When Mavis was very young, sometimes she would get sick, and Dracula would have to give her a foul-tasting tonic for her throat.
He remembered that she would pull a face as she watched him measure it out into a spoon, clamp her mouth shut when he drew the spoon close with one hand held underneath to catch any spills. "It's alright," he'd say, "It tastes terrible but I promise, it'll help you." She'd keep her mouth stubbornly closed until he promised (twice) to let her have her favorite drink afterwards to wash the taste out. That would usually work, and no matter what other faces she'd make before dramatically swallowing, she still took the medicine. And then she'd get the reward he promised, a hug, and they wouldn't have to worry about it again for at least another twenty-four hours.
….this was nothing like that.
The girl leaned back against the pillows, blankets drawn to cover her mouth so only the upper half of her face was visible, and glared spectacularly at her audience. The empty cough syrup bottle lay on the floor, dripping into the carpet, the medicinal spoon sat on the bed, and one of Dracula's sleeves smelled like artificial cherry. He'd thought this would be an easy task, with how sickly and weak the girl had been just two minutes ago, but when he'd approached with the spoon it was like she gained a miraculous second wind.
He'd never seen a sick person swing their arms out so fast.
He heard a bit of stifled laughter behind him as he and the girl engaged in a bit of an angry staring contest. "Well, I'm glad you find this funny, Johnny," he said over his shoulder, not looking away from the girl.
"Sorry, I'm sorry!" the younger man laughed. Then: "You have to admit it's a little funny."
Dracula gave him a look that could melt steel.
"Do we have more cough syrup?" Ericka asked, frowning at the bottle.
"No. That was the last one," Mavis answered.
Dracula groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Fantastic…"
Johnny seemed unfazed. "Hey, no big deal," he said, shrugging with his palms up. "We just get some more and try again. Oh, yeah," he added when the girl turned her wide eyes towards him. "You're going to take medicine, kiddo. We can do it the easy way or the hard way."
The dark look she gave them all plainly said that if she had any say, it would have to be the hard way.
"Okay," Ericka muttered, going through the bottles of cough syrup and taking them out of the plastic bag. "They had bubblegum, cherry, grape-"
"Dude, word of advice: do not give her grape," Johnny interrupted. "That stuff is lethal."
"Okay-"
"In fact, you should just take it back to the store and get your money back. Nobody is taking grape flavor. I'd never even consider giving Dennis the grape."
"Okay, got it." Ericka reached into the bag one more time. "Strawberry milk, and honey-"
"Yes?"
"No, they had honey-flavored syrup." Ericka took out the last bottle, setting it with the others on the table. "Johnny, are you sure we had to get this many?"
"Oh, definitely. My brothers and I needed like five flavors in our house, and we all wanted something different. One time I had a bad flu, and we actually ran out of the bubblegum syrup, so Mom gave me the cherry one instead. It was vile. I'd never felt so betrayed…"
The other adults looked at each other. Then they looked back at Johnny. "Okay, so what do we do?" Ericka asked.
So far it seemed he was the 'expert' here. Dracula had always taken whatever tonics or herbs were offered to him, Mavis had never been trouble, and Ericka… growing up on a ship, her options had been so limited she had to take what there was as well. And if the girl wouldn't do that, then Johnny probably had some ideas on what they could try.
It was a little difficult to believe, but Dracula quickly reminded himself: he was a parent, too.
Johnny held up his hand and started counting on his fingers as he spoke, cool as a cucumber. "Okay, option one is giving it to her straight - cherry didn't work, we're not opening grape, so my vote would be for either bubblegum or honey. But then she might expect that. Option two is to mix it in a spoonful of chocolate syrup-"
Dracula snapped forward. "Absolutely not, we have good bedding here."
"Okay, fine. Cool. You can try strawberry sauce - ah, no, nevermind, that stain would look worse…" He saw Mavis gently pinwheel her hand. "Okay. You can give her sugar first to mask the taste, or…" He paused, and his nonchalant expression faltered a bit.
Mavis frowned. "Or?"
He sighed. "Or you can put it in a syringe and make her take it." He looked back up at everyone, expression grim. "I don't recommend that."
"Yeah…" Ericka muttered, shaking her head and running her hand over her face. "Yeah, nobody wants to do that…" They needed the child to trust them, and they couldn't do that if they gave her medicine that way. True, mixing it with something sweet felt a bit like they were tricking her, but it was a lot better than the alternative. "We'll try the honey syrup-"
"Bubblegum, Ericka," Johnny interrupted. "That's my vote."
"Okay. Okay, we'll try that." She paused. "You know what, maybe I should give it to her. I pulled her out of the lake, she might trust me more." She looked towards the hallway, in the direction of the girl's room. Everyone else followed suit. "I want her to trust us. Who knows what must have happened to her."
"Do you like cars?"
Silence.
"How about trains?"
Silence.
"Okay, how 'bout stickers? My friend likes stickers, she says all girls like stickers."
The girl held the blanket up over her mouth and continued to frown at the weird little boy the adults had brought in to guard her.
After the four adults had decided to leave, one of them - the dark-haired woman - had called the little boy over. She'd knelt down, whispered some words the girl couldn't hear, and then pointed into the room. He'd lit up, quickly running in and climbing onto the nearby chair to talk her ears off while the adults left and shut the door behind them.
Adults were too smart, the girl thought bitterly.
But it was weird; she expected her guard would be someone bigger. Or stronger-looking. Or maybe he'd have a sword or armor. But no, instead she was sitting with a little red-headed boy in sneakers while he held a coloring book on his lap and tried to offer her a crayon.
"What about coloring? I can stay in the lines now. You wanna try?"
The girl stared.
"You don't talk much, do you? I mean, Mom said your throat hurts, but you can still shake or nod."
The girl almost shook her head to say no, she did not want to do that, but caught herself just in time. No, she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. Instead, she looked away, staring at the door and waiting for it to open again.
Just what did they want with her? They must have known what she was. That was why they took her coat with them, the taller vampire putting it over his arm before he left. She'd escaped one place only to be held prisoner in a worse one.
She couldn't show fear though. She couldn't show she was afraid.
Because despite her glares and fierceness when they tried to give her poison earlier, she was.
"What you've got to watch out for is vampires, not me," her captor had said once. "They'd catch you, eat you alive, and use your bones to make new furniture. You're better off with me."
She shuddered, looking at the furniture in her room. How many people did it take to make a bureau?
The door softly clicked open, snapping both children to attention. The girl's eyes widened a bit when she saw the woman in white reenter, a bottle of warm gold liquid in her hand.
The boy spoke up immediately. "Hey, Nana Ericka!" he chirped, hopping off the chair. "I tried talking to her and sharing my stuff, but she doesn't want to do anything. I think she's shy."
"She's probably still feeling too sick, honey," the woman said, smiling a bit tiredly. She tousled the boy's already-messy hair as he walked up to her. "Thanks for trying, though, sweetie. I'll take it from here."
"Is that more medicine?" the boy asked.
The girl's spine tingled and the back of her neck felt cold. More poison…
"M-hm. I'll just give her a bit of this and it's bedtime. Now, go find your mom - she owes you a sucker." The woman - "Nana" was her name? - turned her attention back to the girl as the boy cheered and ran down the hall, her smile looking a bit more anxious. "Okay… I brought you something better, okay? This one's more mild and sweet."
The woman walked further into her room. The girl's eyes briefly darted to the open door still behind her. Already her mind was racing, even as it fought against the tiredness of her body. She hadn't heard the door lock when the adults left. All they did was bring a boy in to sit with her. No locks. The woman didn't even shut the door behind her.
Maybe she had a chance…
The bed dipped as the woman sat near her, uncapping the bottle and pouring it into the cap. A gentle sweet smell tickled the girl's nose.
She knew this smell… She liked this smell.
But it was a trick, she reminded herself. A trick.
"Okay," the woman said, holding the cap out. "Please, can you drink this? Just in one big gulp, hon?"
No, she didn't want to take it.
But if she was going to do this, she'd have no choice. The girl lowered the blankets and reached out with a pale, trembling hand - she told herself the trembling had nothing to do with her nerves. She took the little plastic cap, ignoring the look of relief on the woman's face. Then she put it to her mouth and tossed it back.
It tasted like honey, and a bit of something else. Something sharp, almost minty and a little burning. She puffed her cheeks out for a second, keeping her mouth tightly shut, and then relaxed them.
"There you go! That wasn't so bad, was it?"
The girl nodded, bringing the covers back over her face.
"Okay, I'll let you sleep now…" The woman slid off the bed, taking the bottle with her. She looked like she wanted to reach for the girl, but stopped just short of doing so. Her arms barely twitched in her direction. "Take as long a nap as you need, and then we'll get you fed, okay?"
The girl said nothing. She just sank back against the pillows and waited for the woman to leave.
Once the door shut with a soft click, she sat back up and spat the honey-flavored stuff onto the bedding.
"Do you think we should just wake her up and feed her now?"
Barely fifteen minutes had passed since Ericka had given the girl her cough syrup, and she was still a bit antsy. Dracula couldn't blame her, of course - he was anxious, too.
Mavis had gone back downstairs to man the desk, and Johnny had agreed to play with Dennis through his candy-induced sugar high. This left the both of them to look after the girl.
Dracula had wanted to stay in the room with her, but Ericka had vetoed the idea fast. "She was afraid of Mavis because she saw her fangs," she said. "I don't want her to wake up and find a vampire in her room."
She had a point, he thought. But he didn't like it.
In the present, he looked away from the book he was trying to read and over to Ericka. She was watching the clock, worry clouding her features. "I just," she said, "I really want her to get some food. You didn't see it, but she's so skinny… I can't stand not at least trying."
"She didn't want the medicine," he said, "she might not take food."
"But I got her to take the medicine," she pointed out. "I think I can get her to take something."
Dracula had to admit that was a fair point.
And he hadn't seen how thin she was, it was true, but… He had seen how weak she'd been earlier. How pale she was, how her eyes were sunken. How she held herself, how her limbs trembled with exhaustion when she slapped the cherry medicine away. It didn't paint a good picture for her health.
It would be good for her to sleep, but the faster she ate, the better…
He sighed, standing up and closing the book. "Yeah. How do we do this; you wake her up and I get food ready?"
"Sounds like a plan to me. Tell the kitchen to get plain oatmeal going. No milk. That's what I ate when I was sick," Ericka said as she stood and left the room.
"Plain?" he echoed, but to an empty room. When Mavis had been sick, she hadn't had her food plain. He'd make sure to add a little flavor to it, to perk up her appetite again. The girl shouldn't be eating plain, bland food, he thought. She should have eggs with a little bit of butter or salt, chicken broth with bits of meat in it, or at the very least sugar for her oatmeal.
Well, that just meant he'd have to sneak it in himself. Ericka got her to take medicine, he'd get her to take food.
But he didn't get to ring the kitchen at all.
Suddenly Ericka reappeared in the door, her eyes wide and her breathing heavy. Before Dracula could even ask what was wrong, she blurted it out, stumbling over her words in a panic.
"The girl- it's the girl - she's not in her bed, she's gone!"
