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Eddie wakes up confused.
The room he’s in looks different than the last one he remembers and it takes a moment for him to remember the needle that pierced the skin of his neck, that pulled him down into unconsciousness. Jolting into a sitting position, he groans and promptly lowers himself back down. It feels like his brain is trying to break free of his skull with how much his head pounds at the movement.
“Oh, you’re awake,” a voice says to his left and Eddie rolls his head just enough to see a different girl than before sitting in an armchair several feet away. “That was fast.”
“Who the fuck are you?” he mumbles, because it’s the only question on looping in his aching mind that he thinks will actually get an answer.
“I’m Max,” the girl answers. “Who the fuck are you?”
Any other time, Eddie thinks he might have rolled his eyes at her mocking response, but between his headache and his confusion, he opts for playing along instead. “Eddie.”
“I’d say that it’s nice to meet you, but I don’t think it’s a shared sentiment,” Max points out with a sarcastic smirk. She’s not wrong.
Groaning both in annoyance and in pain, Eddie tries a second time to sit up. He moves slower this time, letting his head adjust to the change in position a little bit at a time. Max doesn’t move a finger to help him, instead opting to watch him from her armchair.
Eventually though, Eddie makes it up, and if he closes his eyes the room doesn’t look like it’s spinning so much. “What the fuck did that guy drug me with?” he mumbles mostly to himself but there’s a laugh from across the room.
“I’d tell you, but then I’d be forced to kill you.”
Eddie rolls his eyes. And then immediately regrets it, slamming them shut again. “Smartass. What are you in here for anyway? Don’t think I’m in any condition to escape or whatever. Am I actually being held hostage?”
This time it’s Max’s turn to roll her eyes. “Of course you are, dumbass. Steve didn’t knock you out just to make it entertaining to watch you try to walk out the door.”
And really, even if Eddie was in peak condition he would’ve had enough of this girl’s mouth already, never mind with a splitting headache. Part of him kind of wishes the other two kids were back. Even if they weren’t textbook definition nice to him, they were at least better than the firecracker he’s stuck with now. The guy that jabbed him with the needle was also better, so really the bar is underground.
Breathing heavily through his nose and biting back a rush of nausea, Eddie forces himself to look around the room and what he finds is honestly kind of lackluster. Beyond the bed that he’s sitting on and the chair Max is in, the room looks pretty bare. He would probably compare it to a prison cell if he didn’t have company, and that’s not exactly a comforting thought. It just leaves him with more questions.
Though he feels like he’s probably not getting any answers from Max, Eddie still takes time to try to figure out what question he wants to ask first. The thought screeches to an abrupt halt as his whole body lurches and his eyes snap towards the door of the room. From her chair, Max grins at him. “About fucking time,” she gripes as she walks to open it.
The girl from before, Eddie struggles to remember that her name is El, stands on the other side of the door, silver tray held in her hands. He can’t make out what’s on the tray from where he is, heading still spinning and nausea still reeling, but whatever it is has his unwavering attention.
“Have you explained it to him yet?” El asks Max as she hands over the tray.
“I will in a second” Max assures her and though the words don’t sound sincere to Eddie’s ringing ears, they’re apparently good enough for El as she nods and closes the door after her again.
Eddie’s eyes never leave the tray as Max crosses the room to him. “What is that?” he asks, hand already reaching out towards it without him giving it a single thought.
Max laughs and moves back a few paces. “Not yet,” she tells him. “After I explain things to you, or Steve will get all pissy again.”
“Then explain.” The words come out in a growl that Eddie barely recognizes as himself. His body moves towards Max of its own accord, paying no heed to the way he still feels so weak and sick. “Now.”
Max continues dancing backwards, always just out of reach, until Eddie feels something stopping him from going forward again. In his haze, he’d missed the thick metal collar clamped around his neck, but now he follows its chain to an anchor in the wall. “What the fuck?”
“Safety precaution. For both of us,” Max deadpans. “Now are you going to be still long enough for me to talk or do you wanna see if you’re strong enough to break that?”
Eddie growls again, the sound pulling from somewhere deep in his chest, but he retreats to sit on the edge of the bed again. It feels like the hardest thing he’s ever done. “Explain,” he orders for a second time, eyes still locked on the tray and not Max.
She sighs, as if bored, and lifts the shiny silver cup nestled in the middle of the tray, sloshing whatever’s in it around the edges. “How much do you know about vampires?”