Gavin leaned closer. He lowered his head and, still holding eye contact, Gavin dropped the cross onto his tongue as though it were nothing more than a piece of candy.
“Ugh,” Matthew grimaced. He pulled away. “That’s disgusting.”
“Perhaps,” Gavin said, wiping the trail of spit off his chin that the cross had left behind. “But necessary to prove my point. The cross may be everything you believe it to be. Maybe more, for all I know. My affliction, however, the virus…” He tapped his chest. “Is not magic. It’s not spiritual. It is a physical series of manifestations within me to something in my blood that should not be there. It exhibits physical complications—the need to consume blood; sensitivity, with fatal consequences in the right amount of sunlight; an extended, perhaps even continuous
