He’d not seen her so quiet before, but he wasn’t all that surprised. That icy-sick trickle of fear, staring at bite-marks and knowing, fearing, what they meant, nervous shivers running through the body... that was something he was intimately familiar with. But this was different. She was different and the monster was different, and maybe, if they were lucky, the results would be different. Peter was not much of one for relying on hope, but he had seen people come back from worse than this. He had come back from worse than this.
If she turned… they would figure out a way to handle it. But until then...“No one is cutting off your head, Henley,” he said firmly, then offered her the whiskey. “You want a drink of this first? Because this is going to hurt like a fucking bitch on that.” He nodded towards the wound, eyes gentle despite his blunt speech.
Peter held up the canteen, shifting his fingers so she could see the cross engraved on its side. “Holy water,” he said. “Not sure if it’ll help with this, but... better safe than sorry.” He didn’t elaborate; long years of experience had ingrained in him that, outside of a theoretical, intellectual discussion, talk of vampires and the undead earned one derision and disbelief at best. Things here, of course, were different; everyone was already accustomed to the world being a bit more mysterious and dangerous than was generally thought simply by virtue of how they were brought here. But that notice on the board, the guy who’d wanted to formally regulate feeding the vampires hiding within the carnival, his offer to cover up the destructive messes they left in their wake, and the mixed reactions the poster had received, lingered in his mind. If she wanted to know, she could ask. He set the canteen lightly on the little table next to her, then silently went to a trunk locked up tight at the edge of his bed for some clean bandages.