"Is there a... reason that you were locked in a box in an abandoned house with no exits?"

Where even do you take interactions after you apologize for shooting people.

"Oh, I'm pretty sure the person who did that also thought I was a vampire."

"Oh. Well." Wait. "Why would they have thought this."

"The last thing I remember did involve a girl and some blood. I hope she's all right."

"That's not very specific." 

"What specifics are you after?"

Not a vampire, not a vampire, not a vampire, not a vampire -

"Vampires bite and kill. They also do various other things, some less and some more disturbing, some less and some more in line with the tastes of ordinary evil men. I can imagine innocent decisions that might lead to some confusion, but not many. And I am an imaginative person."

"Oh, I didn't kill her. I don't, generally. I make no claim to innocence but I'm not evil either. I did bite her but only recreationally, and she didn't seem to be complaining at the time."

"The murders are typically also recreational."

"Ugh." He sighs. "If you don't want to listen to me—well, I suppose I can't really blame you. D'you want your crosses back?"

"I'm listening! I just don't think 'it was fun' is very much of a defense of one's actions." She sighs. "The crosses important to me, yes."

"Sorry, I wasn't being clear and I shouldn't have expected you to understand what I meant—it's not 'it was fun', it's 'I wasn't eating her the way vampires eat people, I wasn't planning to leave her any worse off than she was before we met'."

"Just minus some blood."

He starts to make a sort of half-shrug gesture and then hisses with pain and has to take a moment to recover because it turns out that was still too much shrug.

"It's not—I don't—I'm not a good person and I don't care about doing what good people are supposed to do but I care about not making people worse off. And about being honest."

" - you look sort of like you're kind of dying right now."

"I've had worse. It won't kill me, it just hurts a lot."

"You seem confused about how blood works."

"It's a long story and you probably wouldn't believe me and I am very, very, very tired of not being able to tell anyone the truth—" He breaks off and shakes his head. "Sorry, never mind, I'm sure we've got more important things to worry about."

Sigh. "Leave the crosses at the bottom of the stairs. Can you make it across the room?"

"Yeah."

He sets them down and crosses the room, holding his shoulder as still as possible.

She comes back downstairs and tucks the crosses into her belt, keeping her crossbow aimed in his direction. 

She heads back to the front entrance.

"—I'm not going to stop you but I'm concerned about you going back out there to whoever locked us in here. I don't think they have your best interests at heart. Mine either, for that matter."

This isn't really worth responding to, in her opinion.

She summons all her confidence and knocks three times, very slowly and deliberately.

For a few moments nothing happens.

"—They drugged you too," he says abruptly, "I'm pretty sure, that's why you're moving like an old woman—" and he hesitates a moment longer, and then, "—if I could fix it would you want me to—"

She's walked away from a lot of demons and very questionable people by asking nothing of them and refusing all deals offered. She says nothing.

The door opens. The men outside have another crossbow trained on her.

"There's no vampire here," she says. "There was a man, but I shot him and he's bleeding out."