Carlos managed to wash out his glass and set it aside without doing anything to further piss Katherine off, so he counted it as a victory. It was obvious she was annoyed about the incident the previous night, and if he knew anything about women, then she would likely be annoyed about it for a while. Once he'd finished in the kitchen, he turned to leave.

Leila didn't stop him, but she did let her gaze linger after him. The tingling dissipated the farther away he got, and then she sighed and went back to poking at the remains of her dinner, no longer hungry.

"You alright?" Katherine asked when she noticed Leila wasn't eating. "It's not like you to sit there picking at it."

"Yeah." Leila smiled a little, though it wasn't her normal smile. "I feel okay. Just getting tired again, I guess. I might go to bed early."

Katherine wasn't convinced, but nodded. It had been a long couple of days, maybe Leila would be back to her old self in the morning.

Leila did go to bed early again. But instead of getting up early, she slept in even later, and even after she got up she was still groggy and a little grumpy.

It worried Katherine when Leila didn't wake up as early as usual. Something was definitely wrong, she just needed to figure out what it was and how to fix it.

"Morning," she greeted her friend cautiously. "How do you feel?"

"Tired." Leila yawned and rummaged around for breakfast, though it was already after noon. "Kinda hungry. You?"

"Better than you, it seems," Katherine replied. She watched her friend, and decided to test her a bit. She had a theory. "What are you in the mood for for lunch?"

"I dunno. Oh, hamburgers sound good. I know a place back home where they cook them medium-rare, so they're still really juicy." Leila grinned, sighing happily.

"Medium-rare?" Katherine asked. "I thought you liked them a bit more cooked than that." Not well-done, certainly, but she could have sworn Leila liked her burgers closer to medium or medium-well.

Leila shrugged. "I dunno. That sounds really good right now." She looked over at Katherine, blinking. "Why? I don't think we can find hamburgers around here, anyway."

"Is it the meat the sounds good, or the fact that it's bloodier the less cooked it is?" Katherine pressed. Because that was the real question.

Leila blinked, blanking on that one. Sure, she'd always liked red meat, but not really enough to have it twice in a row. And she did usually like her meat a little better cooked than that.

Feeling rather green, she looked at Katherine with wide eyes.

"That's what I thought," Katherine said. "Close your eyes for a second, I want to try something." Because a human's sense of smell was fairly dull, all blood would smell about the same to them, and she wanted to see how Leila would react if Katherine nicked her own arm enough that Leila could smell it.

Leila did as she was asked, closing her eyes and fisting her hands tightly. Something was wrong here, and it was scaring her now.

Quickly, Katherine used a fang to puncture a finger just enough that blood welled up before the wound closed. She held her finger under Leila's nose.

"Tell me what you smell," she said gently. "And what it makes you think."

Leila took a whiff, and her mouth started watering. She swallowed.

"It smells... kind of sweet? Kind of like a really good pastry or something. It is food, right? Please tell me it's something food."

"If I tell you what it is, you're not going to like it," Katherine said. "But you can open your eyes again." She licked the blood quickly off of her finger. "It smelled sweet, a little savory, a little salty, and a little something you can't quite name, right?"

"Yeah, that sounds about right." Leila opened her eyes again, looking at Katherine. She was definitely afraid now. "Why? What was it?"

"Lei..." Katherine said softly. "Alright. But I know for a fact you're not going to like what I say." She bit her lip for a moment, and then sighed. "You don't want the burgers or the steak for the meat. You're craving the blood."

Leila swallowed, feeling very green now. But she didn't head for the bathroom, waiting for it to pass a little before she even tried to talk.

"Why?" Her voice came out squeakier than normal.

"I don't know," Katherine replied. "I can only guess, but I'm betting it's from the bite." She gestured to Leila's throat. "A bite is the first step of a turning. Some things might have gotten passed on."

Leila was in very definite danger of panicking at this point. "Passed on? Like what? Wanting blood instead of just wanting red meat?" And if she sounded a little hysterical, well, she figured she was allowed.

"Lei, remember to breathe," Katherine said gently. "You haven't been turned. You need to trust me on that. Everything will be okay." She was avoiding the question a bit, because she had no idea what might have been passed on to Leila. She knew Carlos was a nightwalker and a hypnotist, but she had no idea what other abilities he might have inherited aside from the hypnotism.