Chapter 7 : Blood and Steel
The alarm screamed at 4:45 AM.
I killed it before the second beep, already swinging my legs over the side of the bed. The trailer was silent—Vicki wouldn't surface for hours, and the ghosts of absent parents didn't make noise.
The cooler under my bed held my blood bag, still cold, the ice packs doing their job. I grabbed it along with the metal mixing bowl I'd liberated from the kitchen and headed for the truck.
The Lockwood ruins were empty at this hour. The sky was still dark, stars fading at the edges as dawn crept closer. I parked in my usual spot, hidden by rhododendrons, and carried my supplies into the clearing.
The bowl went on a flat rock. The blood bag followed.
I'd been thinking about this since yesterday's discovery. Using my own blood caused fatigue because I was draining my body. But external blood—blood already outside a living system—shouldn't have the same cost. The power responded to blood itself, not specifically to my blood while it was inside me.
Time to test the theory.
I opened the bag and poured carefully. Dark red liquid pooled in the bowl, catching the first gray light of dawn. About 300 milliliters—I'd use half, save half for future tests.
Move.
The blood responded immediately.
Not the sluggish, reluctant movement I'd gotten from fresh cuts. This was smooth, eager, like it had been waiting for permission. A tendril rose from the bowl and coiled in the air, responsive to my slightest thought.
I shaped it into a sphere. Perfect. No wobbling.
A disk. Clean edges.
A blade.
The blade held. I pushed harder, imagining steel, imagining the molecular structure compacting, hardening, becoming something that could cut.
The blood darkened. The surface went glossy. It looked like a knife forged from frozen wine.
I guided it toward a sapling at the edge of the clearing. Thin trunk, maybe two inches across. The blade swept through in a single motion.
The sapling fell.
The cut was clean. Not the ragged tear of my earlier attempts, but a smooth slice that could have come from a machete. I examined the stump, running my finger across the surface.
First weapon success.
The blade dissolved back into liquid form, returning to the bowl. I hadn't felt any fatigue. No dizziness, no weakness, no swimming vision. External blood required concentration, not physical cost.
This changes everything.
I practiced for another hour. Spheres, spikes, shields, blades. The blood responded to every command, shaping and reshaping without resistance. I learned its limits—complex shapes required more focus, maintaining multiple constructs divided my attention, and distance mattered. Ten meters seemed to be the edge of reliable control; beyond that, the blood grew sluggish.
By the time the sun crested the hills, I'd cut through three more saplings, punched holes in a rotten log, and created a rough approximation of a shield that could probably stop a knife thrust.
The bowl held maybe 150 milliliters now. I'd used half my supply, but the results were worth it.
Then I made a mistake.
A construct went wrong—spike instead of disk, my concentration slipping—and the blood splashed back toward me. Instinct made me throw up my hands. The spray hit my knuckles, and I scraped them against the rough bark of a nearby tree trying to catch my balance.
Skin tore. Blood welled up.
Damn it.
I looked at my knuckles. Three scrapes, shallow but bleeding freely. Amateur hour.
Without thinking, I touched the bloody residue still coating my fingers to the wounds.
The scrapes closed.
I watched it happen. Skin knitting together, the red fading to pink, the pain disappearing like someone had flipped a switch. Five seconds, maybe less, and my knuckles were smooth and whole.
My blood heals.
I sat down hard on the fallen log. The bowl of blood gleamed in the morning light. My hands—both of them—were unmarked.
This wasn't normal healing. This wasn't the accelerated recovery I'd noticed over the past few days. This was something else. Something that echoed through every vampire story I'd ever watched or read.
Vampire blood healed humans. It was one of the core mechanics of the TVD universe—feed someone vampire blood, and their wounds closed, their bones mended, their bodies restored.
My blood did the same thing.
What am I?
The question had been gnawing at me since I'd woken up in this body. Blood manipulation wasn't a power Matt Donovan possessed in canon. Healing wasn't something he could do. Whatever had brought me here had changed the rules, added abilities that didn't exist in the original story.
Was I part vampire? Some kind of hybrid? A mutation?
No answers. Just the bowl of blood, the healed skin, and the growing certainty that I was something new in this universe.
File it away. Test later.
The sun was fully up now, painting the ruins in shades of gold and orange. I watched the light shift across the old stones, the way it caught the dew on the grass, the slow burn of morning claiming the sky.
My previous life had never had mornings like this. Cubicle walls, fluorescent lights, the blue glow of monitors. I'd worked through hundreds of sunrises without seeing a single one.
Here, now, sitting on a log in the Virginia hills with supernatural blood in a bowl beside me, I let myself appreciate the beauty of it.
Small moment. Human moment.
Then I packed up.
The remaining blood went back in the bag, sealed carefully. The bowl got rinsed with water from a bottle I'd brought. Evidence eliminated, supplies secured.
I checked my phone. 6:47 AM. Late for Tyler's training.
Three texts waited: You coming? followed by Donovan wtf followed by Fine skip day loser.
I typed back: Overslept. Tomorrow. Promise.
Tyler's response was a middle finger emoji. Fair enough.
The drive home gave me time to think. Healing blood. Combat-ready constructs. External control without physical cost. I was building an arsenal, piece by piece, day by day.
But I was also building a target.
Vampires craved blood. Werewolves feared it. Witches used it for magic. In this world, blood was power, and I could manipulate it like a puppet on strings.
If anyone found out—if Damon Salvatore or Katherine Pierce or any of the threats that were coming discovered what I could do—I'd become the most valuable human in Mystic Falls.
Or the most dangerous.
Vervain first. Protection before exposure.
The library opened at nine.
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