicile and listen to Forty-Five chatter about some rude Chupa woman who growled at her 'for no reason, like I was fifty feet away from her' the other day. Forty instead finds herself sitting in testing room D, facing Dr. Daas who scribbles furiously at a clipboard.

That morning Jane came by with deer blood. That should have been Forty's first warning, as Jane rarely gives her animal blood nowadays. Furthermore, Jane was quiet, her usual barbs tucked away. When she left Forty's domicile after breakfast she paused and looked back at her, eyebrows creased. "I hope your day is good," she said, then disappeared quickly. A half-hour later, about fifteen minutes after Forty-Five had launched into her story, Dr. Zapata came by her domicile, his face grave. That told Forty that Jane's hopes would be crushed, and that today would be a very bad day indeed.

She didn't let Forty-Five finish her sentence before saying, "Venom?" Dr. Zapata nodded, reaching a hand out to help Forty up. She ignored it, rising easily from the grass. She should have known it would be today after they skipped the scheduled time a few days ago.

Now, Dr. Zapata leads her down the hallway with his usual begrieved expression, or at least it had become standard since that night in the ID-locked lab. She wonders if maybe this is bothering him more than her. The thought makes her livid.

Dr. Daas is already waiting for them when they get to Room D, balancing her clipboard on her folded knees. She too, in these last weeks, has begun looking older, or perhaps more tired. Forty guesses the original excitement of her discovery has fizzled out, replaced by a monotonous, gruesome task for all three of them. Dr. Daas takes her vitals, something that has never happened before venom collection.

"No change, even with the routine collections," she says, tipping her head at Dr. Zapata. He nods, gaze flicking from Forty to the clipboard. "Everything should go smoothly today."

Forty looks up quickly at her, trying to discreetly peer over her knees to the space where she writes. She wants to ask Dr. Zapata what she means, but a look over at the man who's gone ashen in the face tells her she is in no situation for questions. Dr. Daas jots down some last minute notes before sliding the clipboard across her desk, folding her hands on her lap.

"Forty," she begins, her voice colored with fabricated sympathy. "We have been asked to conduct a surgery today."

Forty's blood runs cold, the deer's blood spoiling in her stomach. She's had surgery maybe a handful of times, each one for a health issue common for humans. There was her appendix, then that one time she broke her wrist, and the time they had to sew the tip of her ear back on when another specimen bit it off. Each time was unpleasant, both because of the cause and the discomfort of being prepared for surgery. Her senses are already incredibly dulled compared to most specimens, but something about waking up from anesthesia seems to make them almost useless. With the ear incident, her vision had been hazy for days, especially at night when it was usually sharper.

"Surgery?" she questions, trying to sound uninterested.

"It's better if you don't know," Dr. Zapata warns, bowing his head. He refuses to look at Forty's face.

Forty is immediately angered by him. "Tell me anyways," she demands, and he looks desperately at Dr. Daas.

"You understand that you have no choice in getting the surgery, yes?" Dr. Daas sighs, adjusting her glasses. Forty nods quickly. After all, when has she ever had a choice?

"I still want to know," she asserts, meeting Dr. Daas' tired eyes.

"We're going to do a minimally invasive autopsy of your venom sacs." She turns her clipboard around, tipping the front page up to show Forty's cranial x-ray. The two dark blotches where her venom sits make her shiver. A feeling like she needs to sneeze crawls up her nose. "And maybe, just maybe, see if there's another option to collect the venom."

"How would that happen?" Forty asks, mesmerized by the photos.

"Perhaps placing a tube. Of course, you would have a tube sticking out of your face, but you wouldn't have to bite live bait anymore."

"And if you can't place the tube?"

"Then, unfortunately, we will have to look for another option. I didn't tell you previously, but your venom in the last few collections has been... unsatisfactory. I and a few other doctors believe your brain is subconsciously recognizing the bait chickens as already dead, and it's affecting the quality of your venom."

Forty's stomach twists at the thought of two clear tubes sticking out of her face, but she feels even more nauseous at the possible implications of her prey if the bait chickens no longer work. "What would the other option be?"

"Well," Dr. Daas says, turning the clipboard around, "it would probably be Thirty-Seven. You can't kill him with a bite like the chickens, and it's not like he doesn't benefit from the venom."

"But... to bite him that much?"

"That is not my concern. It's Dr. Zapata's and Dr. Jansky's. My concern is the venom collection. Your concern is giving it to me." Her face hardens, and she sets the clipboard aside with a clatter. Standing up from her chair, she lopes over to the desk where a metal tray sits, a clear syringe resting atop it. When she brings it closer, Forty recognizes the sweet smell.

"But–"

"No, Forty! No more questions!" Dr. Daas berates sternly, yanking Forty's wrist to bring her arm out straight. Forty is too stunned by her harsh tone to fight back, and she stares dumbly as the needle enters her arm. Immediately, the cold feeling of the sedative makes her nauseous. She chases the dots of darkness at the edge of her vision, and as she sags she feels Dr. Daas' hand pressed tightly against her shoulder.

"You used to be so good," she says, but her disappointment is far away and echoing. "Used to do what I asked without complaining." Forty can see three of her swimming over her head, but when she focuses on her face, her eyes look misty through her glasses. "Forty," she says, and it comes out watery. "I'm sorry." Forty isn't sure if this is something she has hallucinated.

Forty feels Dr. Zapata's large hands at her back and thighs as he lifts her to his chest, bringing her over to the cot in the middle of the room. Forty's blood feels like cotton in her body, like everything making her alive is still and asleep. She faintly feels the cold sting of antiseptic air on her hand before a sharp pain crackles at the edge of her body. Cool liquid flows into her veins, and momentarily Forty is terrified at the sensation. Then, Forty doesn't feel anything at all.

☠☠☠

Laying in bed and lost in thought, she almost doesn't hear Dr. Zapata open the door. It isn't until his dragging footsteps near her head that she takes stock of him, and when she does she immediately regrets it. He looks like he's just killed someone, more like a gaunt ghost than a man. Forty's heart stills in her chest, because she knows why he's here.

The infections started small. First, Forty had an allergic reaction to the surgical tape used to keep the tubes steady. When she woke up strapped down to the hospital cot in the recovery room by the infirmary, all she could register was a burning itch on her face. She couldn't see where it was, nor could she pinpoint the exact location of the itch, but she knew it was all-consuming and had to do with the new holes put in her face. She struggled against the ties holding her to the bed, nearly ripping her IV out as she thrashed in an effort to rip the straps from the sides. Eventually her limbs gave out, her head slowly losing connection to her body as the nausea and loopiness of anesthesia clouded her vision. All she could do was scream, hoping for someone to come running into the room and do something about the fire on her face.

A few minutes later, just as her voice began going hoarse, the curly haired attendant she'd seen before comes racing into the room, her eyes wild and hand latched to her hip. Forty later realized that she probably had a gun and expected Forty to have escaped. Instead, she found her crying and letting out animal noises of pain while shaking with the effort to wrestle herself off the cot.

"Forty?" she called, dropping her hand.

"It burns! It burns!" Forty screeched, and finally the strap gave and her hand raced to her face, clawing at the tubes on either side of her nose.

The woman practically pounced on her to wrestle her arms back, then she yelled to the open door for more help. A few other monitors piled in, working to get Forty back under the strap and the tubes retaped to her face. The curly haired woman rubbed something on the spots after they sedated her, and blissfully a cool balm quenched the fire.

A few days later, Forty was back in her domicile. She spent the majority of the first day staring into the mirrored door, trying to make sense of her own face. She'd always seen herself in a detached, clinical way. She knew she had brown eyes, blonde hair, and a square jaw. She knew her eyebrows were two different shapes, and she knew her mouth never made the expressions she intended it to make. However, the addition of the tubes made her think of her face differently. An incredible sadness filled her chest as she reached up to touch the clear port next to her nose. They couldn't have been larger than a dime, but they were very visible in the space between her nostrils, lips, and cheeks. The skin around them was red and raw, a little flaky, and when she touched it an itch started up around the port. If she smiled or bared her teeth, the tubes would tug painfully near her gums, and her eyes would start watering. She sneezed, then almost puked when the sensation of the tubes grating against her inner flesh made her stomach turn.

"It's not all that bad," Forty-Five told her the first time Forty had enough courage to walk by the sound space. The woman's secondary teeth were showing again, though they were small and didn't impede her speech.

"I look like someone shot me in the face twice," Forty gritted out, a little annoyed at Forty-Five's attempt to placate her.

"That's kinda badass though, isn't it?"

Forty spat into the grass, the loogie a bright pink. If she didn't like the taste of person blood before, she really hated it now. It was all she could taste lately.

The surgical tape left long, raised patches of red on her cheeks, and soon it was ditched in favor of glue. This wasn't much better, but at least the itching momentarily subsided. Around that time, Dr. Daas performed the first venom collection from the tubes. Forty had been sneezing like crazy for the last three days, and she couldn't breathe properly as it felt like cotton was stuffed up her nose. "It's the venom pooling," Dr. Daas said, then called for Dr. Zapata to help her collect.

When she uncapped the ports, Forty doubled over and vomited onto her lap. It felt like all the liquid in her head was draining, including her blood, and a cold sensation traveled up her spine. The venom and vomit stained Dr. Daas' lab coat for a few days, but the woman was more angry at the fact that all of the venom ended up on her instead of in the cup.

Not long after, the real infection started. It began as an ache in Forty's nose, then it traveled down to her teeth. It had gotten to where she couldn't eat without crying, and even Jane was so moved by her pitiful state that she alerted Dr. Zapata right away. He determined that she had a sinus infection that was in danger of traveling to her brain and teeth, so regretfully he and Dr. Daas performed the surgery again. This time it was to remove the tubes. Forty had them in for a grand total of two weeks, and from all the pain only a stained lab coat came out of it.

Forty looked in the mirror again the day after she was put back in her domicile. Where the ports were, only two small divots remained, and a row of stitches raised up either side of her smile lines. "Feeling better?" Forty-Five asked when Forty sprawled out by the sound space, trying to roast her face in the sun.

"What do you think?" she replied, snappier than she meant to. Forty-Five scoffed at her, though she didn't give a retort. Instead, she curled up in a mirror image of Forty, and the girl could feel those green eyes on her face again like in those first months.

Now where the stitches were all that remains is two raised pink scars. They aren't as keloided as Chupa scarring tends to be, but they stick out from Forty's pale face like a beacon. She'd never thought of herself as pretty or ugly, never had a use for human descriptions like that, but she avoids the mirror now. The marks on her face are a reminder of her failure, a sinister brand that whispers to her about her next task.

That brings her back to Dr. Zapata. "He's strapped down in Testing Room A," he says, reaching a hand out for Forty to take. She doesn't grab it, just clenches her arms tighter around herself. "I tried to dismiss it, but even Dr. Taft came down to personally assure this happens."

"I don't want to," Forty whispers, her voice shaking. She tries not to think of claws in her shoulders, of a gentle hand on her neck. She shuts her eyes against the images of a pink scar on a neck and wispy black eyelashes.

"I know, I'm sorry." He reaches underneath her and hauls her to his chest. She stiffens in the hold, repulsed by his touch. The part of her that wants to reach up and rake her claws down his head manifests as a locklimbed shake in his grip, a rage and sadness so palpable it paralyzes her. On the other side of the wall, Forty-Five sneezes. You're not sorry enough to stop this, Forty thinks.

They pass three of the LED panels before Dr. Zapata opens a door, setting Forty down on the ground only after it locks with a click behind them. There isn't anyone else in the room with them, and most of the lights are shut off besides the one near a curtain in the corner. Forty hears faint breathing, smells Thirty-Seven's natural scent mixed with the sweetness of a sedative. Faintly, the overhead light illuminates his figure behind the curtain. Dr. Zapata drags a chair over to sit diagonally from the hospital cot, his face grave and eyes drooping.

"They won't let either of you out unless you bite him. I'll give you some time, but tell me when you're ready. I'll get the cup." He leans back, the metal bracing of the chair groaning.

It takes Forty a few minutes to work herself up enough to go near the concealed cot. He's not asleep, she knows that by the sound of the bonds and sheets shifting, but he's woozy enough that all the fight has bled from his body. She's scared of what she'll find if she truly sees him. Is he okay? Surely his condition has improved since the last bite, but did he get hurt on his way here? Would his eyes be open, and what emotion would they reflect? Would he speak to her again, break the ties and lay a hand on the back of her head and press her into him?

"I don't want to," Forty says again, struggling to shuffle forward to peer behind the curtain. Dr. Zapata doesn't reply. Like always, her plea has fallen on deaf ears.

She finally rounds the space where the curtain parts, revealing Thirty-Seven held down against the cot with the industrial straps, his mouth slightly parted and slitted eyes dancing around the room wildly. His breathing comes out wheezy, his toes and fingers twitching every few seconds as if remembering they are attached to him. She walks quietly to his side, stops at the guardrail near his head. His twitching stops as his nostrils flare, then his head slowly turns on the pillow to face her. His eyes are unseeing.

"You..." he mumbles, the hand closest to Forty reaching in her direction. "...'re not talking."

Warmth races down Forty's cheeks, pattering near his chin and staining the pillow like wine. "I'm sorry," she whispers, looking down at her feet. He blinks dumbly at her, then his eyebrows furrow. You're not sorry enough to stop this.

"Bite?" he says, a little high pitched. Forty nods minutely. She reaches a hand out to cup his cheek, slowly turning his head back around to look away from her. His skin is damp and feverish under her touch. The muscles along his jaw jump when she rests her fingers there, his pulse quick under her flesh.

She pulls the collar of his shirt away, exposing the flushed skin underneath. She can't see the other scar from here, though other pockmarks litter the space from old tiffs. He has a mole on his collarbone. "I'm ready," she says, half-hoping Dr. Zapata won't hear. Unfortunately, the chair squeaks as he gets up, pulling the pack of sample cups from his pocket. He opens the package and unscrews the cap of the top one, his eyes shifty and unfocused.

As Forty leans her head near his neck, Thirty-Seven twitches, his arm reaching out and brushing against her stomach. He turns his head and her nose brushes against his jaw, the proximity entirely too warm. She makes the mistake of looking up and finds Thirty-Seven's eyes shut tightly, sanguine tears beading at the corners. "I don't want it," he grunts, grabbing the corner of her shirt.

Forty's hand shakes and she grasps the center of his scrub top, clenching it tightly in her fist. Dr. Zapata's hand falls to her neck and she feels her fangs shoot out, so quickly that she pierces through her lip. She shakes in an effort to hold back her sob, forehead pressed against Thirty-Seven's cheek. "I don't want it either," she gasps, then slots her fangs against his neck and bites down.

The effect is instantaneous. Warm blood and the bitter aftertaste of venom flood her mouth. She coughs and gurgles as it hits the back of her throat, and Thirty-Seven cries out and thrashes his head from side to side. All Forty can see is red. There's the tears in her eyes, the ones flowing down his cheek, the cherry flush of his skin, the blood leaking from his neck. Everything is impossibly red, an inescapable violence, and Forty's caught in the tidal wave of it until Dr. Zapata yanks her head back, making her fangs pierce the thin top of the sample cup. He brings her hand up to hold it, then lets her stumble backwards as he hurries over to the cabinet in the corner and fetches gauze and bandages. Forty registers the tearing of fabric and sees Thirty-Seven's hand race up to his neck, clenching tightly around the puncture wounds. Blood seeps between his fingers.

"Ah'n s'rreh," Forty gargles out, jaw stuck around the sample cup. Thirty-Seven just glares at her, angry tears in his eyes. His silence is even more damning than his usual curses, the resolution in his body and the pain in his mouth making guilt niggle at Forty's stomach.

Eventually the venom stops flowing, and Forty stows the cup far away from her on the table. She sits on the floor, back curved and shoulders drooped, trying to avoid Thirty-Seven's eyes. She can hear the whoosh of him making a weak attempt to scratch Dr. Zapata as the man twines the gauze and bandage around his neck. When the ripping of fabric stops, Forty looks up to find Thirty-Seven staring at her, or rather staring through her. She shrinks under his dark eyes, for once truly feeling like prey about to be devoured.

"You hurt me," he says, messing with the bandage. "You said it wouldn't happen again."

Forty scrubs viciously at the nagging tears near her eyes. She turns away from him, tucking her knees against her chest. Time seems to slow in the safe curls of her arms, both light and sound distant memories where the warmth of her own heat and the briskness of her own breath is all that exists. "You said it wouldn't happen!" Thirty-Seven yells again, this time more angry and tear strained.

Forty shakes her head against the floor, tries to press her cheek into the cold tile and melt through it. She wants to be the stale air in the room, something intangible and unable to cause harm. She wishes she could tuck Thirty-Seven's face in her neck, let him bleed her dry. I never promised, she thinks. This is no place for a promise.