The next day since they discovered a fridge full of human bones, Caroline and Jason went to visit Aimee and Thomas, with two thermal bottles of soup and one whole matcha cake, who were both staying at Aimee’s place because Aimee’s injuries were more serious and Thomas was taking care of her while they were on leave.

“Hey. Caroline, Jason, thanks for coming.” Thomas opened the door, wearing a shirt with a cartoon shiba inu on it, “How are you?”

“Yeah. We found a fridge full of human bones yesterday. It was morbid as fuck.” Caroline rolled her eyes and came inside: “How’s Aimee?”

“Been eating raw garlic every day for a whole week.” Aimee rolled out on a wheelchair from inside the room: “But if I turned, I’d be the most pathetic blood sucker ever. Can you imagine catching anyone on this thing? I may have to resort to coked-out losers on the street.”

“As pathetic as the hundred year old something with a taste for teenagers?” Jason showed her the two thermal bottles in his hands: “This is not the same old rib soup, I promise. It’s apparently some sort of light broth made from herbs and bones. Boss made it especially for the purpose of clearing one’s mind and healing one’s wounds.”

“Tell your Boss I said hi. When I get out of this thing I will say it to him myself.” Aimee smiled and showed Jason where to put the bottles: “Just to check, ther ‘herbs’ are medicinal and not illegal right?”

“Yeah of course. ” Jason looked at Aimee with a confused look: “Why’d you ask?”

“It’s just that the other day some childhood friends swung by with some herbal muffins.” Thomas came by and showed Caroline the sofa: “And those herbs they used - yikes, barely legal even in California.”

“And I am apparently allergic to some of them.” Aimee chuckled: “Which made me sick to my stomach. I mean, imagine the worst food poisoning while being stuck in a wheelchair.”

“Is sage one of those herbs?” Jason asked, “Or does it interact badly with the raw garlic?”

Aimee laughed: “No. It’s just some really hipster stuff that happened to have some borderline psychedelic effects. They were very thoughtful. Just not the brightest people on earth.”

“And what else brought you here?” Thomas said down beside Aimee and asked: “Not that we don’t like having you guys here. It’s just that you sounded concerned on the phone.”

“Okay.” Caroline exchanged looks with Jason and then asked: “We’re here to ask you, Aimee, how are you feeling?”

“Pretty gross, actually.” Aimee shook her head: “But yeah, all this time, no growing fear of sunlight, raw garlic’s disgusting but doesn’t hurt me, and my strength is still the same. Oh, and I’m not hungering for blood.”

“That’s good.” Jason made a “yikes” expression: “It’s been a while, so I think you are safe.”

“Good, good, good to hear.” Thomas patted Aimee on the shoulder: “So the next thing is that you need to get back on your feet and join the force again.”

“And what? Are they gonna give us silver bullets?” Aimee sighed: “Those people - they just killed Officer Singh and Officer Lee like it was nothing. And the guy said he wanted a snack before he bit me, not to mention the last guy… how can we deal with that? There aren’t even enough normal bullets for the force.”

“Yeah, but… we’ll find a way.” Thomas sighed as well.

“Anything interesting going on?” feeling that Aimee and Thomas’s emotions were a bit down, Caroline asked: “You know, interesting cases at the station? You know, watched any fun movies?”

“Well, movies are not my thing. And I just spent my time learning about past cases and sometimes detective stories.” Aimee shrugged: “You’d be surprised how many cases go unsolved in the bay.”

“And if you wanna know about cases, I recently heard of a pretty disturbing one.” Thomas went to the kitchen to take out a beer from the fridge, then returned to where he was sitting: “There have been some cultish brutal murders that happened in the past few months, and some of the victim bodies have gone missing from all kinds of precincts...”

“Thomas! We’re not supposed to discuss that!” Aimee hit Thomas on the shoulder.

“Ouch! Easy there! ” Thomas flinched and started rubbing his shoulder: “That’s not a secret anymore! Someone already blabbed about it to a reporter. It might have been put on the internet already.”

“Well, yeah, but it is still undisclosed information, you can’t just lay it out in the open like that...”

“I promise we’ll keep our mouths shut.” Caroline immediately asked: “But what’s with the brutal cultish murder?”

Aimee sighed heavily, then answered: “Okay, we’re not supposed to tell you this. But like my idiot brother said, starting from around three months ago, a string of very gruesome murders have been popping up all over the bay area. And from the scenes and the murder MO, we believe they were all connected to some local cult. And our primary suspect group is a gang called Los Diablos. We were sort of involved in the investigation, but we’ve been out of the loop ever since… this.”

Caroline and Jason looked at each other, then Caroline said: “That sounds… terrible. ”

“Well, no worries. Some of our best folks are on it. Last I heard they have got some very promising leads.” Thomas took a sip from his bear.

“Hey guys...” Aimee looked Caroline and Jason in the eyes, seeming like she was about to ask something: “Do you know… do you think… that since vampires exist, and super power exists, that we could actually have some sort of power, but we just don’t know it yet?”

Thomas looked at Aimee with a surprised expression, and then turned to Caroline and Jason: “You know, she didn’t mean anything for reals … It’s just a theory of ours.”

“Hmm, what makes you say that?” Jason asked with his eyes narrowed: “Are you feeling different?”

“No… no! Of course not!” Thomas laughed slightly nervously: “It’s just… we’re wondering… I mean we hope - we can have some super powers to deal with situations like that, you know?”

“After that sucker bit me, something in my blood burned his mouth.” Aimee suddenly said, seemingly having made up her mind about something.

“What?!” Caroline and Jason asked at the same time.

“I don’t know why either...” Aimee sighed and laid back on her wheelchair, “But, we’ll be fine. We’ll figure things out.”

“And, uh...” Caroline tilted her head a little and looked at Aimee: “Just give us a call if you need help. Or you need some more soup, or tea, or fruit wine...”

“Boy, your boss really cooks a hell lotta good stuff.” Thomas cut a slice from the matcha cake and handed it to Aimee: “Especially this matcha cake, whew. I gotta ask for the recipe some day.”

“You can just come back to the inn when you feel better. They taste better fresh.” Jason smiled and pointed at Thomas: “Friends and family discount on us.”

------------------------------------------

“You feel like they’re hiding something?” when Caroline and Jason left Aimee’s place, Jason asked Caroline: “I think they might be having some sort of superpower awakening. I just can’t tell what it is yet.”

“You are the one with the better senses.” Caroline sighed: “I think you’re right - at least I haven’t heard of anything about people’s blood burning a vampire’s mouth. If that was more common the vampires would not be so nonchalant when they attacked Aimee.”

“Sounds like something to ask Boss about. Or at least hit the library until he comes back.” Jason scratched his head and hesitated for a short while: “You ever wondered how come Boss always got injured mysteriously?”

“I try NOT to think about that, why?”

“It’s just weird… you know?” Jason continued, while still trying to find the right words and right ways to put out his thoughts: “I’ve never seen him in actual action. We know he’s strong as fuck, he also told us so. But what could have hurt him like that? He never told us anything about the things he deals with.”

“Which is why I try not to think about that.” Caroline chuckled and then secretly told Jason: “Do you know that he also has a criminal record?”

“Criminal record? What?” Jason’s eyes turned wider than almost ever, “How’d you know?”

“Kane’s a PI, a pretty good one at that. He insisted on doing a background check on Boss when he learned that I’ve been living in the place I work.” Caroline shook her head and laughed: “He’s kinda protective - and he pulled some strings and files. Turns out he was in prison for five years, multiple accounts of aggravated assault.”

“Ah. I… I actually can see that.” Jason almost laughed out loud: “He looks like he will lash out and beat someone’s ass if he’s really pissed.”

“Did you know that two of the guys he assaulted died?”