Blood Type (24 page)

“I’m gonna be sick!”

I half ran, half stumbled down the hall to the bathroom, my hand over my mouth as I choked down the bile. John’s footsteps
echoed
mine. I tried closing and locking the door before he could enter after me, but I barely had enough time to get the lid of the toilet seat up before the dry heaves came
fast
and strong. Thankfully there was nothing in my stomach, but the retching was just as bad. John’s hands were at my neck, pulling back my dangling hair from my face.

“Go away!”

“I’m not leaving you to deal with this on your own, Blake,” he said. “We’re in this together now.”

“The hell we are!” I said, retching again. My eyes were watering badly, tears streaking m
y
cheeks. Snot
dripped
from my nose and down my lips. I groped blindly for a tissue and felt one being pushed into my hand.

“
Blake, please.
If you think I’m just going to walk away from you—”

I swatted at his hands, desperately wanting him to leave me alone.

He clamped his hands on my shoulders.
“Dammit, Blake!
This is too big for you to deal with by yourself. I’m
trying
to help you!”

I closed the lid and flushed the toilet. Then I crossed my arms and laid my head down, trying to ignore the solid feel of his hands on my skin. “I h-hate you, J-John,” I said, barely able to get
the words out through my tears. “I w-wish we’d n-never met each other.”

He smoothed my hair away from my forehead and tucked it behind my ear. Then he put a hand on my back. “I am sorry,” he said. “If I could take back what happened, I would. But if you’ll only listen to me, Blake—”

“No,
you
listen to
me
!” I shrugged away from John’s touch and turned on him. “I’m making my choice right here, right now. I would rather
die
than be like you and Ian. You’re both disgusting, lying monsters!”

I got up and stormed out of the bathroom, making my way downstairs to rifle the kitchen for a few crackers to settle my stomach. John stormed after me, obviously not ready to give up.

“Do you even hear what you’re saying?”
H
is voice pitch
ed
up with his rising temper. “I won’t let you just waste away. You have another alternative, Blake. You’re just being stubborn.”

I threw open one cupboard after another, my tears coming fast and furious. “Where are the damn crackers
?
”

My attention lighted on the vase of sunflowers that Zach had given me, severely wilted now. Out of sheer anger and frustration, I picked it up and hurled it to the ground. It shattered at once into a thousand tiny
pieces,
and I gasped, shocked at what I had done.

John grabbed my hand and pulled me away from the mess. “Stay right there. Don’t move. I’ll clean it up.”

I stood frozen, watching helplessly and in silence as John swept the broken shards of glass into a pile before transferring them to
the
yellow dust pan. He dumped the contents into a doubled plastic bag and then dropped the entire thing into the garbage can. We spoke through none of this, and he seemed to be using the silence to collects his thoughts and think about what he wanted to say next.

“I’m not a monster, Blake,” he finally said. He must have seen the withering look on my face because he hurriedly followed with a reply. “Yes, there are fundamental differences between us. But I was once like you. I am
still
flesh and blood. I
still
feel joy and love and pain.” He stepped forward and took my shoulders
in
his hands, shaking me gently. “And I won’t have it end like this!”

“What does it matter, John?” I
felt
suddenly very tired. “We hardly know each other. Why do you care what I choose now?”

“I know you well enough to be sure that I don’t want to lose you. You need to make the choice. You need to say the words. I don’t want to force you.”

“I have made my choice. I already told you.”

“But you’re making the
wrong
choice!”

I pushed his hands away and spun around, unable to look at him any longer. “I don’t want to think about this right now.”

He came
up behind me—my body shivered with the anticipation of his touch on my skin—and yet he didn’t lay a
hand on me at all. “You don’t have much time, Blake.
Maybe until the end of the year
.
If Ian were an older and more powerful vampire than he is, you’d have even less time than that.”

“What will happen to me?” I asked in a whisper.

“If I don’t turn you?”

My answer
came out
a mere
breath. “Yes.”

“You’ll start to lose your appetite. Regular food will hold no appeal to you. You won’t be able to sleep. Your body will just start to . . . give out. Doctors will run one test and study after another. They’ll say you have hemolytic anemia, but none of the treatments will work.
All they’ll do is
buy
you a little time. Everyone you love will suffer as they watch you slowly succumb to death, and no one will be able to save you except for me.
Please, Blake.
”

“And if I let you save me?” I ventured.

“A little of my blood by mouth.
That’s all it takes. And then we’ll have eternity together.”

I closed my eyes, thankful that John couldn’t see the grimace on my face. I was seventeen years old
,
and a virtual stranger
had just proposed
we spend eternity together.

But what choice did I have? It was either spend eternity in a grave buried under six feet of dirt, or spend eternity walking the earth feasting on the blood of strangers. Neither seemed particularly desirable.

“I need time to think,” I said, my voice flat.

John put his hands on me then and turned me to face him. He lifted my chin with his finger and kissed me. I flinched at the warm lips beneath mine, so human-like.

When the kiss persisted with no sign of John giving up, I put my hands against his chest and shoved hard. He put his forehead against mine,
though,
and his breath came out in a long, warm sigh against my cheek.

His voice was just a whisper in my ear when he spoke. “Make the right choice
.
” 

And then he was gone.

October 27

“I want you to turn me,” I
finally
said
.
John
still hadn’t
look
ed
at me or
uttered even one word
.

He raised the glass to his lips and drained the contents. Then he turned around and began painstakingly washing it in the sink. “Why?” he said at last, a hard edge to his voice. I could tell by the lines of his shoulders that he was strung tight as a wire.

My mouth fell open and I gave a silent, incredulous shake of my head.
“Because I was
wrong
, John.
I don’t want to die. And if I have to become what you are in order to hang on to some semblance of my humanity, then I’ll go through with it.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to cha
nge you just to ease your guilt?
”

I gripped the edge of the table until the tips of my fingers turned white. The tension between us was thick, and I wanted nothing more than to lash out at John, whether with fists or fury. “Of
course
I feel guilty, John
!
I understand now what Ian means to you, and I’ve jeopardized your relationship. Not to mention I’ve potentially made things a lot worse for you.”

I stood up then and moved behind him. I wrapped my arms around his waist and lowered my head so that my cheek lay flush against shoulder. I felt him take a great breath and release
it slowly. “But you were right when you said I need you,” I said in a
much
calmer voice.

He covered my hands with his, and then he slowly turned
me
a
round and cradled me against him. Then he pulled back a little and touched my chin with the tip of his index finger, raising my face to his. I closed my eyes in anticipation of his soft, warm lips against mine, my heart beating like a kettledrum my chest.

“But what if I no longer want
you
?” he whispered in my ear.

My eyes snapped open. I tried to take a step back, but he held me firmly in place. “W-what did you say?”

“You betrayed Ian, Blake. You betrayed
me
.”

My palms went immediately ice-cold and slick with sweat. For as long as John had been telling me he wanted me, I never imagined he’d go back on his word. I never imagined he might reject me. All of a sudden, I felt alone in this and more afraid than ever.

“I never meant to hurt
you
, John. It was an accident. I’m sorry!”

“But you meant to hurt Ian.
Isn’t that so?
”

“I-I was
mad
at him! Can’t you understand that
, John
?
I was just so angry.
”

John cradled my face in his hands and bent close so that his breath
came out hot against
my cheeks.
He had a
predatory spark in his eyes that made my scalp tingle. I tried to break free, but his hold on me
tightened
.

“You never meant to hurt me,” he said in an angry whisper, giving me a slight shake. “It was an
accident
. You’re
sorry
.” He let go then
and
his top lip curl
ed
into a sneer. “Do you hear yourself, Blake?”

It was only then that I realized he was throwing back at me the same excuses he’d made for Ian; the very ones I had refused to listen to
or accept
. Each word that came out of his mouth was like a vicious twist of a knife in my gut. And if he meant to cut me deep, he
had
succeeded
.

“But I
am
sorry,” I said, pleading for him to believe me. “Please, John. I don’t want to die. I want you to change me!”

John had me in is arms
in the same breath and
had whisked
me
off to the
adjacent
room before I knew what was happening. He laid me on the couch and knelt next to me, and I cried out at the sight of his extended fangs and the sudden bloodlust in his eyes. I shrank back against the pillow in automatic reflex and thrust out my hand.

“W-wait!
I didn’t mean
now
, like
right this very second!
” My voice sounded loud and hysterical in my ears. 

John hovered over me for a few seconds longer, the features of his face twisting in the agony of denied pleasure. He finally sat back on his haunches. His breath came out in a measured exhale, and the crazed look that had momentarily overcome him began to slowly disappear. I breathed a sigh of relief to see his fangs shrink back to their normal size.

“I have questions, John.
” I sat up, making sure to keep a wary eye on him. “There are things I need to know before I go through with this.”

John nodded and raised himself to the couch. “Of course
,
” he said, not meeting my eyes. “What would you like to know?”

“For starters, why me?”

He raised his eyes to me then,
which held a
look of genuine confusion
.
“What do you mean, why you? Don’t you know how I feel about you?”

I closed my eyes and counted to
five
before opening them again. I couldn’t lose my temper.
“All right.
Answer me this question: Why were you at that party, the one by the lake? It was supposed to be a party for my cheerleading squad, and yet
you
were there.
With Jill.”

John looked at his lap. “I was
at that party
because I
had
to be.”

“You
had to be
?” He nodded, still not looking at me. “I saw the way you were watching me,” I said. “
W
hy?”

John sat back and put his hands over his face. He shook his head and then blew his breath out hard through his mouth. “Why, you ask?” He lowered his hands and cut his gaze to me.
“Because it was my job, Blake.”

“Your job?”
I said. That was the last answer I’d been expecting. “What does The Marauder’s Cove have to do with anything?”

A faint smile showed on his lips, but he didn’t directly answer my question. Instead he said, “Do you have any idea what your blood type is?”

Of course I did. I’d spent the past two months having the insides of my arms skewered like kabobs just so doctors could find out what was wrong with me. “O negative,” I said without hesitation.

“And do you know what is so special about humans with O negative blood type?”

I shrugged. “It’s pretty rare, right? One of the doctors told me that only about seven-percent of the population has it.”

He nodded. “That’s right. And while you can only receive blood from other O negatives, you can give blood to anyone. Care to take a guess what my blood type is.”

I rolled my eyes. “How about you just tell me?”

“O negative.
Same as yours.
Same as every other vampire
’s
in this world.”

I got up and went to stand at the fireplace, holding tight to the mantle for support. I drew in a breath as I tried to wrap my head around what he was telling me. Finally, I turned to look at him. “I don’t think I like where this is going.”

“For vampires to
actually
survive
,” John said, “we must consume blood that is compatible with our own. But because so few humans have blood that matches ours, we have to actively seek them out.”

“And that’s what you were doing,” I said, understanding dawning on me at last. “You were
seeking
me out?”

He shook his head. “You’d already been . . .
found
. . . by the time I first
met
you freshmen year.
I couldn’t do anything about it then because you hadn’t come of age.
”

I
ignored the coming of age comment and instead asked,
“Found by whom?”

John got up from the couch and began pacing in front of me. “You’d be surprised how many vampires there are living in the human world. You have to understand that humans have this preconceived notion that vampires are nothing but bloodthirsty monsters with indiscriminate appetites. Worse, they think we go around killing without regard for the value of human life. To them, we are the things that go bump in the night, the stuff their nightmares are made of.”

“Aren’t you?” I said, my voice coming out in a choked whisper. “I mean, you do prey on people for their blood.”

He shook his head. “Not like you think we do.
True
, there are vampires out there, like Ian, who will bite anyone no matter their blood type, but it’s like
a crack-head
getting high.
”

“What do you mean?”

John sighed.
“If I were to go after Olivia, for instance, I would receive a certain amount of pleasure
from drinking her blood
, but
only for a while. I
t
would not sustain me.
Vampires who engage in that sort of lifestyle are unstable and pose a threat to
us all.
Not to mention they leave evidence behind in the form of
human
bodies.
”

“
And
we’d be walking around with a bunch of crazy
, strung-out
v
ampires on our hands,” I said.

“Essentially.
That’s why all Donors must be O negative.
”

I made a sound of disgust in the back of my throat and leveled my gaze at him. “You never answered my question, John. Who discovered me?” I inserted air-quotes around the word “discovered.”

I saw the Adam’s apple in his throat bob as he swallowed. “Andrew Larsen.”

My stomach plummeted to the floor, and black dots dance
d
in front of my eyes. I hurried back to the couch and sat down,
putting
my head between my knees as I took a series of deep, cleansing breaths. Finally, I looked back up at John, who’d wisely kept his distance.

“Andrew Larsen . . .
is a vampire
?” It was too ludicrous to believe, and yet was it any weirder than John being
a vampire
himself?

“Andrew is what’s called a Seeker. I guess you can say he’s got a nose for different blood types.” He laughed at his own joke, but gave up when he saw that I
hadn’t joined
in. He cleared his throat. “He’s also my employer.”

“Your employer?
But I thought you worked at The Marauder’s Cove? I thought Josiah—”

My voice broke off as something suddenly occurred to me.
“Oh, God.
The Marauder’s Cove.
Is that, like, a vampire hangout?”

“Something
like
that,” John said. When he saw that I was too stunned to go on he added, “I do work at The Marauder’s Cove, but I don’t work for Josiah. He’s only there to keep the Donors safe.”

I shook my head in an attempt to clear away the mental fog. “Wait. What are you talking about?”

John put his hands behind his neck and looked up at the ceiling, groaning
.
“
Gah
.
This is getting too complicated.”

“So simplify,” I said, the tone of my voice sharp.

John turned to face me again. “I work for Andrew Larsen, who is a Seeker. When he discovers a healthy human with O negative blood, it is my job, as a Compeller, to persuade him or her in to becoming a Donor.”

“And how does Andrew Larsen go about seeking out new humans?” I said, and then promptly answered my own question.
“My mother’s real estate business.
Oh, God. A vampire works for my mother and preys on
potential clients
.
All those parties
she throws
.
All those
people
!
”

John held up a hand to stop me. “They are not helpless, and they are not victims.”

My stomach roiled, and I had to swallow down the rising nausea. “So let me get this straight.
Andew
Larsen, who until a few minutes ago I thought was just another creepy pervert,
thought I would make a tasty snack and sent you to woo me in to joining the ranks of other Donors?”

John replied with a helpless shrug.

“Did he think I’d just willingly sit back and let a bunch of vampires suck me dry?” I said, my voice rising.