Blood Orange Soda: Paranormal Romance (18 page)

It’s a warning—a bit uncomfortable and unexpected, the way Jack has laid it all out for Shelby and me. He’s reminding us that the Department of Health is cracking down on biting before the age of eighteen.

“I understand,” she says. “I won’t let him bite me.”

“I think Darius will be able contain himself,” Jack says. “How will he protect himself from your bite? Hmmm? We’ll see about that.”

If Jack only knew what happened before we got here!

“I won’t
bite
you,” she says to me with a subtle wink.

Jack shakes his head. “If I had a dollar for every time a woman said that to me, I’d be rich. Oh, wait, I
am
rich…see what I mean?”

We’re upstairs in the dojo on the mats. Shelby sits in a leather chair, watching us while texting her friends. It’s only been a few days since my first workout with Jack, so I’m uneasy about how to spar and fight with him. We’re both standing and stretching, our hands wrapped in athletic tape, and I know Jack is measuring me, based on his questions.

“You’ve doubled your dose of Soda, right?” Jack whispers low enough that Shelby can’t hear him.

“Yeah.”

“And you burn off the buzz by running?”

“Yeah, every morning.”

“How far are you running?”

“Three miles.” I’m whispering too. “The buzz wears off after the first mile but I keep running. I kind of like how it clears my head before school.”

“Great, the farther you can run, the more your blood is pumping,” Jack says, flexing his arms over his head. “Your body will transform faster. Any other changes?”

“I feel more confident, colors are richer and I can taste almost everything around me.”

Jack stands in front of me. “You’re taller. Let me see your teeth.”

I open my mouth and he rubs his thumb along my eye teeth. “These will grow soon, and people will know about your transformation.” He pulls two mouth guards out of his pocket and hands one to me. “Let’s fight.”

We’re standing toe to toe, both of us bouncing off the mat to stay loose. He stares, making me nervous.

“Shelby, time us,” Jack says, muffled through his mouth guard. “We’ll fight for three minutes, and then tell us when time is up.”

“Okay, ready…go.”

Jack shoves me with both hands, hitting my chest. I stumble backward but I don’t fall and I move to my left, circling around him. Jack turns and follows my movements with only his head.

“What are you doing?” he asks me.

Stopping, I lower my hands, and once my guard is down, Jack lunges at me and tackles me to the mat.

“Hey! What the hell?!” I protest, with him on top of me.

“This is a fight. I broke your concentration by fooling you into thinking you’d done something wrong. In a street fight, there are no rules. Get up.”

He’s too heavy, and he’s got both my arms pinned to my side. “I can’t!”

“Yes, you can. Your heart is racing. I see it pumping in your neck. Blood is flowing to your brain, so use your brain,” Jack says. “Think about your next move.”

Lifting my legs up toward his body, I attempt to strangle him, or at least pull him back.

“Nice try, and if I weren’t so high up on your chest, that might work.”

I’m flailing and swinging my legs up and down, still trying to reach his head. It’s all I can do other than lie there. I feel like a fool as Shelby watches me struggle.

“Look up at that beam on the ceiling. Last time you were here, you touched it.”

The wood beam seems too far away. “I can’t.”

“You can’t, or you won’t?” Jack challenges me. “Close your eyes and see yourself leaping from your position on the mat, to hanging from that beam.”

Closing my eyes, I imagine myself doing that, and it suddenly makes perfect sense. I see my legs rise up and then slam on the mat with such force that my upper body lifts from the mat as Jack tumbles away. When I open my eyes I’m in the air, flying to the beam, which I grab with both hands and swing as if I’m on the monkey bars on the playground.

“Wow!” Shelby says. “You flew!”

“Of course he flew,” Jack says. “Bats are the only mammals that fly.”

Looking down at him, he stares up at me.

“You had it in you, Darius. Your mind is your best tool in a fight. Never let him break your concentration or fill your head with garbage. Empty your mind. How is the view up there?”

“It wouldn’t hurt for you to dust this place,” I say to him. “And my arms are tired. Other than that, the view is great. I’m on top of the world!”

“How much time is left in this round?” Jack asks Shelby.

“One minute,” she says, showing him her phone.

“Hang on for one minute,” Jack says.

“Seriously? My arms are burning,” I protest. “I doubt I can hold on for a full minute.”

“You can and you will. Clear your mind. Sway gently, like a willow branch.”

I close my eyes and visualize myself as a thin, wispy willow branch, swaying in an autumn breeze. I feel lighter, and the burning in my arms and hands fades. I hear Jack talking to Shelby, but I’m so deep into my meditation I can’t understand what they’re saying, and I really don’t care. I’m in a happy place that I’ve created, and it’s so pleasant up here.

The next thing I realize I’m on the mat again, crumpled into a ball.

“Darius?” Jack asks. He’s kneeling next to me with Shelby, who’s holding a water bottle.

“What happened?” I ask, sitting up.

“You were up there, hanging for a good five minutes,” Jack says.

“You were completely calm,” Shelby says.

“And then you lost your concentration and dropped like a rock,” Jack says. “But that’s what the mats are for.”

Shelby hands me a bottle of water and I quench my thirst. “Did I fall asleep up there?”

“You were in a semi-torpid state, kind of like hibernation. You were able to calm yourself and slow your heartbeat. And then you were so relaxed you let go. We need to work on that.”

“What next?” I stand up and roll my shoulders, sore but with no major injuries.

“You just fell from a beam ten feet off the ground. You’re done for today,” Jack says.

“I’m fine,” I say, bouncing up and down.

“He’s right, Darius,” Shelby says. “Your flight from the mat to the ceiling was awesome, and you hung there for five minutes before falling. You might need to rest.”

Maybe it’s the caffeine mixing with the Blood Orange Soda. I’m feeling strong and invincible tonight. “I’m ready for round two, Jack.”

He nods. “One more exercise. Shelby, come with me.”

They walk across the dojo and Jack crouches. “Sit on my shoulders.”

“No WAY!” she says.

“I won’t drop you, I promise.”

“I’m too heavy.”

“You can’t weigh more than 120 pounds. Get on my shoulders.”

She climbs on and he stands easily.

“What am I supposed to do?” I ask.

Jack backs away from the center beam where I hung moments earlier. “We have enough headroom here. Jump over Shelby and me. Make sure you do a handspring first.”

I haven’t done a handspring since I was a little kid on the playground, and even then I wasn’t very good at them. I’m so pumped up and excited I run without giving it much thought and I plant my taped hands on the mat and spring upwards, rocketing past Jack and up over Shelby’s head. Then, I descend again and land softly, like a cat jumping off a couch.

“Amazing again!” Shelby says, clapping from up high.

Jack lowers her to the mat and I step in for a warm kiss. We embrace and hug, both of our hearts beating wildly in our chests.

“That’s enough for today,” Jack says.

We ignore him and kiss again until he pulls us apart.

“Shelby, Darius needs a breather. And he’ll be up early tomorrow, training. How about you go warm up the car while he and I talk for a few minutes?”

“Sure, I’ll wait for you in the car, Darius,” she says. “Nice meeting you, Jack. I don’t know what you’ve been doing to this boy to prepare for this fight but whatever it is, it’s working.”

“Have a good night,” Jack says, as we watch her running down the spiral staircase.

“Your training is coming along fine,” he says to me.

“Thanks, I feel awesome. You saw how I cleared her so easily,” I say with excitement. “You leap and jump, both good self-defense moves,” Jack says, “but you’ve got to work on your concentration. And you need to work on your punches and jabs. That’s the offense stuff.”

“I’ll come back and we’ll work on it.”

“When you run, I want you to jab and punch like this,” he says, throwing a series of three punches. “Tap, tap, tap. Jab, jab, punch. Got it?”

“Yeah, got it.”

“And one more thing: I want you up to three doses of Soda per day.”

“Three? When would I get in the third dose?”

“At lunchtime, with a meal,” Jack says.

“I eat lunch at school,” I remind him. “I’ll have a buzz for my afternoon classes.”

“Eat more food to fill your stomach, and your body will adjust to the Soda.”

Officer Denny searches for drugs and contraband, as he calls it. If Soda can make a kid buzzed, there’s no way I want to be caught with a bottle of Soda in my backpack. “I’ll pour it into a thermos and drink it with lunch.”

“And only you should drink it,” Jack warns. “None for your friends, especially Shelby.”

I wake to the sound of the furnace exhaling its heat into the upper levels of our home, while I’m curled up tightly in my blankets. It’s colder here in the basement than anywhere else in the house. The muscles along my shoulders and back are sore, and all I want to do is roll over and sleep in. There’s frost on the window, so I know it’s cold out there. Sitting up in bed, I set my feet on the cold floor and open my mini-fridge to grab a Soda. Today is the start of my three-dose regimen. By tonight I’ll be seventeen bottles of Soda into my journey. I’m stronger than I was even a week ago, and I’m certainly able to jump higher. That deserves a bit of celebration, so I roll back into the warmth of my covers.

I’m almost about to slip into sleep when I hear the kitchen door open and my mom entering the house. She does that same routine every morning when she returns from her night shift. She hangs her purse on the rack, loads the dishwasher, and makes a pot of coffee so she can stay awake long enough to greet Kira and me before we leave for school.

I think of Jonathan again as I reach for my laptop on the floor and I open it, staring into the glow as I click on my Facebook page. There are messages waiting for me, but it’s only Alex and Marcus from the Vampire Club requesting to be my friend. I accept.

Jonathan’s Facebook page doesn’t have any contact information, so I navigate to the
Chicago Tribune
website and search again for stories by him. There’s a list of news stories he’s written, mostly crime and investigative pieces, which is cool. I realize that reporters have their e-mail links below their bylines. Jonathan’s contact info listed at the bottom of one of his stories, and I grab my phone off my nightstand and enter the number into my contacts. It’s too early to call him and I’m too tired anyway, so I slide my laptop to the foot of my bed and drift off to sleep.

It’s seven fifteen, with my mom standing above me. What the heck? I was in such a deep sleep, the kind where I’m dreaming so intensely, that when I look at her I’m not even sure if I’m actually awake yet. She’s annoyed at my laziness as she picks clothing off my floor and organizes my section of the basement.

“You’ll be late for school. Get up,” she says. “I’ve been calling you from upstairs.”

Sitting up in bed, I’m not chilled like I was a couple of hours earlier. I’m practically sweating. Drinking Soda and falling back to sleep probably isn’t a good idea. She lifts dirty laundry off the floor at the foot of my bed and then she picks up my laptop.

“You sleep with your computer?”

“Homework last night.”

She’s skeptical about that, walks to a milk crate and sits down with my laptop. “What homework would you bring to bed with you?”

“English Lit. I’ve fallen behind and I need to catch up on my memoir assignment.”

“If I turn this computer on, I won’t find photos of nude women or something inappropriate?”

Now I’m in a precarious place, because if I deny that I was surfing porn, she might call my bluff and turn on my computer. If I admit to it as my cover, she’ll probably be too embarrassed to look, and then she’d never know I was researching her old boyfriend, Jonathan.

“You busted me. I was online last night. I’m just curious, you know—”

“Honey, those sites are not about loving relationships.”

“I know.” I fake embarrassment, but I actually am sort of embarrassed that she thinks that’s what I was doing.

“If you have questions about sex, you can come to me any time,” she says.

“Awk…ward.”

“Or you can go to Jack. He knows a lot about—”

“Loving relationships. Yeah, right.”

“Well, you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I’ll bring it up with Jack next time I see him,” I say. “Can I have my laptop back, please?”

She waits for a second, and then hands it over without turning it on. Thank God!

“How are you feeling these days?” she asks.