What We Bleed For - Sierra Aguirre-Stoker, Pete Jemison

Sierra pulls a water bottle from her backpack. The sun is still hours from going down, which means it’s still the humans’ responsibility to hold the line here. They’ll cede it to the vampires after sunset. 
She and Pete almost have enough proof to connect this research clinic’s owners to the financing of at least three vampire hate groups that have caused the deaths of over fifty LA vampires. But it’s their words everyone here is most concerned about. They’re pushing for across the board euthanasia (and subsequent staking) for infected patients who have what is considered a fatal diagnosis. They argue that it will prevent future vampires from dying on their own and being buried to turn.
What it will really do is mean anyone with vampire venom in their veins is at risk of being killed as a potential future threat.
A leaflet from the counter-protesters blows across the sidewalk, and Sierra glances down at it, then flinches. Bold type across the top reads THE ONLY 100 PERCENT EFFECTIVE CURE FOR VAMPIRISM: THE STAKE.
Up until a couple years ago, the clinic had hidden their real agenda under the guise of researching treatment options for bite victims. But they’ve found enough public sentiment in support of their scorched earth policies that the gloves are off and their true nature is out in the open. And unfortunately, there are plenty of bitter, angry, or just plain scared people who are willing to back it.
Sierra understands. She’s been there. She’s done worse than most of the people standing across from her now. But that doesn’t excuse her, or them.
Her arm still aches from the fall she took last week, but she’s still waving her hand-painted sign along with the rest of them.
Un-lives are not yours to take!
Someone steps out of the crowd of counter-protesters. She recognizes him. A hunter who didn’t make it through the same incoming training class she was part of. Ironically, he washed out for freezing up in training simulations. All talk, no action. You’re scared. And scared people are the most dangerous. “They’ll take ours. Why shouldn’t we defend ourselves?”
“Not all of them feed on humans. Even less of them kill their hosts.” Pete has statistics to back her up. He cited them to her to defend Shay when they were at each other’s throats. Almost literally.
She steps out of line, across to meet the guy where he’s also moving forward, into the no-man’s-land of scattered leaflets and scraps of trash. She can’t help but remember the fae rights protests she’s seen, and how utterly nonsensical it seemed to her that half the people on the fae’s side were letting granola wrappers and empty plastic water bottles scatter around the protest sites.
“Jason, you know all that. I was with you in the same classes. We heard the same things. You just chose not to listen.”
“I hear you’re shacking up with one of them bloodsuckers now.” It stings more than it should. She knew what she was getting into, agreeing to let Shane share her apartment. Even some of her ‘friends’ at the agency (not that she had a lot to begin with), think she’s making a huge mistake. And they’ve told her, to her face. Which is at least better than what she’s heard behind her back.
She doesn’t really care what her coworkers think. It’s her family’s concern that was harder to swallow. But even so, this guy’s opinion matters even less.
“Thanks to people like you, he doesn’t have a lot of options.”
“Fine, you want to bleed, bleed.”
Sierra doesn’t have time to process what that means before Pete shouts.
“Watch out!”
She’s on her hands and knees on the gritty sidewalk before she knows what hit her. Pete hits the ground next to her, and the first thing she registers, like any field hunter, is the blood.
“Pete?”
“I’m alright.” He holds up his hand, a deep gash across the palm. “His buddy had a broken bottle.”
Sierra curses herself for losing her sense of what’s happening around her. She’d gotten too focused on the argument happening in front of her and forgotten to check her peripheral. “Sorry.”
“For what? He was going to swing that at someone. You think that’s the first time someone’s tried that with me?” Sometimes Sierra forgets his grandparents owned a distillery and bar. “I can clock someone with a bottle like that before they even start a swing.”
“Thanks.” Sierra pulls her backpack off her shoulders, digging through it. “I’ve got a first aid kit. Let me see.”
“You came prepared,” Pete says as she pulls out the civilian equivalent of one of their trauma kits.
“My little sister Valeria went to every fae rights protest she could find when she was in high school.” Sierra shrugs. “After the second time she came home needing an ice pack, I went with her.”
“I didn’t know you had a sister.”
Sierra shrugs. “She’s…we haven’t really seen each other in a long time. We’re step-siblings. Different dads.” She doesn’t mention that Val’s was the leader of a blood harvesting ring who split when the agency closed in. They’re still looking for him, although by this point, he’s probably become a victim of his own profession.
"We were both the problem kids, she’s just the one who got caught the most. She got picked up for shoplifting on the same day as one of the protests got crazy, and they had her in a holding cell with a couple of the fae who weren’t registered. By the time Mom got there to bail her out, she had her cause. She was always looking for a fight, she just needed something to fight for."
It wasn’t that Sierra hadn't thought it was a fight worth having. She just didn’t see how shouting in the street got anything done. She’d always favored a little more hands-on approach to making change. But here she is, at a protest, with a sign and scraped knees and a backpack full of water and first aid supplies. Val would be proud.
"Where is she now?" Pete asks, wincing as Sierra dabs antiseptic onto the gash.
"Living with a fae colony in north Texas."
“Wow.”
“Yeah. She made some powerful enemies. But she made some good friends too. When the heat started coming down, the fae took her in.” Sierra shrugs. “She cut ties then. For everyone’s safety. If we didn’t know where she was, we couldn’t be expected to tell anyone. And we couldn’t accidentally give away the colony’s location.”
“Do you miss her?”
Sierra looks down at the bandage as she tucks the end of it into place, securing it around Pete’s hand. “Every day.”